General Information
Moby (affectionately named from the B-52's song "Love Shack") is a mostly original car that I purchased for a relative steal compared to a B body. I have always wanted a big block Mopar and this one delivers! She has a 383 with a 2 bbl and original single exhaust. I will be putting dual exhaust on her early next spring (2018) though. I will be keeping the 2bbl carb as the engine has never been opened up and there is no reason to now.
After I purchased her and was driving her home, the transmission burned up. Luckily there is a shop in town that had an older gentleman that knew the ins and outs of the old Torqueflite transmissions and had the transmission rebuilt better than new. Nice, crisp shifts and very smooth. Other than that, the next expense was wheels and tires. I kept looking on this site for a nice looking (to me) combination and I saw a photo of a blue Newport that was posted by Commando1 that showed exactly the look that I was looking for. Thank you to Commando1! When I purchased her she had bias ply tires on 14" factory wheels and hub caps. I still have them up in the rafters of the garage if I want to change the attitude of the car at any time.
Moby has 15" x 7" steel wheels with Cooper Cobra 225/70/15 tires with the black side out. The size is enough to fill the wheel wells without looking too cartoonish. It took me a little while to find the poverty caps that I wanted to complete the look, but I got em'.
The interior is very nice with the exception of the seams separating on the drivers side seat bottom. I am looking into having that repaired as I am not finding any factory looking aftermarket seat covers.
The car had dealer installed air conditioning as well as dealer installed power brakes. 4 wheel drums all around. I did take the liberty of installing an SSBC front disc brake kit on her and she can stop on a quarter now!
She has her original 50 year old factory paint and absolutely no rust anywhere. The interesting thing is that the factory leaded seams on the sail panels show through due to a previous owner trying to ask a little bit too much from the paint with a buffer. I thought that the quarter panels may have been replaced (badly) at one time, but i found out that an aquaintance of mine actually worked at the Belvedere IL Chrysler plant back in the day and he confirmed that was the way they did it. Same quarter panel for a convertible or hardtop. If the car was going to be a convertible, they shaved the sail panel down. If it was a hardtop, they leaded the roof onto the sail panels. Pretty cool I thought.
The car also has the headrest with reclining passenger seat option. The driver's seat has neither, so I thought that was something that was wrong until I did my research. It is indeed correct. That was an option for these cars and did not offer a headrest or reclining seat for the driver.
Anyway, that is the story of Moby. You can either love it or hate it (it is America) but I really dig this car!
After I purchased her and was driving her home, the transmission burned up. Luckily there is a shop in town that had an older gentleman that knew the ins and outs of the old Torqueflite transmissions and had the transmission rebuilt better than new. Nice, crisp shifts and very smooth. Other than that, the next expense was wheels and tires. I kept looking on this site for a nice looking (to me) combination and I saw a photo of a blue Newport that was posted by Commando1 that showed exactly the look that I was looking for. Thank you to Commando1! When I purchased her she had bias ply tires on 14" factory wheels and hub caps. I still have them up in the rafters of the garage if I want to change the attitude of the car at any time.
Moby has 15" x 7" steel wheels with Cooper Cobra 225/70/15 tires with the black side out. The size is enough to fill the wheel wells without looking too cartoonish. It took me a little while to find the poverty caps that I wanted to complete the look, but I got em'.
The interior is very nice with the exception of the seams separating on the drivers side seat bottom. I am looking into having that repaired as I am not finding any factory looking aftermarket seat covers.
The car had dealer installed air conditioning as well as dealer installed power brakes. 4 wheel drums all around. I did take the liberty of installing an SSBC front disc brake kit on her and she can stop on a quarter now!
She has her original 50 year old factory paint and absolutely no rust anywhere. The interesting thing is that the factory leaded seams on the sail panels show through due to a previous owner trying to ask a little bit too much from the paint with a buffer. I thought that the quarter panels may have been replaced (badly) at one time, but i found out that an aquaintance of mine actually worked at the Belvedere IL Chrysler plant back in the day and he confirmed that was the way they did it. Same quarter panel for a convertible or hardtop. If the car was going to be a convertible, they shaved the sail panel down. If it was a hardtop, they leaded the roof onto the sail panels. Pretty cool I thought.
The car also has the headrest with reclining passenger seat option. The driver's seat has neither, so I thought that was something that was wrong until I did my research. It is indeed correct. That was an option for these cars and did not offer a headrest or reclining seat for the driver.
Anyway, that is the story of Moby. You can either love it or hate it (it is America) but I really dig this car!
