70GTbasketcase
Member
This is a story –a story with pictures... and it’s 8 years long…and its not over yet.
I always wanted a late 68 - 73 Mopar; a Charger or Challenger maybe. Where I live there were almost no mopars except for Dusters and scamps, and a bunch of Satellites. I did see a Charger once… just one. So the story began with the search for a Charger.
That search quickly ended when even a swiss-cheese- rusted and gutted of all interior parts Charger was commanding an $8000 to $10000 price tag. Seriously???
‘Cuda’s were in the 6 figures (WTF??) and even a lousy Duster was $20000 to $30000!
Super Bee’s, Road Runners, GTX’s were interesting but at that point I was losing interest, so I started looking at Chevy’s.
I was looking hard at Monte Carlo GT’s when the GT search term put me onto a car I’d never heard of: a Plymouth Sport Fury GT.
The one that popped up was a white GT … the car was still in pieces –as I recall it was in Georgia… I think… (I wonder now if that’s the one that ended up in Italy!). The GT was apparently in the middle of a restoration that had been aborted and the hot mess of parts and painted body was being sold. I didn’t want to deal with trying to transport a car that was in pieces from 1200 miles away, so I passed.
I continued Searching the internet for ‘Sport Fury GT’s for sale’ but that only brought up a lot of Fury III's, and a few formal roof Sport Fury's. Then finally near the end of the year, an ad on ebay for a GT.
The business in the ad about rarity and 666 cars produced prompted me to do look around on the internet for information and I found a few websites (very few) to sort out Sport Fury facts from GT facts.
The registry and Billy Fury’s website got me started but there was still some confusion about if Sport Fury was separate from Sport Fury GT and the formal roof-fast back roof thing was confusing as well since Sport Fury’s seemed to have both -a problem caused by others mis-identifying sport fury GT clones and sport fury's as GT's. I know about it all NOW but back then I had no idea. I wondered if there were more GT’s besides those in the registry but at the time, none were coming up in the search.
My brief review got me details about how many were made and how even fewer were still in existence, especially ones that still had an original engine and trans based on descriptions of cars in the registry.
So it was a muscle car, had low production numbers, and hardly any survivors… I was thinking this GT should be a pretty valuable car if its brought back to #2 condition! So maybe a restoration project was looming large in my future. Yeh I was clueless.
The GT on ebay was pretty rough. Ad said no engine or trans either. Well, maybe this guy can put an engine back in it if I sweeten the pot. I hemmed and hawed about it while watching the auction end with no bids up to his reserve. I went back to the internet looking for more GT furies. The GT went up for sale again, and again it didn’t sell.
Since it didn’t seem like I would find a sport fury in decent shape any time soon and every time I wait to buy something I want, there is NEVER another for sale ever again, so I was thinking about Monte Carlo’s again. BUT then this darn picture happened…
And after this one....
I was sold. I had to have one. Damn that picture!! I think member cancritter knows what I mean.
I kept thinking about that GT in Florida… and thinking about it… Every time I looked at that stupid rusty GT all I saw was that damn Mean shiny black monster GT… sitting in my driveway.
So even though the eBay auction had ended about 10 days prior I sent the guy an email
asking about the car. Found out the guy’s name was Karl; I asked him if the car was parted-out yet; if he knew of any other GT’s…maybe even a 440-6??
Nope not parted out yet he says, and he’ll hold off on parting it out if I’m interested in the GT, and apparently the engine and trans were still in the car! Some more emails went back and forth. I asked about the condition of the floors and the trunk: he said it had a few of the usual rust holes but the car was “solid” on the outside. Honestly I never thought to ask him anything about the details of its history.
I got his full name and address, I went to the bank to cut a check and officially began the journey down the rabbit hole. We were into December 2008 at this point.
I worked out shipping details with a carrier, coordinated with Karl for pick up while he got the car ready to be moved. Once we got past the holidays, everything was settled. That was January 2009.
Yeh I know sight unseen is a crapshoot but what was I going to do, spend $1000 in travel expenses to save $1000 on a rusty car? The car had AC, the console, the AM 8 track, power windows... I was willing to take a chance just based on the features alone. With the money having changed hands, transport arranged to New York from its former resting place under a Florida pine, the car finally arrived by car carrier on an icy January afternoon, 3 weeks after I bought it.
Unfortunately I never thought to take any pics of its arrival....
A grizzled OTR trucker unloaded it to the street while casting a wary eye in my direction as he mumbled something about ‘another dumbass New Yorker’.
Yeh yeh, it’s a southern car and the south will rise again as soon as I rebuild it, so just unload it already smarty pants.
A friend helped me push it into his yard from the street –with a lot of help from the 4 cyl. Ford I was driving at the time. With slippery ice and snow all over, we barely got it just past the fence -which I had to put back up once we squeezed the car into the yard- and there it sat for the rest of the year safe and sound.
I spent time looking over the car on a cold Saturday in January then threw that blue tarp over it for the rest of the season. It was clear I would need a lot of “original” parts so I would have to go LOOKING FOR ANOTHER Fury… and that’s the story of how I ended up with a friggen S23!
But for the moment lets continue with the GT story.
Finally, summer of 2009, I had some time to give it a more thorough look over. The car had absolutely no call-out sheet, no fender tag, just the vestigial remains of the A51 GT trim and engine package to attest to its pedigree. So I went thru the car front to back to “reverse engineer” the fender tag.
SO lets all go on this carcheological expedition together an see what comes up.
First stop: whats left of the door jam sticker says she was made in November of 1969. Assuming it’s a USA car then it’s a Y05 “build to USA specs” car.
I can guess the month but without something to tell me the “day” of production I can’t create a build date code. Come to think of it, I can’t make a proper fender tag without the vehicle order number either. ANYONE know how I would find that number?? BTW, I’ve noticed that some sport fury GT stickers have the month spelled out, others like this have just the number values. Anyone know why?
moving on...
GT decal and V4X code black strobe stripe still in place on what appears to be “Citron Gold” V01 code monotone factory paint treatment.
Yeh it looks green but the color doesn't seem to match the greens on the 1970 Plymouth paint code chart I have... if it isn't Citron Gold, what color is it?
Remaining ghost of the hood stripe tape treatment on top, next to the L31 hood mounted turn signals.
E85 code 350 horse power 440-4 underneath the power bulge hood with the 26” radiator in front and a D36 727 torqueflite trans behind it
Mud wasp apartment complex notwithstanding, I ask: is it a D57 code 3.91 ratio in a D91 code sure grip rear?
Really bummed that the N41 dual exhaust and N42 chrome exhaust tips are all gone. This was a well optioned car so I would probably not be wrong assuming it also came with the pretty exhaust tips.
I always wanted a late 68 - 73 Mopar; a Charger or Challenger maybe. Where I live there were almost no mopars except for Dusters and scamps, and a bunch of Satellites. I did see a Charger once… just one. So the story began with the search for a Charger.
That search quickly ended when even a swiss-cheese- rusted and gutted of all interior parts Charger was commanding an $8000 to $10000 price tag. Seriously???
‘Cuda’s were in the 6 figures (WTF??) and even a lousy Duster was $20000 to $30000!
Super Bee’s, Road Runners, GTX’s were interesting but at that point I was losing interest, so I started looking at Chevy’s.
I was looking hard at Monte Carlo GT’s when the GT search term put me onto a car I’d never heard of: a Plymouth Sport Fury GT.
The one that popped up was a white GT … the car was still in pieces –as I recall it was in Georgia… I think… (I wonder now if that’s the one that ended up in Italy!). The GT was apparently in the middle of a restoration that had been aborted and the hot mess of parts and painted body was being sold. I didn’t want to deal with trying to transport a car that was in pieces from 1200 miles away, so I passed.
I continued Searching the internet for ‘Sport Fury GT’s for sale’ but that only brought up a lot of Fury III's, and a few formal roof Sport Fury's. Then finally near the end of the year, an ad on ebay for a GT.
The business in the ad about rarity and 666 cars produced prompted me to do look around on the internet for information and I found a few websites (very few) to sort out Sport Fury facts from GT facts.
The registry and Billy Fury’s website got me started but there was still some confusion about if Sport Fury was separate from Sport Fury GT and the formal roof-fast back roof thing was confusing as well since Sport Fury’s seemed to have both -a problem caused by others mis-identifying sport fury GT clones and sport fury's as GT's. I know about it all NOW but back then I had no idea. I wondered if there were more GT’s besides those in the registry but at the time, none were coming up in the search.
My brief review got me details about how many were made and how even fewer were still in existence, especially ones that still had an original engine and trans based on descriptions of cars in the registry.
So it was a muscle car, had low production numbers, and hardly any survivors… I was thinking this GT should be a pretty valuable car if its brought back to #2 condition! So maybe a restoration project was looming large in my future. Yeh I was clueless.
The GT on ebay was pretty rough. Ad said no engine or trans either. Well, maybe this guy can put an engine back in it if I sweeten the pot. I hemmed and hawed about it while watching the auction end with no bids up to his reserve. I went back to the internet looking for more GT furies. The GT went up for sale again, and again it didn’t sell.
Since it didn’t seem like I would find a sport fury in decent shape any time soon and every time I wait to buy something I want, there is NEVER another for sale ever again, so I was thinking about Monte Carlo’s again. BUT then this darn picture happened…
And after this one....
I kept thinking about that GT in Florida… and thinking about it… Every time I looked at that stupid rusty GT all I saw was that damn Mean shiny black monster GT… sitting in my driveway.
So even though the eBay auction had ended about 10 days prior I sent the guy an email
asking about the car. Found out the guy’s name was Karl; I asked him if the car was parted-out yet; if he knew of any other GT’s…maybe even a 440-6??
Nope not parted out yet he says, and he’ll hold off on parting it out if I’m interested in the GT, and apparently the engine and trans were still in the car! Some more emails went back and forth. I asked about the condition of the floors and the trunk: he said it had a few of the usual rust holes but the car was “solid” on the outside. Honestly I never thought to ask him anything about the details of its history.
I got his full name and address, I went to the bank to cut a check and officially began the journey down the rabbit hole. We were into December 2008 at this point.
I worked out shipping details with a carrier, coordinated with Karl for pick up while he got the car ready to be moved. Once we got past the holidays, everything was settled. That was January 2009.
Yeh I know sight unseen is a crapshoot but what was I going to do, spend $1000 in travel expenses to save $1000 on a rusty car? The car had AC, the console, the AM 8 track, power windows... I was willing to take a chance just based on the features alone. With the money having changed hands, transport arranged to New York from its former resting place under a Florida pine, the car finally arrived by car carrier on an icy January afternoon, 3 weeks after I bought it.
Unfortunately I never thought to take any pics of its arrival....
A grizzled OTR trucker unloaded it to the street while casting a wary eye in my direction as he mumbled something about ‘another dumbass New Yorker’.
Yeh yeh, it’s a southern car and the south will rise again as soon as I rebuild it, so just unload it already smarty pants.
A friend helped me push it into his yard from the street –with a lot of help from the 4 cyl. Ford I was driving at the time. With slippery ice and snow all over, we barely got it just past the fence -which I had to put back up once we squeezed the car into the yard- and there it sat for the rest of the year safe and sound.
I spent time looking over the car on a cold Saturday in January then threw that blue tarp over it for the rest of the season. It was clear I would need a lot of “original” parts so I would have to go LOOKING FOR ANOTHER Fury… and that’s the story of how I ended up with a friggen S23!
But for the moment lets continue with the GT story.
Finally, summer of 2009, I had some time to give it a more thorough look over. The car had absolutely no call-out sheet, no fender tag, just the vestigial remains of the A51 GT trim and engine package to attest to its pedigree. So I went thru the car front to back to “reverse engineer” the fender tag.
SO lets all go on this carcheological expedition together an see what comes up.
First stop: whats left of the door jam sticker says she was made in November of 1969. Assuming it’s a USA car then it’s a Y05 “build to USA specs” car.
I can guess the month but without something to tell me the “day” of production I can’t create a build date code. Come to think of it, I can’t make a proper fender tag without the vehicle order number either. ANYONE know how I would find that number?? BTW, I’ve noticed that some sport fury GT stickers have the month spelled out, others like this have just the number values. Anyone know why?
moving on...
GT decal and V4X code black strobe stripe still in place on what appears to be “Citron Gold” V01 code monotone factory paint treatment.
Yeh it looks green but the color doesn't seem to match the greens on the 1970 Plymouth paint code chart I have... if it isn't Citron Gold, what color is it?
Remaining ghost of the hood stripe tape treatment on top, next to the L31 hood mounted turn signals.
E85 code 350 horse power 440-4 underneath the power bulge hood with the 26” radiator in front and a D36 727 torqueflite trans behind it
Mud wasp apartment complex notwithstanding, I ask: is it a D57 code 3.91 ratio in a D91 code sure grip rear?
Really bummed that the N41 dual exhaust and N42 chrome exhaust tips are all gone. This was a well optioned car so I would probably not be wrong assuming it also came with the pretty exhaust tips.
