A Second Restoration: My Dodge Challenger’s Return to Glory

I’m restoring my 1970 Dodge Challenger for the second time. No crash or catastrophe triggered this—just the slow, steady wear of time. Turns out, if you buy a 33-year-old muscle car, give it a quick paint job, drop in a junkyard RV engine, and drive it daily for two decades, you’ll eventually need to do it all over again.

My husband and I bought this base-model Challenger from its original owner, who had let it sit under a neighbor’s sprinkler. The roof, where a cracked vinyl top trapped moisture against bare metal, was riddled with tiny rust holes. Initially, we planned to flip it. I already owned a ’72 Challenger—a rough, rattle-can-black beast that made neighbors twitch their curtains.

But when the ’70 came back from the paint shop in a brilliant blue, I was hooked. I sold the ’72, stuffed a 440-cubic-inch big-block under the hood, and put the blue Dodge to work as my daily driver and weekend drag car. It carried me to a PR job, then to Hot Rod magazine, and eventually to Car and Driver.

Over the years, the Challenger did more than just commute and race. It served as a test mule for an aftermarket suspension company, appeared on American Top Gear, and starred in multiple magazine photo shoots. ” But time and grit took their toll. The paint cracked along the quarter panels.

The roof rust spread. A scratch from a gas station mishap bled a rusty stain. It looked ragged, but not in a cool patina way.

This time, I knew I needed a full roof replacement. Aftermarket panels are available for first-gen Challengers, so I ordered one and took it to Peter the Swede—a metalworker friend who’s actually Finnish. He wasn’t impressed by the previous bodywork and sent daily photos of the rust and Bondo he excavated.

Then came the disassembly. I love finding clues about a car’s past owner, but now I was finding clues about myself: sand in the vents from a Buttonwillow off-road moment, tangled wires from an old air-fuel meter test, and a tube of mascara I’d lost six years ago. My friend Dave Shuten, a high-end custom builder, agreed to handle the paint.

He rejected our disassembly twice before finally deeming it ready. Now the car is at his shop, getting smoothed and resprayed in that bright dolphin blue. Then I get to put it all back together. How hard can that be? I’ve done it before.