Purple Haze was originally a 1970 Challenger R/T, 440 4 barrel, auto, plum crazy, white vinyl top and white interior. The original owner, a lady, traded the car back to the selling dealer after only 6 months due to poor gas mileage.

The car had 8,000 miles on it when purchased by the second owner in December of 1970 from Brockton Dodge, Brockton MA. He modified the car with a 69 &1/2 six-pak set-up, big cam, a lot of headwork, roller rockers, headers, 4:10 b-body Dana and a fully manual reverse pattern valve body 727. The car was both street driven and raced; it ran mid 12s in street trim, and mid 11s in drag trim. It was mainly raced at New England Dragway, but also ran at Englishtown. Despite the modifications, for the few years of its life it was used as a daily driver. The “Purple Haze” lettering was first added in 1971 and a purple metal flake paint job with cobweb stripes was applied during the winter of 1974/1975.

At the strip in the mid-1970's

Due to family obligations, the second owner stored the car in his garage in 1982. He started the car twice a year from 1982 through early 2005. In 1996 he moved less than a mile from where I grew up. I did not find about the car, however, until 2001 when his neighbor, a co-worker of mine, introduced us.

As it was in 2006, shortly before we acquired it.

After wanting to buy the car for 6 years, my wife and I acquired “Purple Haze” in October of 2006. I must credit the second owner with keeping the car in such good shape: it is well documented with the original fender tag and two broadcast sheets and still retains the original numbers matching engine.

Loading it up and finally getting it home

I performed the following during the winter of 2006/2007 to make it road worthy:

• New exhaust, 2” Doug’s headers, 3” X-pipe, Dynomax SuperTurbo’s
• Stainless steel factory exhaust tips (2.5”)
• Engine and forward light wiring harnesses, new bulk head connector
• New master cylinder
• Fuel lines
• Electronic ignition (FBO)
• Radiators re-core
• New carpet

During the spring of 2008 we had the hood, top of the fenders and roof re-painted to match the 1975 applied metal flake (the above mentioned areas were damaged in the early eighties). Before the 2008 body work I was concerned about the paint match, but now that the work is complete, I am very happy with the results. We replaced the rust damaged wheels with new chrome Torq Thrust “Ds” to keep the vintage look. We have strived to maintain the 1970s street/strip appearance by re-using as many vintage parts as possible.

Purple Haze as it looks now - Summer of 2008