Saved From The Crusher!

This 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona Was Pulled From a Junkyard in 1982, Just in the Nick of Time

- John Machaqueiro

It seems that everywhere you look—TV, social media, and print—old cars are continuously being discovered that have been stored in barns, basements, garages, sheds, or from any number of other forgotten resting places. No matter where they’ve been extracted from, the common term for all these finds has been deemed the “barn find.” The question is, when was the last time you saw a really good junkyard find? Well, we have one for you and it involves one of Chrysler’s finest examples from the muscle-car era, a 1969 Dodge Daytona, and its rescue from the grim reaper at the junkyard—the dreaded crusher. While we’re going to focus on this particular Charger Red Daytona, we’ll also tell you about some of the other cars in the yard at the time. How does another 1969 Daytona sound? How about an original 1969 Hemi Dodge Charger 500?

This Daytona’s saga began in 1973 when it ended up, along with about 50 other cars, at Avenue Auto Parts in Kansas City, Missouri. While we don’t have a name for the dealership and its owner, we do know that these vehicles were part of a large collection that was impounded by the state of Missouri as a result of some unscrupulous dealer shenanigans involving bogus titles. The owner must have been knee deep in it because he ended up in jail, and the cars were eventually forfeited as a result of the long-term storage bills. With their fate cast into limbo, these cars sat at the junkyard until the early 1980s, at which point they had worn out their welcome and had to go. The owner of the place had lost his shirt storing them, but once he was given the green light on ownership, they were quickly destined for the crusher.