On The Wragged Wedge

What started out as a quick, throw it together race car project has morphed into one of the nicest A/FX recreations yet seen in this country

- Mike Pye

Tim Holmes is what you might call a Mopar guy. He’s tried other flavours of American car but he started with a 1970 Chrysler Newport when he was 18 and has always returned to the fold. “Everything else is rubbish compared to Chryslers,” he states in the kind of matter of fact way only a Yorkshireman can. 53 now, he smiles wistfully when he says, “I’m old enough to have been able to buy them for a couple of hundred quid, but you couldn’t sell ’em for a lot then either. I struggled to get £5,200 for a numbers matching R/T Coronet in ’96. Now, just the price of bits is scandalous, but it just makes it all a bit more of a challenge.”

So what is it about Mopars? I asked. “I don’t know, once you’ve had one they just get under your skin. What people don’t understand is just how over engineered Chrysler cars were. The build quality is so much better than Ford or GM stuff and it didn’t matter whether a car was a top-of-the-range luxury model or a base model, they were all built the same way. Once you’ve had something special, it’s hard to get away from it.”

You won’t then be surprised to hear this isn’t Tim’s only Mopar. I laughed when at one point in our conversation he said he’d have to sell some bits to free up a bit of money to re-do his other ’64 Polara, only then to reel off a list of three or four complete cars. There was I thinking he meant an axle or steering box, maybe an engine.