This is the final blast of the whirlwind of new builds I began adding to my muscle car fleet early this year, and as appropriate in most cases, I believe I have saved the best for last. This represents the highest price I’ve paid for an Auto World slot car, over $150 to get it, and even with a good chassis and a set of custom wheels, that was a lot of money to pay for a “non-vintage” T-Jet.
But…look at it! Wouldn’t you have paid that price for this triple black Charger? And yes, it is “triple black,” as the roof is matte indicating a vinyl top, and I fitted it to a black chassis giving it black interior. The wheels it came with were Road Race Replicas “Stones” but I traded those out for a set of Vincent “Fuchs.” While these wheels are supposed to represent the classic Porsche wheel of the ‘70’s, they look like a set of Chip Foose wheels to me; I have used this style on few cars, but they seem right at home here wrapped with Firestone Wide O RWLs.
Its hard to imagine a more wicked looking muscle car than a black Charger with a red RT tail stripe, which is why this car’s name, “Ace of Spades,” is so fitting: the blackest of the most powerful suite, often referred to as “the death card.” It is also the name of one of the best-and best known-songs by seminal metal band Motorhead, which unsurprisingly is a band your humble blogger is rather fond of!
The badge on the door says it all: “yeah, it’s got a Hemi.” Although she is a factory original Hemi Charger, she’s been through several owners and deteriorated badly, losing her original red paint and 727 Torqueflite automatic before being rescued in 1980 by Nebraska farm-raised Connor “Hellraiser” Hailey, who, after acquiring the car without the drivetrain, was still working on the rust eradication and body restoration when he finally found the original engine a full year later in a ’63 Dodge Polara drag car, which he bought-the whole car!-just to pull the engine out and reunite it with it’s original chassis. Hailey opted not to go back to red but to redo the paint in black to match the vinyl top and interior, polishing off the 4 year restoration with a 4-speed, a heavy duty clutch, and that red RT tail stripe that pays homage to the car’s original color. “Hellraiser” Hailey has an Ace in the hole: this is the big, the bad, the black, the one everyone wants! Every muscle car racer at Drag City is smiling nervously now, waiting to see what happens when he unleashes this animal on the track!
Wow!! The rims look awesome!!! Is it the best-looking car in your collection?
That’s a tough call to make, but it just may be! Thanks for the compliment!
The black and red with those wheels are sexy as hell! Makes me think too of a line from the book Christine where Roland LeBay calls Christine “The Ace of Spades”.