Rides — GTX marks the spot
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/04/2017 (3438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Tory Chambers’ 1970 Plymouth GTX is extremely rare.
Only 7,202 were made, and that year’s model was unique to any other.
But that’s only part of the reason behind his purchase of the vehicle in 2011.
Born in 1968, he said that he liked the nostalgia factor of purchasing a vehicle model from two years after he came into the world.
The asking price was $7,000, but he tried to talk the seller down to $6,800, as a nod to his birth year. The seller declined, so he gave him $200, plus a $6,800 cheque, just because he could.
“Some had that car when I was growing up and I wanted the chance to drive that car,” he said, adding that his interest in cars dates back to as far as he can remember.
He keeps his prized car in a back garage at Tory’s Repair, a business he owns and operates in Brandon, and whose equipment he uses during his spare time to work on the Plymouth.
It has taken a lot of work.
He started with pretty well nothing, working from the body up, albeit with certain components of the body also being replaced.
During his first year, he worked on its interior. Year two found him work on the body, followed by the installation of a brand new engine. He now drives it “all the time,” he said, later clarifying that this excludes the winter months; “Of course.”
Painted with B5 blue on its exterior and with B7 blue trim interior, the vehicle now appears to be in near-mint condition, with a recorded perfect reaction time from 2013 and a first-place win during the inaugural race at the Baseline Dragway 1/8 mile in Rivers.
It has been a lot of work, but he said that it has been worth every minute of it.
Friend and fellow Dodge fanatic Lindsay Rystephanuk is jealous of Chambers’ vehicle.
“It was right in the heart of the muscle car wars, and it was also the muscle car and the luxury; that was one of the first times they were blended with that particular 1970 GTX,” he said.
“What Tory has done is taken advantage of all the modern performance parts that have come available in the last 10 or 15 years, like aluminum heads, special pistons, super-hard crankshafts …” he said, beginning a list of improvements that have been made without compromising the integrity of the classic car’s appearance.
Its engine has more than 600 horsepower and gives of a thunderous rumble when fired up.
“That’s a very special car and Tory gets admiring glances at every car show that we go together,” Rystephanuk said. “The mouths drop, the eyes get big; particularly the old boys who know what they’re looking at.”
» tclarke@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB