You Won’t Believe This Secret Stash of Mopars Hidden for Decades

Written by Ryan Brutt on October 5, 2015
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There’s Hemis Hidden in Those Hills

I wish I had listened to that voice in my head. A gentleman from the East Coast had contacted me years ago. “I have a bunch of amazing cars hidden away, many haven’t been seen in decades,” said his email. An ordinary gearhead would jump in the car and drive right over there. Unfortunately, I have to plan my expedition routes carefully. Nothing I had planned took me anywhere near this guy’s place, so I put it on the back burner. I really shouldn’t have.

Years went by, and I kept in contact. Every year I would try to get out there, but something would come up. Finally, earlier this year, I was able to visit him in conjunction with my trip to Chryslers at Carlisle.

The address he sent for our meeting turned out to be an auto parts store he owned. He was there waiting for me with a friend and his son. We talked for a bit, and he told me he couldn’t get away from work, so the friend agreed to show me around.



But first we walked to the other side of the store, where there was a big surprise behind a fake wall: a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, two Hemi-powered 1967 Plymouth GTXs and a 1969 Dodge Six Pack Super Bee. In the store! Also in that hidden room were spare Superbird noses, a complete 426 Hemi for one of the GTXs, a Shaker hood, and more.



These were not rotting into the ground, but they had been sitting there for a few years. And to get any of them out would be an ordeal—through a single doorway blocked by stock for the store. It took a while to sink in that these very rare muscle cars were hidden in this auto parts store behind a wall covered with lawnmower engines.



It got better. The owner showed us around his parts stash, where we counted at least a dozen 426 Hemi blocks, row after row of parts from various cars including Daytonas and Superbirds, shelves full of 426 Hemi intakes, another full of Pistol Grip shifters, entire shelves for Six Packs, 340 parts, and on and on. It was a veritable gold mine of rare Mopar parts.



We eventually made our way to an outbuilding, which had three bays on the ground level and a large storage area below it. The middle bay held a 1970 Hemi Road Runner and a ’70 440-6 ‘Cuda. These were like the cars we saw in the store: nicely done but sitting for years. Under the ‘Cuda was a puddle of coolant. That puddle lead the owner to get the car home and go through it. Hopefully he’ll be driving it soon.

The stall to the right had three cars. One was another ‘Cuda that must not have been anything crazy because I directed all my attention to the car buried in the middle: a 1970 Plymouth Superbird. The 440 car had been buried there for decades. A spare nose rested on the original. He had bought this one in a package with two other Superbirds. It was a straight car that looked like all it really needed was someone to go through it to make it run and drive.

In the last bay was a 1970 Plymouth GTX that had been on a rotisserie for nearly a decade. It was clean and straight, but the owner just didn’t have the time to finish the car. Next to the GTX in that bay was a stash of large body panels hanging from the wall.



Then we moved to the underground “dungeon.” The owner knew that these cars would be sitting for a long, long time, so he covered most of them in a film of oil to protect them. That’s why they have a shine to them. But it was all for good reason, as the cars in the dungeon are some of the rarest he has.

By the door was a 1969 AMX sitting next to the shell of a ’70 ‘Cuda. Buried along the back wall was a 1970 GTX—a Hemi, of course. Along the far wall was the second of the three Superbirds (the third one is now gone). And staggered in front of the AMX was a Boss 302 Mustang and one to scratch off my “Barn Find Bucket List,” a real 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda.

Trying to absorb everything I was seeing was difficult, and accepting that some of the rarest muscle cars in the world were just sitting there, covered in oil, in this dungeon, was hard. I’ve seen crazy cars sitting in fields or barns, but seeing a true 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda that had been just sitting there, for decades, just blew my mind. And this was the end of just the first day!