HEADLINE UNFORGETTABLEBUILDING THE ’71 SHE WISHED SHE OWNED IN HIGHHEAD SCHOOL. SUBHEAD, SUB- HEAD, SUB- HEAD, SUB- HEAD SUBHEAD SUBHEAD SUB- HEAD SUBHEAD SUBHEAD

BY JOHNNY HUNKINS ✪ PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN MACHAQUIERO

BY RICHARD TRUESDELL ✪ PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE AUTHOR utomotive enthusiasts build And when it’s built it’s not the second-hand was able buy one better than most, a one- for a variety of reasons. first purchased decades earlier, it’s the year-old ’71 Plymouth Satellite Sebring two- A dream motivates many to car they wished they purchased, with per- door with just 2,800 miles on the build a classic hot rod, while fect paint, a pristine interior, and not with the clock, color code C7, In-Violet, with blue-cloth for others it’s the opportunity entry-level slant six or small-displacement bench seat interior, pretty typical of the time. to own a car they lusted after V-8, but with the biggest engine offered. This And it wasn’t a big-block 383 or 440 wedge Aearlier in life but couldn’t afford at the time. is the story of one couple’s vision. or a 426 Hemi, rather a much more pedes- But, for many, it’s an attempt to recap- In 1972 Anna Brook was a teenager living trian 318 V-8 resided under the hood, backed ture a fleeting moment of one’s youth, that in Northwest Indiana. She saved up to buy up with a three-speed TorqueFlite automatic, special car, most often one’s very first car. her first car and, with the help of her parents, again pretty typical of the era.

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Anna drove her Satellite for the better part adding a quart of oil with every fill-up (no, show cars with her husband, Howard — an of a decade, over which time it survived it wasn’t a two-stroke 318). industrial engineer, now retired from UPS, the first gas crisis in 1973. It was her daily Besides the niggling mechanical issues, with incredible mechanical and restoration driver and as such, it had developed a rep- the gas gauge stopped working, stranding skills, and whose spheres of enthusiasm utation for being somewhat undependable, her with an empty tank on more than one ran from restoring a Jaguar E-Type to a ’59 to the degree that she gave it a nickname, occasion. Finally, in 1979, about the time Chevrolet delivery — the couple faced “Unpredictable.” And over those eight years, of the second gas crunch, she had enough the dilemma of what to do next. It was Anna she learned how to deal with whatever and sold it. who suggested a ’71 Plymouth Satellite it threw at her. Over time the 318 devel- Almost three decades later, in 2007, Sebring, like the very first car she owned in oped an appetite for oil as she found herself after having built several award-winning high school.

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Like when formulating a plan, the search Tremec transmission whose dimensions turned to the buff books, online classifieds, were different than the outgoing and eBay. Their search took them to four-speed. Arizona, where sight unseen they purchased As the paint was applied, a modern a ’71 Plymouth Satellite Sebring. The seller update of the classic B5 Blue, the car presented it as a solid, running, virtually began to really take shape. For re- rust-free western car. After it was shipped chroming, Howard shipped the bumpers to their home in Western New York, How- to Advance Plating in Nashville, Tennessee. ard concluded that the 35-year-old car had The companion stainless steel trim went been honestly presented by the sell but they off to Stainless Trim Restoration in Depew, decided to do a full restoration with a twist. New York. The bright work on the car is The plan was to restore it to GTX trim (1971 substantially better than when it rolled was the final year for the GTX as a sepa- down the Los Angeles assembly line. rate model) with a bored and stroked 440, B-Body Mopars from this era weren’t punched out to 457 ci, backed up with a known for perfect fit and finish coming five-speed Tremec manual transmission. down the assembly line. Ill-fitting panels Most of the heavy lifting on the engine and orange-peel paint was the norm, not was completed by Gordon Racing in the exception. This didn’t stop Ken and his Upland, California. team from reassembling the car to exacting With a solid restoration plan in place, the standards, with the alignment of the front couple showed the car to Ken Pezdek, the fenders, doors, hood, and decklid being owner of Aero Collision and Fabrication in closer to a modern-day Lexus than a mass- Lancaster, New York, where it was treated to produced Plymouth from more than four a full rotisserie restoration. Ken’s team metic- decades ago. Again, as the photos illus- ulously addressed the bumps and bruises trate, the car displays outstanding panel fit. that the car had accumulated over the Because the car, when finished, would previous 35 years with Howard and Anna have something close to three times the doing much of the car’s disassembly before power of the well-worn and anemic 318, Pezdek’s team took over. local supplier SSBC was called upon for an One sheetmetal issue that needed to be updated front- and rear-disc brake setup addressed was work to the tunnel section of with powdercoated calipers along with a the floorpan to accommodate the six-speed billet proportioning valve, and a master

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MOPP-180700-71GTXr1.indd 67 3/12/18 2:40 PM UNFORGETTABLE FAST FACTS 1966 R/T CAR OWNERS: Howard and Anna Brook ENGINE TYPE: RB CUBIC INCHES: over 440 BORE: 4.32 inches plus .40 over, total of 4.72 BLOCK MODIFICATIONS: bored .040 over BLOCK: Chrysler BORE X STROKE: stock 4.72 x 3.75 RODS: stock, cast PISTONS: Speed-Pro, 9.8:1 compression CRANKSHAFT: stock steel CAM: Comp Cams hydraulic LIFT: .470 at .050 224 VALVES: Milodon, 2.14 intake, 1.81 exhaust VALVESPRINGS: Comp Cams cylinder and booster. Getting the power to the ground would come courtesy of a heavy- ROCKER ARM: stock duty 8¾-inch rear end that Howard carefully rebuilt. INTAKE MANIFOLD: Edelbrock Aluminum Six Pack As Anna’s long-lost first car was a bench-seat model, Howard sourced a set of GTX-style high-back buckets along with a set of factory gauges and sporty center console. The inte- CARBURETORS: Holley Six Pack rior trim was restored to better-than-new quality using white vinyl seat upholstery and door DISTRIBUTOR: Mallory panels from Legendary Auto Interiors. The results, with the white vinyl contrasting with the EXHAUST: Chrysler RB Hi-Performance bold exterior, as the photos show, is a dynamic combination. This is such a contrast to the MUFFLER: Spin Tech muted colors of today’s cars — even when the exterior is a bold color such as this. There’s just so many things that you can do with black, EXHAUST PIPES: Muffler Tech Performance charcoal, and taupe. INLET/OUTLET SIZE: 2.50 inches Other upgrades to the interior included a Quiet SOURCES EXHAUST: aluminized 2.50 inches Ride Solutions AcoustiShield Thermal Acoustic Inte- AERO COLLISION & FABRICATION EXHAUST TIPS: stainless steel tips with YearOne rior Insulation Kit in place of OEM-grade sound 716-685-AERO red inserts deadening panels. Howard notes that the kit is ENGINE: built by VanGordon Racing Engines vehicle-specific, arriving pre-cut and ready to install. CLASSIC TUBE (Upland, CA) The results? A ’70s-era B-Body that’s as quiet as a 800-882-3711 new Chrysler 300. WWW.CLASSICTUBE.COM DRIVETRAIN While the body and interior work was underway, EATON DETROIT SPRINGS TRANSMISSION: manual five-speed Van Gordon Racing completed the engine work. 313-963-3839 MANUFACTURER: Tremec/Keisler Engineering/ Next, Howard installed the clutch, pressure plate, WWW.EATONSPRINGS.COM Silver Sport Transmissions (Wixom, MI/ and flywheel, along with the throwout bearing, Rockford, TN) bellhousing, and transmission. The final touch? A LEGENDARY AUTO INTERIORS SHIFTER: Hurst Pistol Grip set of Pirelli P-Zero Rosso tires mounted on Boyd’s 800-363-8804 WWW.LEGENDARYAUTOINTERIORS.COM CLUTCH: long-style Hays 11-inch Crown Jewel alloy wheels. Not long after the car REAREND: Chrysler 8¾ was completed, the car debuted at the Grand PIRELLI TIRE NORTH AMERICA National Roadster Show in Pomona, California. 800-243-5105 RATIO: 3.55:1 Sure Grip After that Anna and Howard enjoyed the car for WWW.US.PIRELLI.COM STEERING: Firm Feel Inc. many years together. SHERWIN-WILLIAMS BRAKES: Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation “Anna was a car girl’s car girl,” says Howard. AUTOMOTIVE FINISHES FRONT BRAKES: Tri Power Calipers 13-inch Big “We were a team, on almost every car we built. 216-566-2062 Bite cross-drilled rotors It was a partnership. She had her opinions; I had WWW.SHERWIN-AUTOMOTIVE.COM REAR BRAKES: Sport R1 Calipers 11.25-inch mine, and we always seemed to make it work. But Big Bite cross-drilled rotors this car, when we built it, was much more her car STAINLESS STEEL BRAKES CORP. than mine, and the way it turned out really reflects 800-448-7722 WHEELS & TIRES WWW.SSBRAKES.COM that. That’s what made what happened last year WHEELS: 18x7 (front) and 18x8 (rear) Crown at times so hard to accept. She learned last Febru- QUIET RIDE SOLUTIONS Jewel Alloy Wheels By Boyd’s ary [2017] that she had cancer and just 40 days 209-942-4777 TIRES: 245/45ZR18 (front) and 255/55ZR18 later, she was gone. But the thing about this car WWW.QUIETRIDE.COM (rear) Pirelli P-Zero Rosso is that it is a reminder of our more than 38 years VAN GORDON RACING ENGINES INTERIOR together, 36 married. Yes, it’s bittersweet at times, 909-946-5991 SEATS: Legendary Auto Interiors white vinyl but every time I go out to the garage I feel her WWW.VANGORDONRACING.COM spirit. It’s with me always, especially when I get INSTRUMENTS: Tachman tachometer with Auto behind the wheel. The car certainly was a collabo- YEARONE Instrument OEM cluster 800-950-9503 ration, but when you look at in retrospect, this was WIRING: M&H Electric Fabricator truly her car.” WWW.YEARONE.COM

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