So after a long search for the right AAR Cuda for myself and to represent the website and what I do I purchased the car you see here. Here is a little history on the car.
Mike Schotz purchased the car from Schmitts Chrysler Plymouth in Bowmansville, N.Y. in late 1970 early 1971 Mike enjoyed the car like anyone would, taking care of the car and keeping it garaged. Mike had asked that Schmitts put 4.30 gears in the rear before he took the car off the lot.. But he left the 3.55 gear in the transmission so the speedo was never accurate. Once getting the car home he put a different torque converter in and a bit larger cam.
My good friend John Bach purchased the car from Mike in August of 1982 and John was just like Mike in that he took good care of the car while enjoying it. John took taking care of the car one step further, what few items that were replaced or changed were saved by placing in bags or packing away in a box.
When Mike bought the car new it had 700 miles on it from the dealership. He never thought too much of it and never bothered asking or checking to see why or if the car was numbers matching. When John bought the car from Mike he asked if the car was all original and numbers matching to which Mike said yes because he had no reason to believe otherwise. When John was doing his first oil change and service on the car he saw that the engine was not a T/A block and it didn’t have any vin number stamped on the vin pad. Upon asking Mike about this Mike assured John that the engine in the car was the one that was in it when he bought it new so something had happened to the car while at the dealership and they had put a standard 340 replacement block in the car and put it back on the lot to sell.
Here are a few things that were done to the car.
1) The Organosol was resprayed in 1982
2) It had a scratch on a fender and one on a rear 1/4 fixed.
3) Some touch up on the radiator support
4) Scratches touched up on both fenders where the chrome bumpers had rubbed.
5) center trunk section had begun scaling and was cleaned and sprayed with red oxide primer.
6) Original valve covers were chromed
7) Carbs were swapped out for 440 six pack ones.
8) Chrome bumpers swapped for rubber bumpers (Original chrome ones came with the car)
Ive been asked why I bought this particular AAR Cuda… I had set out to buy a survivor or as close to a survivor as I could get. Ive also been asked if I was worried about people picking the car apart… My answer to that is this. I could purchase the most original survivor car in the world and someone is going to pick the car apart so I wont worry about that. This car has a lot of originality and the history is well known plus I have paperwork and documentation to verify the car. In reality there aren’t many true survivor AAR Cudas out there (not that ive seen every car in the country but most are known about) even the ones being presented as such have had more work done to them than most people know or realize.
At the time I purchased the car it had 56,688 miles on it.The hood and spoiler are original..original stripes and interior is all original.
Options on the car are.
A01 – A62 – J78 – S74 – C65 – Extra cost bench seat with fold down arm rest
It is a factory undercoated car as well.
