It was Rene's idea for the...
It was Rene's idea for the purple and green color scheme. Notice the bright green R/T badge on the hood.
'71 Dodge Challenger
Car Owner: Rene Kahl Catasauqua, Pennsylvania
Mopar Power
- Engine: Keith's friend Don "Flash" Gordon rebuilt the engine in Rene's Challenger. The small-block 340 was honed out .030 over and uses TRW forged pistons with stock rods and crankshaft. The compression is a pump gas-friendly 10.35:1 thanks to the pistons and Edelbrock aluminum heads with 2.02/1.60-inch valves. The camshaft is also a Racer Brown cam ground to .543/.510-inch lift and has 242-degrees of duration. A single Holley 730-cfm carburetor tweaked by Ron Clark fuels the Mopar mill and Comp Cam springs and Crane roller rockers actuate the valves. The exhaust is sent through tti headers and feeds into Flowmaster mufflers.
- Transmission: The automatic was built by Ronnie Wechsler and uses a Turbo Action Cheetah SCS shifter, 3,200 stall, and manual valve body.
- Differential: A Strange Dana 60 with sure grip, 4.30 gears, and strange SST axles sits out back.
Sure-Grip
- Suspension: Things were taken with a more mild approach on Rene's car. It uses a factory torsion bar setup with super stock rear leaf springs and Ranchero 5000 shocks. The framerails were fabricated by S&W.
- Brakes: Front discs with stock 11-inch rear drums.
- Wheels And Tires: Crager Super Star wheels measuring 15x6.5 up front and 15x15 out back wear 28x7.5-15 and 31x16.5-15 Mickey Thompson Sportsmans, respectively.
High Impact
- Paint and Body: Keith took Rene's ideas and applied them to the car with a custom hue of purple metallic with lime green accents. One of the coolest features is the ghosted 340 callout behind the hockey stripe.
- Interior: Alex and Rene came up with the idea for the two-tone interior with suede seats that are emphasized by purple seating surfaces.
When Keith Kahl of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, began building his project '71 'Cuda, it was never his intention to build the car a stable mate. However, once his wife, Rene, began to express an interest in building a project of her own, the appropriate car was found and the rest is history. Together these "his and hers" E-Bodies are a force to be reckoned with thanks to their potent engine combinations and outstanding looks.
Rene didn't want tires that...
Rene didn't want tires that were as wide as Keith's so she only uses a 16.5-inch-wide Mickey Sportsman.
Back in 1991, Keith, an auto body technician, found himself looking to buy a classic car for himself after he successfully restored an old Mustang at work. "It didn't take long before I was looking at every E-Body I found. This was after I destroyed two of them back in the '80s when I was a dumb teenager that couldn't handle the power of a muscle car," he recalls. Since he was always a fan of the '70 and '71 E-Body, he focused on these years in particular. One day he came across an ad for a '71 in a local paper so he drove by to see it. "When I pulled up I saw the car sitting with the right two wheels in a drainage ditch. The body was in grey primer and in pretty rough shape with some blue and green paint showing through," he says. Luckily, most of the hard-to-find pieces were in tact so he decided to purchase the car.
The worked over 340 was cleaned...
The worked over 340 was cleaned up at .030 over and sports a slew of high performance goodies.
The Slant-Six under the hood didn't bother Keith one bit. He had much bigger plans for this E-Body that would involve a 440. First on his agenda was to correct the current shoddy bodywork and get the car looking good. He knew that he wanted to paint the car lime green. "Rene suggested that I use purple with the green, which was an easy thing for her to say since her favorite color was purple. I wasn't a fan of the idea until I sprayed the two colors down and realized how well they went together," he says. To his surprise, and after closer inspection of the VIN, he noticed FJG in the code. The 'Cuda came from the factory in Sassy Grass Green. He even found out that the car was ordered with power front disc brakes, a rare option for a car with a Slant-Six.