It's a show car, right? A trailer queen that only rolled down the ramp just far enough for these photos to be taken? Better think again. "I drive it everywhere," owner Salvatore Frasca says in a rumbling New Jersey accent."I go to the supermarket with it to get groceries and drive it around town." Salvatore bought the '73 Super Blue Challenger a year ago, and he's already put several hundred miles on the clock.
"I think it drives even better than it looks," says Salvatore.
He bought the car as-is, and wasn't even looking to buy a Challenger at the time.
"I was looking for a Hemi 'Cuda, but a friend of mine told me, 'Look at this car, you might just want to buy it instead.' It was just such a beautiful car that I couldn't pass it up."
The Challenger is one of five Mopars that Salvatore owns, all of which have been bought within the last two years.
"I bought my first Mopar, then within a year I had four others."
With his collection including a '73 Road Runner four-barrel, '68 Barracuda fastback Formula S 383, and a '67 273 fastback, Salvatore tells us he drives all Mopar, all the time.
But it wasn't always that way. After owning a Barracuda when he was younger, Salvatore got into luxury cars and didn't buy another Mopar until he was in his forties. When he did, though, he went all out.
"It was crazy," he says. "I became a Mopar nut overnight. Now I have a Jaguar and a Lexus and I don't even drive them anymore. They just sit in the garage."
The '73 Challenger is kept in stock appearance with a 318, bored .030 over, and a 727 TorqueFlite spinning the gears. The only modifications are an Edelbrock aluminum intake manifold, Flowmaster mufflers, and an Alpine cassette deck rounding out the upgrades.
Salvatore tells us that he keeps a stock appearance on all of his cars.
For the Challenger, it doesn't hurt that Salvatore keeps the car at his Florida home year-round. Salvatore uses the Challenger as his main transportation during winter months he spends in Florida, but in the summer he hardly sees the car.
"Yeah, I guess I miss it a little bit," he admits. Although he doesn't get a chance to drive the car for a few months out of the year, he more than makes up for it when he returns to Florida.
"People can't believe how much I drive this car," he says.
As good as this car looks, we could hardly believe it ourselves.