On the inside, John renewed the black-on-black interior with a cloth/vinyl combination on the Polara bucket seats. The chrome work around the dash and glovebox was also redone.
"I had a '62 Plymouth when I was 21," Allen says. "I thought it was the ugliest [car] made. People used to say it was 'unique,' which was a tactful way of saying 'ugly.' But the older these cars get, the more beautiful they get."
Allen joined the Mopar invasion on the Hot Rod Power Tour and took Coolest Mopar honors in Memphis. "I'm just having fun with it now," he says. "I take it up to Memphis, North Carolina, and down to the Gulf Coast. Wherever I go, if I park someplace, when I come back there's a note under the wiper blade with a phone number, asking about buying the car. I've never experienced anything like that before. It does wonders for the car ego."
Freud may not have known anything about "car ego," but for Allen, this Dart is the finest form of therapy money can buy.