Paperboys are usually in the right place at the right time. Sure, they may be in the 10-12-year-old age bracket, but they are tossing papers in driveways where cars are parked. The trouble is, they are not making the kind of money required to buy those high-powered cars they so often see.
Stories about kids getting musclecars occur in a variety of scenarios. One has a paperboy striking Hemi gold immediately after he gets his driver's license. He drooled over this Hemi 'Cuda everyday for years and couldn't wait to throw the paper at this house and see his dream car. The car may be out of his price range, if it ever was offered for sale, but he kept saving his money. He eventually got a better job after school-bagging groceries. The owner of the Hemi was a wealthy guy, and, finally, he let the kid have the car for the amount of money the boy had saved over the years.
Another scenario has the young entrepreneur getting the car much later. Greg Crump's true paperboy-gets-his-car story falls into this category. The details don't follow the ideal script because Crump admitted right away, "I'm a Chevy guy." He owns Caladonia Classics in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "We manufacture Corvette parts and build the frames for them." Greg continued, "When I was a kid in the neighborhood of Grand Rapids, I was a paperboy, and I did a lot of odd jobs. Just before I gave up my paper route, one of my customers bought a brand-new, '68 440 GTX."
Greg was an energetic 10-year-old when the GTX showed up in his customer's driveway, parked in his line of paper tossing. Increasing his angst for the car was the loving care the owner lavished on his new GTX. According to Greg, "This guy kept the car immaculate. He always waxed it. He put vinyl dressing on the vinyl top and always put stuff on the tires. He backed it in the garage and put the car cover on it." the car resided about a block away from where Greg grew up. Greg tells us, "I always drove by there later on in life."
The 440-powered X had a 727 TorqueFlite. As the years passed, Greg owned several '57 Chevys, a number of Chevelles, Camaros, and Corvettes, but no Mopars.
In May of last year, Greg was visiting his Mom and took a walk around her block. He walked by his former customer's house and looked over, there was the GTX from his childhood sitting in the driveway. "You still have this car?" Greg yelled. "Yeah, how'd you know I owned this car?" came from the owner. "I used to be your paperboy," rebutted Greg. Ted, the owner, had stored the Plymouth in his garage for the last 10 years. Retired, he was moving south to a warmer climate and cleaning up the GTX to sell.
Greg had to know, "What do you want for it?" the reply, "Well, you know it's only got 80,000 original miles on it." Greg again snapped a reply, "OK, what do you want for it?" "Well, I think it's worth about ten grand," hollered the owner.
To make a long story short-the following Monday morning the deal was done, and Greg bought the GTX. After 35 years, the paperboy got his car.