The tragic story of this 1969 Dodge Charger once thought lost forever now has a bittersweet ending.
A 1969 Dodge Charger restomod build for the 2018 SEMA Show once thought lost is now found. According to master engine builder and owner of Diversified Customs Mike Copeland earlier yesterday (Feb 7, 2020) a SEMA build everyone thought was lost after a good friend tragically murdered its owner is headed home to its rightful owners.
Basically, the owner’s murderer attempted to sell the lost Charger from behind bars. Mike Copeland’s update verbatim reads
” In 2018 we built a 1969 Dodge Charger for a customer that we debuted at 2018 SEMA in the Red Line Oil booth. It is a double black, Hellcat / 8 speed automatic, full custom everything. In October last year his best friend, that he introduced to me as “his brother”, murdered him for the car. He shot him in the head, and left the body in the driveway. He did this to steal the Charger. He was caught and charged with murder. The car was not recovered, and no one knew where it was.
This week he managed to forge papers and sell the car from jail. Fortunately with the information and paperwork we helped provide, the police located the car and recovered it. Now it will go through the courts, but hopefully the daughter will get the car. She told me it was the most treasured thing he owned, and she plans to keep it forever. I just don’t understand how little some people value life. To kill your “brother” for a car.
Hopefully finding the car will allow the real owner to rest in peace, and his daughter to keep a piece of dad forever “
Like many SEMA builds commissioned for the Las Vegas aftermarket trade show, this one was bankrolled by a someone who wanted a restomod done right.
Diversified Customs pulled off this Dodge Charger build in less than two weeks, thirteen days to be exact. While the outside exudes classic Detroit muscle, under the hood is one of FCA’s most powerful OEM engines, a 6.2L Mopar Hellcat motor that supposedly puts out more than 800 HP after a tiny bit of massaging.
Even though it was built in a short amount of time, the level of detail found on months (even years) long restorations is still there.
Filled with Redline oils and fluids, this build was also the first car unveiled by Redline in more than three decades attending SEMA as a vendor, a historic car.
There are a couple of videos online showing just how bada** this car truly is.
According to SEMA who wrote some words for this build,
The vehicle’s owner has been a life-long fan of early Dodge Chargers, and for his first foray into the musclecar world, he reached out to Copeland, owner of Diversified Creations and Arrington Performance. The owner wanted a car he could drive from his home in Georgia to New York and back without having to worry about reliability.
It boggles the mind how twisted some people can be, to take someone’s life and drive their stolen car with that on their conscience.
And I say bittersweet because while the original owner never got to truly enjoy it, his daughter will be able to.
