By David Freiburger

David Freiburger

I spotted this car advertised on Craigslist a month ago or more, and neither Matt King nor I could tell for sure if this was the car that he and I did a makeover on when we were both at Car Craft magazine. As of today, I’ve communicated with the seller and it is, in fact, Matt’s old car. See the current ad here.

Matt and I sometimes carpooled to work and often passed by this car as it sat for a year or two at a tire shop in Hollywood. Eventually we stopped and asked what the deal was, and with our Obi Wan powers of negotiation, ended up owning the car for $200. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist the Joe Dirt jokes! Look for the EV Duster at the 4 minute mark.

So if you’re a Mopar Or No Car kind of guy and are sick of high gas prices, what do you do? You build an electric Duster. Bruce bought this A-body back in 2006. It had a fresh 360 but otherwise was pretty rough. Over the course of two years he did a resto-mod on the car, which included body work, new paint, and even digital gauges and an RFID keyless ignition system.

But Bruce didn’t stop there. With gas prices on the rise, he was already researching alternative fuels. Then he heard about Tesla and the Volt. In June he picked up a copy of The Zero-Carbon Car, and within an hour was planning his new project. Since he’s a meteorologist, he decided to call it the Electrical Storm. Continue reading…

Continue reading "Electric Duster" »

I just heard from Jason Heintz, Emilio’s brother-in-law. Emilio and his Duster won it all on Pinks All Out at Englishtown this weekend! Here’s how Jason broke it down once Emilio made it to the final 16:

Don Walsh Jr was the first round opponent. He is an NMRA Pro 5.0 heavy hitter and the crowd went nuts when Emilio took the win light on him. That was the first win and received the $1000 cash. 2nd round was the most amazing driving anybody had ever seen. The Duster was in the left lane against another Mopar. We were going all in with the money no matter what. In the negotiation circle the other driver only wanted to go $500 and the crowd of over 25,000 was chanting many not so nice things when they wouldn’t match our bet. So we went $500. The car broke lose about 60 feet out and was crossed up in the blue paint aiming towards the centerline. He shifted that thing and stayed in it. I don’t know how but that thing straightened right out and ran him down for round 2 win against a gorgeous 1970 Charger. Final 4 was against a great bunch of guys with a first gen Camaro. These guys were awesome and went all in for $1000 as did we. The driver just a few weeks ago had 6 stints put in his heart. Dead nuts race all the way down until Emilio dropped the hammer in 5th gear and pulled on him through the stripe. The tower announced the win our way by .003 !!!

Finals ended up being against a G-Force transmission Mustang that was a 4 speed clutchless against our smallblock 5 speed with clutch for the best 2 out of 3. 1st round right lane loss. The crowd as did our team thought the Mustang jumped and things got pretty heated on the starting line. We watched a quick deliberation by the All Out team and they awarded the Mustang the win and stated that he rolled while loading the clutch and was just dead on the arm drop. We applauded that team for the effort and even tried with hand clapping and hand gestures to calm the crowd down. No turning off the cars. They had to come down the return road and immediately into the water boxes for the next runs. 2nd round left lane. Side by side all the way to 1000 foot and again 5th gear pulled hard and turned on the win light. Now it is all tied up 1-1. Final run we’re in the right lane again. Same thing. Had to run him down and Emilio said that another 5th gear pull got him by a fender for all the marbles. The crowd was going insane.

Emilio walked away with $13,500 in cash, plus a $8500 Napa tool chest loaded with tools. And of course the prestige of being crowned Pinks All Out Champ. Two more pics after the jump, plus you can see a ton of pics from the weekend at GoneDragRacing.com. And check out this video, too–the final round starts at about 5:45. Congrats Emilio!!!

Continue reading "Emilio Wins It All on Pinks All Out!!!" »

Emilio’s Duster is sporting a new tranny, new hood, new tires and wheels for 2008. It has its first outing of the season at the Mopar Atlantic Nationals on May 17-18, where it ran consistent 9.80s. Just one more event to get it all dialed in before it appears on Pinks All Out on July 25-26 2008!   

Dazed and Confused is one of my favorite movies, and it’s also one of my favorite car movies. It doesn’t have a lot in the way of car chases, but it has a ton of cool cars which help to establish various characters and move the action forward. The two main car stars are the 1973 Duster driven by Ben Affleck’s character, and the 1970 Chevelle SS 454 driven by Matthew McConaughey’s character. If you haven’t seen it, or if it’s been a while, be sure it add it to your Netflix queue. I dropped in a few more pics after the jump, and you can see them all over at IMCDB.com.

Continue reading "Cars of Dazed and Confused" »

Rob already blogged this sweet Duster, so other than saying it’s awesome that there are classics this original rolling around, and reiterating that Serge knows how to take a picture, I don’t feel I have a lot to add. Congrats man! This is one hell of a ride!

Check out Serge’s 1970 Duster. First of all, this guy definitely knows how to take a photo. This is a very original 4 speed 340 car–down to the carb, alternator and radiator–with all factory documentation. I think we can all forgive him for adding the hood scoops, though.

Despite the close match between our muscle car-contestants in last week’s very heated Face Off, the battle yielded another lop-sided victory, this time for Emilio’s Duster! Congratulations, man—you’ll get a free set of tires for that tough ride from Discount Tire.

With this week’s Face Off, the muscle war rages on. We’ve got Jim’s supercharged 1250-hp Nova up against Emilio’s 9-second Duster. Both cars have extensively documented builds, and both are extremely tough—but only one can win a free set of tires from Discout Tire. Cast your vote now!