Hi! My name is MoparCurt, better known as Rollen Thunder!
When I was 10 years old in St Joseph, Mo, we played ball in the alley behind the house. From down the alley a half a block or so we would here this Rumble, A Thunder Sound and when it would start up and then we would see this bad and black 1963 Belvedere coming down the alley! It sounded awesome: loud and really mean! I said to my friends one day back then "I will own one of those cars one day" as it was a love at first sight!
Well, it was February 1983 and I was helping my best friend Don ("Hoss") Culwell. We just loved old Mopars and his dad had a couple Mopars too. Don and I go back to the mid 1970's and we loved to work on old cars.
Don owned a 1963 Plymouth Fury called old black in the late 60's and early 70's in Wolf Point, Montana. He loved that car, but he and his wife parted and she sold the car. Well 10 or so years later Don had a new wife and he found another 1963 Plymouth when we were at our auto repair shop in Pomona, CA in 1980. He ended up selling it to our old Mopar friend Scooter, then he came across another one.
This one was a 1964 Plymouth Fury with no motor that he had traded some guy something for it. He had it about a year, and I had a 1964 Dodge Polara that I parked it in a friend's garage. Well the garage fell in on the car! Although it was just a shell with no motor or transmission or rear end, but I was about heart broken over that car, as it was totaled!
Anyway, Hoss and I were wrenchin' on cars and I asked him " what are you going to do with that old ' 64 Plymouth?" He said "I really don't prefer that body style, I like the 1963 body style better."
So...I told him that I would like to have the '64 and we struck a deal. I was to help him R & R a motor & a transmission out of an old pickup truck for the '64. As I had always wanted an old Plymouth since childhood, I got the car...and been hooked ever since!
Meanwhile in the 1980's "Hoss" had purchased a 1965 Belvedere. We took the 361 / two barrel motor out of it and built a radical 383 to put in the '65. I then took the 361 and put it in my 1964 and I drove it this way for about 7-8 years.
But in between this time we were looking for other cars and found: a 1963 Savoy 4 door, a 1963 red Belvedere, a 1964 Plymouth Sport Fury and a 1963 Plymouth Sport Fury.
| The 1964 Fury (shown here at my mom's house in Alta Loma CA in 1993) looked pretty good. |  |
But when it came the time to restore the '64 I changed the car to a Max Wedge clone and I still am not done with the car.
Check out " the fabulous four" in my driveway in 1998! From left to right 1963 Sport Fury, 1964 Sport Fury, 1963 Belvedere and 1964 Fury!
Remember what I realized at 10 years old....So now between my 2 Dodge vans and other cars I own 8 Mopars, including a '63 Plymouth!
As you can see these old cars, well they grow on you, and I am not through looking yet! There ain't no car like a Mopar!
