ARTICLE

sales@girardinclassics.com

$32,000

$12,000

$25,000

$24,000

Classics

The muscle behind muscle car collecting

This Hobby is not for the faint of hearts

by Fred Langan

Tony Girardin is scaring the daylights out of me, or maybe it's the car he's driving, a 1970 Plymouth Cuda with a 340 V8 pumping out about 300 horsepower.

What is terrifying is the acceleration -- we must have exceeded the speed limit in the bat of an eye -- in such an innocuous-looking, 38-yearold car. And, if the speed isn't enough, Girardin's description of the Cuda's limitations make even a car nut like me a bit edgy.

"These cars were made to go super-fast in a straight line. It will outrun all but the fastest modern-day sports cars," says Girardin, who is at the wheel of one his family's collection of Chrysler muscle cars. "But they are not great in the corners and the brakes aren't what you're used to in a modern car."

The engine has an incredible sound, more like that of a powerboat with an inboard V8 than a car. Plus, the Cuda has some macho touches from the '60s era -- the 340 we are taking for a spin has a pistol grip shifter for the four-speed transmission.

Girardin is a documentary filmmaker who spends part of his time looking after his father's collection of some 20 muscle cars. Andre Girardin started in business as a mechanic who later turned the family garage into a Chrysler dealership in a small town near Drummondville, east of Montreal.

The Girardins expanded into school buses and, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Andre Girardin used to travel across Quebec selling yellow buses. He always drove a Dodge or Plymouth muscle car with a 426 Hemi V8.

"And he usually painted them school bus yellow," explains Tony Girardin. His father is away for the summer. He has left behind a spotless garage that looks like a showroom for 40-yearold Chrysler muscle cars.

That paint job came in handy when the Girardins went in search of one of Andre's favourite cars from the era, a 1970 426 Hemi Cuda. He looked up the serial numbers in the Chrysler registry and, after a 10-year search, found the car he thought he had once owned. It was when he scraped off the paint and found the school bus yellow colour -- a shade not offered by Chrysler -- that he knew he had the right car.

Hemi V8 engines were a $900 option in the 1970 Cuda, almost 25% of the car's original price. Few people bought them. That year, there were only 44 Hemi Cudas sold in Canada. Not many survive.

Muscle cars from the late 1960s and early 1970s are just about the most collectible and valuable American cars of the post-war era.

"They've gone up tremendously in the last five years as Baby Boomers buy the cars that remind them of their youth," says Tony Girardin.

A 1970 Hemi Cuda is worth at least $200,000, a mint one maybe double that, although the ongoing near-recession in the United States has meant a fall in prices for muscle cars.

The Girardin collection is one of the most unique in Canada, ranging from a 1962 Dodge convertible with a large V8 and a push-button transmission to the Hemi Cuda that's now being restored. Most of the cars are Chargers, Cudas and Challengers. There is one with a "gator grain" vinyl roof, another rare option. The showroom is so clean there are drip papers under the engines to catch any oil drops. There is a full workshop, complete with hoist and neatly packaged spare parts.

Andre Girardin is a careful shopper. He looks for numbers-matching cars, finding most in speciality magazines and on eBay. He also scours the Internet for original parts for his big-engine Chryslers and does a lot of the work himself, along with his neighbour Steve Yergeau, a retired electrician.

After the first energy crisis of 1973, the Big Three stopped making muscle cars, which is another reason why they're rare. Yet, despite the big engines, Tony Girardin says the fuel consumption isn't that bad.

"These big engines carry you along at pretty low revs. So the gas mileage is OK as long as you don't do this," he says.

He puts his foot down on the gas pedal, pressing us back into our seats. I try not to look too nervous.