Modern muscle cars bring joy to our hearts and it goes without saying that their classic siblings have a similar, if not stronger effect. But what if one wishes to enjoy the styling perks of the retro machines with all the benefits of a contemporary package? Well, re-skinning jobs that see body panels of the first landing on the latter are a bit of a trend these days, with the Dodge Challenger we have here, which is morphing into a Plymouth GTX, being an example as good as any.
This Mopar toy started out in life as a 2010 Challenger R/T, but it got involved in a crash. And its fate changed when it was picked up by Steve Mirabelli, a muscle connoisseur that's currently converting the machine into a third-gen Plymouth GTX.
The conversion has been about two years in the making, which is only natural, given the "day" job and the obsession for details of its builder.
We're talking about Steve Mirabelli, a North Carolina-based gearhead who builds NASCAR Sprint Cup machines for Hendrick Motorsports. Now in his sixties, the car lover mixes fabrication, documentation and artistic skills, as you'll notice by checking out the meticulously documented build via the videos below.
Note that these are just samples (including the first and the most recent clip, with the latter being two weeks old at the time of this writing), since the said interval has seen the man uploading no less than 42 vids.
As you can imagine, enjoying the safety and convenience features of the LX platform together with the iconic classic B-body look requires countless hours of putting the said skills to work. Nevertheless, we can expect the result to be a massive hit, at least judging by the Mopar lover's previous build, a 2006 Dodge Charger SRT8 impersonating the 1969 Daytona - we'll discuss this in a dedicated Speed Shot article soon.
Meanwhile, we can only wonder if the 5.7-liter HEMI occupying the engine compartment will maintain its factory muscle number of 375 ponies.
In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist. Full profile
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