We've all seen our emails this
week about limited sources for interior repops - our friends at Legendary and
Quirey, and issues with SMS - and of course our scrounging for other
unobtainium Letter Car parts. This week I came across the following -
Before the hammer drops, with
cooler breezes blowing in next week, I jumped in my F a couple days ago and
went cruising - 80 miles
out to Mo-Par City in Oregon, IL, to check it out. I've never been there, or
purchased parts from there.
The owner, Larry Pontnack, and I visited for a good
hour. He gave me a partial tour of his 'facility' - mostly 'post-Finned-Era'
early '60s thru later '70s parts, but some earlier ones also. I saw 3
beautiful '68 Charger grilles laying on a bench, a '62 Dodge grille, an
original Army brown painted Chrysler or Dodge grille circa 1942 (when chrome
was off limits and cars sold to the Armed Forces were just painted), and so
many more. Larry's got 6 buildings full of all sorts of parts, and I only saw
inside a couple of them. He said he had bought the inventory from Kishwaukee
in Rockford a number of years ago - 146 Gaylord boxes full of parts - some
that he hasn't yet gone through. One building was chock full of trim parts.
Shelves loaded with motor parts, fans, radios, glass windows, light lenses,
etc. etc. etc.
Though his name wasn't familiar to me, I guess he was
a pretty famous drag racer in the '60s and '70s, and often competed against
Herb McCandless and Ronnie Sox - said he spoke with Herb a few days ago. He
had been invited by Lee Iacocca to go golfing with him back in the day, but
said he didn't golf. Mentioned a story about the Chrysler HQ in Detroit
nicknamed 'The Mall' based on some comment that Iacocca had made that the
building could be turned into a Mall if Chrysler didn't survive. Sounds like
he's still very well connected with Dodge. He’s in a program with Dodge where
they sell Challenger 'shells' for drag racing. Larry said he got a supply of
20 or so of them, and sold all but 2 of them right away. He also had a back
lot full of Mopars of that era, but I didn't get to see those - no finned
cars. He did say he's got a '59 DeSoto coupe, and a really nice front bumper
from a '61 Newport. He showed me the shifter off the stick '61 Newport - said
he sold the trans to Petty. When we were looking at his shelves full of
cylinder heads, he asked me if I was familiar, and I mentioned that my 300
Club buddy John Begian, with Chrysler, would recognize all these. His sweet
spot is A-, B-, later C-, and E-Body Mopars.
Larry's 74 and, after 46 years in business,
is putting all this up for sale in the next very few weeks. I've already sent
an email about this to a few of our friends in Sweden, but not sure they'll be
interested. He knows Murray Park, so I'm guessing he's also discussed this
sale with Murray. He wants to sell all the parts in a single lot to one buyer;
the phone number - 800-426-HEMI - in a separate negotiation, and all the cars
as another lot. He said he'll crush all the cars if he can't find a buyer,
though he commented that he would really hate to do this.
If you have any ideas of a possible buyer -
.....
Noel Hastalis
Burr Ridge, IL
F coupe
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