Categories: Features

Meanwhile, Joe Zolper built a Badass 1969 Daytona Door Slammer

9 Years and 2,500 Horsepower Later, the Car is Ready for the Strip

It was nine years ago Joe Zolper accepted a gutted 1968 Dodge Charger as payment for painting a friend’s semi. Back then, the deal wasn’t that good, but you took what you could get to chase your dream. In Joe’s case, he dreamed of owning a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona. With prices soaring into the heavens, the chances of the master fabricator bringing one home were slim, but this rotting Charger gave him an idea: build one.

The car came into Joe’s life at the perfect time. Facing some personal hardships, he believed a big project could carry him through and keep his mind off the troubles. When the Mopar landed in his shop, the tear down began. Word of his endeavor spread quickly in the racing community of his hometown Joliet and around the high-octane burning Midwest. The naysayers started their chants.

Photos Courtesy Joe Zolper

I had a lot of people telling me, ‘You can’t do it, you don’t know how to build a race car, you don’t know what you’re doing,’’ Joe says. “And the truth of the matter is, that’s all the motivation I needed.”

Between building cars for customers, hosting Garage Squad for the last 6 seasons and supporting his wife Jenny and daughter Ruby in their own drag racing careers, Joe had to make extra time to wrench on the Daytona. Weekends often consisted of buying, selling and trading parts until he had the perfect recipe for victory. The mismatched components resulted in a build made of all used parts that cost pennies on the dollar compared to what most people might spend on similar vehicles. Though, there is nothing similar to this Daytona. As Joe says, he wanted to build a car that was one of one from the very beginning. 

He did just that. Joe stuffed a 512 ci aluminum block Hemi with a 1471 Kobelco blower in the car. He massaged a cool 2,500 horsepower out of it, which is delivered to a 3 speed Lenco and a fabricated 9 ½ inch Ford style rear end. Built on a 25.1E cert chassis, the steel body car with fiberglass doors and fenders is geometrically correct to the original 503 Charger Daytonas built in 1969 to satisfy NASCAR rules to get the car on the stock track. The only exception here, two inches were cut from the front fenders to ensure a snug fit under the hood.

During the build Joe had to pull the motor eight times before he was finally able to fire it up. But when the day came to finally turn the key on the Hemi in May 2019, he made sure his friends and family who supported him were there to hear it rumble to life. Per Joe’s count, 36 people had a hand in building this car, and he knows he couldn’t have done it without them. He makes special note of his wife, daughter and his friend Bobby Churchill who offered a helping hand to Joe from the very beginning.

Joe Zolper on the set of Garage Squad

As Joe gathered the crowd, a chill ran through his body. This start-up reminded him of the similar moments in Garage Squad when the owner hears their own car run for the first time in years. The main difference here, Joe poured blood, sweat and tears into this car for nearly a decade and had never heard a peep from it. Turning the key wouldn’t result in a peep though. The Daytona’s massive roar would drown out the haters who had long said Joe would never finish the build. Its six second quarters zipped the lips of any remaining s*&! talkers.

“When we started the car I was trying not to cry. I’m a grown ass man, but you know after nine years…” Joe says, wiping at his eyes. “All my friends were there that helped me build it, all my family that supported me. When we started it, that was pretty moving for me.”

Now Joe will really be moving. 

Drive History Every Day – Muscle Car – $21.99
Brian Corey

Recent Posts

April 24, 1957 – Origins of the Nissan Skyline

Prince Skyline. By I, 天然ガス, CC BY-SA 3.0 When it comes to JDM cars, one…

2 days ago

April 23, 1947 – The 1,000,000th Packard is built

1947 Packard Super Custom (Not the actual 1,000,000th Packard. By Rex Gray- fvr2, CC BY…

3 days ago

April 22, 1996 – Mercedes SLK class debuts at Turin

Since its inception, the Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class (R170) has epitomized the essence of a compact luxury…

4 days ago

April 21, 1983 – C4 Corvette is introduced

The C4 Chevrolet Corvette, which debuted nationally on this day in 1983, marked a significant…

5 days ago

April 16, 2014: Mazda Honors a Quarter-Century of Driving Joy with the 25th Anniversary MX-5 Miata

By Alexander-93 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132180377 On April 16, 2014, the vibrant…

1 week ago

April 15, 1964 – Who bought the first Mustang?

On this day in 1964, two days before the official Ford Mustang on-sale date, one…

2 weeks ago