{"id":29002,"date":"2019-10-27T06:30:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T10:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=29002"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:23:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:23:56","slug":"on-the-wings-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/owners-clubs\/2019\/10\/on-the-wings-of-love.html","title":{"rendered":"On the Wings of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"driver<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We can only imagine the look on Dee Swanson\u2019s face when her husband Carl pulled up in the driveway of their tiny duplex in Pensacola, Florida, in a brand-new 1969 Charger Daytona. On that fateful day in April of 1970, Dee had no idea that Carl took her 1968 Pontiac LeMans and used it as partial trade-in on a left-over Dodge Charger Daytona that had been sitting on the local Dodge dealer\u2019s lot for many months. \u201cI was teaching high school English and was sitting on the sofa in our duplex grading papers, when I heard this rumbling in the carport. The entire duplex was trembling,\u201d reflected Dee. She can thank the Charger Daytona\u2019s standard 440 Magnum V8 that pumped out 375 horsepower for making the ground shake and announcing its arrival. \u201cWhen I rushed to the door, I saw the Charger Daytona for the first time, and my reaction was not what Carl had expected,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat is that?!?\u201d Dee screamed to Carl in an angry and agitated tone of voice. \u201cIt\u2019s our new car,\u201d said a very excited and proud Carl. Dee was not happy as she was six months pregnant with their first child, but she didn\u2019t really have the energy to argue much further with Carl on how he was able to sell Dee\u2019s Pontiac without her permission. Eventually, the fuss died down among the Swanson household and Dee learned to live with a car despite its long nose cone and four-foot wing on the back. She was, after all, married to a naval aviator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first few years, the Charger Daytona did not sit well with\nDee. She did nickname it \u201cGoldie\u201d, but there was still no love affair with the\n\u201cWinged Thing\u201d that sat in her driveway. Being the wife of a naval officer, Dee\nknows that orders from the command can comes at any time. And just like that,\nshe and Carl packed up their belongings and left Pensacola for Pearl Harbor for\na new assignment. With Carl serving his country at sea, Dee spent a lot of time\nwith the wives of other officers serving away from home and still recalls an\nincident with the Charger Daytona she\u2019s never forgotten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the wife of one of the junior\nofficers onboard the ship, I was frequently asked to serve as the driver for\nvarious wives’ events. On more than one occasion, Goldie left us stranded\noutside a restaurant or tourist site while she cooled down before taking us\nhome. Because of the limited air intake of the Daytona\u2019s nose, her coping\nskills for driving in a warm climate were non-existent, so while she happily\ntransported us to a wives’ function in the early morning, required a reprieve\nbefore returning us safely home in the afternoon,\u201d reminisced Dee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"old<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The reason behind creating the Charger\nDaytona was to win in NASCAR. The Dodge and Plymouth camps had their butts\nhanded to them by the Ford and Mercury teams in their fastback Torino\nTalladega\u2019s and Cyclone Spoilers. The Blue Oval team had been cleaning house\nfor most of the 1969 racing season, especially on the super speedways that saw\nspeeds getting precariously close to the 200 mph. The man in charge of Dodge,\nBob McCurry, greenlighted the Charger Daytona program when the engineers told\nhim it would win races. The Daytona would also have to be available to the\ngeneral public for NASCAR to bless the car and just over 500 street units were\nbuilt to make it legal for competition and satisfy the NASCAR tech inspectors. Lucky\nfor Carl, not so much for Dee, he bought one of these unique machines for the\nfamily car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"man<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Swansons were one of the few Charger\nDaytona owners that hung on to their rare piece since new. As Dee mentioned, living\nwith the \u201cWinged Thing\u201d for years and driving it daily had its challenges; but\neventually, she\u2019d develop a fondness for the odd-looking car that was easy to\nfind in a crowded parking lot. For what they paid for it new, the Charger\nDaytona has appreciated much more than any 401K or retirement fund. And for\nCarl and Dee Swanson, there\u2019s no price they can put on the memories they\u2019ve\namassed over the decades with the Charger Daytona. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough\nthe years, I have come to love and, yes, even appreciate this dear old gal. As\nCarl mentioned, we brought all three of our newborns home from the hospital in Goldie;\nwe have made several cross-country trips as we changed duty stations, and we\nhave enjoyed attending car shows and driving on various racetracks,\u201d reflected\nDee. \u201cAs I have said to others, I cannot truthfully say that I love Goldie, but\nI do love the man who loves her. He calls it his \u2018time machine\u2019 because when he\nsits behind her wheel, he is transported to another time – when he had more\nhair, less girth and a lifetime of opportunities ahead. What more can a man\nask for from a car?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"man<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With Carl\u2019s navy promotions came new assignments and packing everything up heading off to a new posting. Unlike furniture and other material possessions that were left behind, lost or even thrown out, the Charger Daytona survived the many moves the Swansons endured. So thank you, Dee and Carl Swanson, for hanging on not just to a part of your family\u2019s past, but also a big part of Dodge\u2019s history!<\/p>\n\n\n\n