Well a few weeks ago work took me into the APY Lands, you all know how much of a car chaser I am so along with work I planned on a bit of a car and part hunt.
I will start out by advising that there is/was a Valiant Charger at a community called Kanpi (50kls south of sa/nt border & 120kls east of wa/sa border), I had seen and inspected the vehicle on previous trips, the body is shagged but had a decent interior with all trims and a tacho dash, So with the plan of bringing the entire car home (after obtaining permision) I loaded up with trailer, wheels wheel nuts winch, tools, oxy set, tie downs and a jack.
I headed out on a Sunday morning, the plan was to drive the 370kls of sealed road, then head into the bush, this would leave me with 200 of dirt to reach Kanpi, I had spoken to the store manager and had organised to lock the trailer up at his house. I left home at 10am which got me to Kanpi at 4pm, I told teh store guy to expect me at about 4. Here is a picture with trailer in tow.
I went straight to the store and unloaded the trailer then figured I would go to the dump and check on the Charger, well disapointment set in as I drove into teh dump, I could see that they had had a tidy up in teh community and there was an extra 20 or so cars in there, and at some stage teh kids had torched them, well the cars where all lined up and teh charger was at the end of teh line, so now the interior was burnt out, "FU@K".
Now I am pissed off and thinking I will have dragged this trailer 1000kls (round trip) for nothing, I then remebered about an old EK ute that I had also chased permission to drag home, it would add about 100kls of dirt road but 100kls less sealed road.
I then continued on my way to Kalka (50kls south of sa/nt border & 5kls east of wa/sa border, I offcourse stopped along the way and checked cars as I went, well stupid me (now that I had no trailer) decided I would drive to any cars I spotted. The roads had been recently graded and there was a 5 foot high ridge of loose dirt on road edges, still fuming over the Valiant I drove over 1 of the edges without checking first and got "Beached as Bro"
These pics where taken after I had tried to dig it out for about 1.5 hrs, when I first got stuck the L/H front wheel was about 18 inches above the ground, anway after all that digging I figured I would be there another 2 hors of digging, so I pulled out the sat phone and rang a nurse at Pipalyatjara (near Kalka) She was only about 30kls away, when she arrived it was just a case of attaching the snatch strap, 1 tug and it was out.
I stayed overnight at Kalka and would be for a few nights so I got teh house all cleaned up and organised etc, next mornng I had to drive to Pip clinic (10 kls away), there are 2 ways to Pip from Kalka, I decided to take the back road as it is generally less corrugated, I have travelled this road about 10 times but spotted a car I have not noticed before, it was a long way (150 metres) from the road edge, I spotted the color and some painted on stripes, as I was getting closer I realised it was a Charger.
This is what I found when I got there.
The ducktail on my Charger is a little rusted and dented so I decided to cut the back off this one out.
I then checked it out a little more, Number 54 of the line, so she was an early one.
