1968 Dodge Charger Gets First Wash After 30 Years in Storage

By Brett Foote - May 7, 2025

The 96-year-old owner of this 1968 Dodge Charger was eager to get it back on the road, and luckily, he got the help he needed.

By now, it might seem like every barn find out there has, well, been found, but that isn’t exactly the case. Rather, we continue to see folks discover old muscle cars hiding away in barns, storage units, garages, and various other places, just collecting dust for decades until someone saves them. In that realm, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a good old fashioned barn find receive its first good cleaning in decades, and that’s precisely the case with this 1968 Dodge Charger featured in a recent video from AMMO NYC.

This type of thing is quite common for the folks at AMMO NYC, which routinely detail old barn finds and neglected rides, but this 1968 Dodge Charger is a special case for various reasons. For starters, it’s owned by a 96-year-old man named Peter, though it’s been sitting in a storage facility for 30 years. His neighbor tipped them off to its presence, after which they headed over to take a good look at it – and bring it back to life.

Peter had previously done quite a bit of work to his vintage muscle car, even upgrading the original engine to a 440 V8 with six-pack carbs. At this point, he wants to clean up the old Charger and get it running, a process that starts with some difficulty as the brakes are locked up. They manage to get it loaded up on a flatbed, however, and soon, the Charger is back in the shop and getting its first wash in decades.

After power washing off 30 years of dirt and grime from its single-stage red paint, AMMO NYC proceeds to use different types of soap to clean it without scratching the surface, followed by power washing the engine bay and undercarriage. Rather than go with the original wheels and worn out tires, they also decided to surprise Peter by giving the 1968 Dodge Charger some new American Racing wheels wrapped with Vredestein Quatrac Pro rubber.

The interior is quite moldy, which requires some special attention, as well as a whole heck of a lot of scrubbing. A full paint correction brings the exterior back to life in a satisfying way, and AMMO NYC enlisted the folks at Ace Performance to do some mechanical work – rebuild the carb, replace the fuel system, install new plugs, an ignition, and various other parts, which help the 440 roar back to life. Needless to say, Peter is thrilled with his car’s rebirth, making all of that work well worth it.