Car of the Week: 1974 Dodge Charger SE
At 20 years old, Steven Mastey knew what he wanted, a black and white Charger with a 4-speed. He stuck to his guns and is enjoying it now more than ever.
Steven Mastey is glad he was stubborn enough back when he was 20 years old to order the exact car he wanted, regardless of what anybody else thought.
Forty-nine years later he still has his black 1974 Dodge Charger SE, and he still feels the same way.
“I was 20 and I saw a ‘73 [Charger] in the area — black and white — so that’s what I wanted. It wasn’t decked out like this one. It was the only one I’ve seen since then — his and this one. I even went to MoPar Nationals and there were no black-and-white ones."
Even his uncle, who sold cars at a local dealership, tried to talk Mastey out of his purchase.
“I went to a Pulaski [Wis.] dealership, and it’s my uncle Jim [who works there] and I told him what I wanted and he said, ‘I’ve got two Chargers in the showroom, why don’t you take one of them? Is said, ‘Well, they’re not black and white.’ And he said, ‘I haven’t sold a black car in 10 years.’ I said, ‘Well, today you’re going to … And I want a four-speed.’ He said, ‘I haven’t sold a four-speed car in 10 years, either.’ He was selling 318 automatics, that’s what people told him they wanted.”
So Mastey got his ’74 SE in black with a flashy Aztec interior, white vinyl top, four-speed and 400 four-barrel V-8. The final bill was more than $4,700. He hasn’t regretted it for one day or any of the 96,400 miles the car has traveled the past 49 years.
“If you were going to spend $5,000 on a car that era, you get what you wanted,” he chuckles. “That’s the way I looked at it.”
Mastey drove the ‘74 year-round for two decades, then parked it for another two decades while he got ready to restore it. The project languished for months and Mastey finally had to change restorers.
“I had a guy who started on it to do a complete frame-off restoration,” he says. “He got like a year into it and got divorced and sold his business and gave me the car back, in pieces!"
“But I got it done and I’m glad I did. I plan on driving it and I’m glad I got it done before I couldn’t drive it — before I got too old! [laughs].”
Generation 3: Charging ahead
The iconic Charger was in the fourth and final year of its third generation in 1974. It was no longer the awesome muscle machine of years past, but then no other former American muscle monsters were, either. But the handsome Dodge was certainly still an attractive, popular car in 1974. The SE, with a base price of $3,742, was the fanciest and most expensive of the Chargers, with its louver-ish rear quarter windows, vinyl roof treatment and other upscale goodies. Of the 74,376 Chargers built for 1974, 30,957 were SE models, with all carrying V-8 power.
The Hemi, 440 and R/T Chargers had been retired after 1971, but there was still a nice list of options and engine choices available for Charger buyers. The standard Charger continued as the base trim level and included all federally mandated safety and pollution equipment; 225-cid Slant Six (or 318-cid V-8) engine; cigarette lighter; dual horns; color-keyed carpeting; inside day/night mirror; roof drip rail and wheelwell moldings; and two-speed windshield wipers. Option boxes that frequently got checked included power steering, power disc brakes, tinted glass, air conditioning, sunroof, vinyl roof, two-tone paint, AM radio, AM/FM radio, buckets seats and a console.
Along with plenty of options, their were also plenty of colors available for Charger buyers. Customers had their choice of Dark Frost, Powder Blue, Lucerne Blue, Starlight Blue, Bright Red, Frosty Green, Deep Sherwood, Avocado Gold, Parchment, Aztec Gold, Dark Moonstone, Sienna, Dark Chestnut, Eggshell White, Black, Top Banana, Yellow, Golden Fawn, Yellow Blaze, Golden, Dark Gold, Bahama Yellow, Orange, and Rally Green.
The Charger Rallye option included all the standard Charger features plus front and rear sway bars; F70–14 raised white letter black sidewall tires; power bulge hood; Rallye instrument cluster; body tape stripes; hood pins and special exterior ornamentation.
The Charger SE had been an option package on Chargers for 1969-70, but became a separate model for 1971. It had the Landau vinyl top with six opera windows; electric clock; concealed headlights; inside hood release; belt and rear hood moldings; front stone shield molding; Deluxe wheel covers; front bench seat with folding center armrests, Light Group; Rallye instrument cluster; and F78-14 black sidewall tires.
The pedestrian 150-horse 318 was the base engine, but two- and four-barrel 360-cid V-8s were popular choices. They were rated at 200 and 245 hp, respectively. A 400-cid two-barrel (205 hp), 400-cid four-barrel (250 hp) and four-barrel 440 V-8 (275) hp were also available for those who weren’t looking to conserve gas.
The 340 was also dropped for 1974, and there were a few other minor changes to the SEs. The interior grains and patterns were altered slightly, and the rubber bumper tips were enlarged, but the ’73s and ’74s were still hard to tell apart. A three-speed manual transmission was standard, but a four-speed pistol-grip Hurst unit was on the options list. The Torsion-Quiet Ride suspension setup introduced in 1973 returned for ’74, and disc brakes were standard on the front.
20 on, 20 off!
Mastey fixed a few things over the years when his Charger was still his daily driver. He replaced a front fender when it began to rust out. Ditto on the trunk lid, which also suffered from the ravages of Wisconsin winters. But he says the interior was in great shape and he never had any mechanical problems.
Eventually, though, he decided to put his beloved Dodge into semi-retirement and make some tough decisions.
“It had about 80,000 miles on it and I decided to park it, and that’s when I started going to car shows and looking for parts to restore it,” he says. “So for 20 years it sat in my brother’s shed. Of course, a tornado went through and took the shed down, and it dropped a pole on the front fender, on the driver’s side. It was just a fender, so it wasn’t that bad. But I wished it had been the passenger side because I had replaced the one on the driver’s side once before!”
After his first restorer fell through, Mastey had to find somebody he was sure could do a complete job and see the project to the end. He found one in Big 3 Performance in nearby Green Bay, Wis.
“I talked to him and he gave me the impression right off the bat that he wanted to do the car. It wasn’t just going to be a job. So I went with them and they did a fantastic job.”
In addition to getting bodywork, new paint, new vinyl top and another cosmetic goodies he could manage to replace, Mastey also decided to replace the flashy Aztec interior. It’s certainly one of the most unique aspects of the car, and even though the original upholstery was still nice, Mastey wanted the car to look new again inside and out.
“I found out that the ’74 is not the most wanted, so the aftermarket doesn’t make a lot of parts,” he noted. “Like the ’71, you can build a car with aftermarket parts, but not this one. So I had to find used parts, and that was interesting.”
He said new fenders, doors and rearview mirrors were particularly hard to find.
The car still carries the AM/FM radio, power steering and tachometer that were all optional when Mastey bought the car new. He had the thin white racing stripes re-done when the car was repainted.
“The only thing that’s different on it from the day I drove it home from the dealership is it’s got air conditioning in it now — Vintage Air,” he says. “Otherwise it’s identical to when I got it.”
Mastey isn’t kidding when he says he restored the ’74 SE to drive it and have fun. He drove it 1,200 miles round trip a year ago to a national meet in Columbus, Ohio. He says it was smooth sailing all the way.
“You can let go of the steering wheel and it will go straight. It drives excellent,” he says. “My son was going also to Ohio. He’s got a 2010 Challenger. He said ‘You going to be able to run 80 mph?’ And I said ‘I don’t think I want to’ … So he says ‘You just leave a day earlier.’ And so that’s what I did. That way I could run my speed, and he could run his.”
Mastey knows the ’74s might never get the same attention and adoration as the earlier Chargers. He’s just fine with that.
“When I go to a car show it’s inevitable a ’68, ‘69 or ‘70 will park next to me [laughs]. That’s what people are looking for and those are beautiful cars,” he says. “But that was before my time. I didn’t have the cash and I was still in school!”
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