Mopower Garage

By Fletcher P. Kuykendall                                                                Episode – 8 

It was a sticky, overcast April morning in 1991 when Johnny B. Whiskey, on spring break with a few hours off before work, drove his weathered Dart into the gravel lot of Buster’s Auto Salvage on the edge of town. The car clattered to a halt beside a stack of moldy tires and an upside-down tailgate. Johnny stepped out, a clipboard in hand, his to-do list scrawled in his classic all-caps handwriting. NHRA tech rules had come down hard at the last strip outing. He needed a driveshaft loop, dual throttle return springs, a battery hold-down, and a proper master cutoff switch. Buster’s Salvage had helped before. Hopefully, it would again.

Johnny greeted the counter guy with a nod and signed in before wandering the yard. Rows of crumpled cars stretched before him like tombstones in a rusted graveyard, their stories whispered through cracked windshields and sun-bleached paint. A warm wind carried the scent of motor oil, damp earth, and aged rubber.

He picked through an old Fury for battery hardware, then snagged a throttle bracket off a Satellite. But his eyes always wandered upward. Parts were often easier to find in the stacks, cars piled two or three high, with the best stuff usually on top, spared from years of flooding and varmints.

He climbed onto the trunk of a ’74 Monaco, then hoisted himself up to a battered Plymouth wagon perched above. From there, he could reach a 1970s B-Body that looked like it had been a Charger. Kudzu had nearly swallowed the entire top half, and vines wound in and out of every broken window, hugging the contours of the body like nature trying to reclaim Detroit’s mistake.

Johnny moved slowly, testing each step. The roof creaked but held. He reached the edge and jumped down, aiming for what he thought was solid ground. But instead of the familiar crunch of gravel, he landed on something springy and metallic, with a metallic thunk.

“Oof!” he grunted, his knees slightly buckled. Looking down, the blanket of kudzu had disguised a car hood, not just any hood, beneath the vines. The unmistakable subtle scallops of a 1966-67 Charger peeked through. Heart pounding, Johnny dropped to his knees and began yanking vines away with urgency.

The further he pulled, the more the Charger revealed itself. The faded blue paint, the remnants of R/T badging, and a barely visible red stripe on the quarter panel. His fingers found the edge of the hood latch, and, with a rusty click, it popped.

What he saw next nearly took the wind out of him.

A 426 Hemi sat nestled in the engine bay like a king on a tarnished throne. Twin Carter AFB carbs, a Chrome Dome air cleaner, dented but whole, valve covers intact, spark plug wires still routed neatly—everything was coated in a thin film of dirt, spiderwebs, and time, but it was complete.

Johnny exhaled slowly, reverently closing the hood. He looked around like he’d just discovered buried treasure, and in a way, he had.

With a half-jog, half-sprint, he returned to the front office. The guys inside were busy arguing about a broken soda machine and barely noticed him at first.

“I found something in the back,” Johnny said, trying to keep his voice even. “Old Charger. Big motor. Looked like a 426 Hemi.”

The men stopped mid-conversation.

“You sure?” one of them asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Chrome Dome and all,” Johnny replied, shrugging as nonchalantly as possible.

The manager, a sunburnt man named Roy with a permanent toothpick and an oily baseball cap, gave a dry chuckle. “That blue Charger? That thing’s been back there twenty years. Ain’t no one wanted it. Hood was stuck shut last time I tried. Hell, we forgot it was even back there.”

Johnny tilted his head. “So… what do you want for the engine?”

Roy shrugged. “You pull it, you can have the motor and trans for…three hundred bucks?”

Johnny felt his stomach tighten. “Done.”

“Cash only,” Roy added, turning back to the broken soda machine.

Johnny left a hundred-dollar bill as a deposit and promised to be back Saturday morning.

That weekend, Johnny returned with his dad’s old Chevy pickup, and Jennifer rode shotgun and sipped coffee from a thermos. She didn’t say much, but the smile on her face as they pulled into the yard said everything. She supported him, even when his ideas were nuts, and she was just as curious to see if the Hemi was as good as Johnny hoped.

Buster’s crew brought out the forklift, carefully raising the Charger’s nose off the ground while Johnny and Jennifer worked from underneath. The torsion bars were rusted solid, and one of the K-member bolts snapped like a cracker. But after a few hours, grease to the elbows, and with the help of the shop guys, they pulled the motor and the 4-speed transmission out as a unit.

The engine sagged on the chain momentarily, the Chrome Dome catching the morning light. One of the junkyard guys whistled. “Can’t believe no one noticed this thing before,” he said, shaking his head.

Johnny smiled and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “That’s the magic of Kudzu.”

They gently lowered the engine into the back of the truck, securing it with chains and ratchet straps. Johnny laid an old quilt over it like a blanket, almost like tucking in a sleeping giant.

As they pulled out of the yard, Jennifer leaned her head against the window and grinned.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

Johnny was quiet for a moment.

“Build it. Eventually, maybe not for the Dart—it’s a little much for that car. But this thing deserves something special. Maybe I’ll find a shell to put it in. Something worthy.”

Jennifer nodded. “Or maybe it already found you.”

Johnny looked in the rearview mirror. The quilt-covered Hemi shimmied gently with each bump in the road. The sun peeked through the clouds, casting a golden hue across the gravel road as they turned back toward town.

It wasn’t just another junkyard find. It was destiny wrapped in rust and kudzu.

And Johnny B. Whiskey had just become its keeper.