When most people think of their first love, the thought is usually when someone realizes that they were in love with their significant other. A first love often implies one finding that they see themselves resonate within another person and that they can imagine themselves spending the rest of their life with that person. For Greg Arens though, his first love was his 1970 Dodge Challenger. Greg grew up working on a farm near Chico California and when he was young he decided that he wanted to save up the money he was making on the farm to buy his first car. So in 1989 when Greg was thirteen years old he had saved up enough money to get a car from a near by family that had two cars for him to choose from. He picked his Challenger because he liked the style and the blue paint. So Greg being only thirteen, stacked up four phone books on the seat to see over the dash and drove his new Challenger back home.

Now as Greg had his Challenger he started to do things that a lot of us would do as young car enthusiasts. He would challenge his friends in their trucks to see who could go through mud the furthest before getting stuck or, channeling his inner Dukes of hazard he would take his car over jumps. But that’s not to say that Greg didn’t take car of his car; lets remember it was his first love after all. When Greg got his Challenger the paint and the interior were fairly rough. So he and his father made a handshake deal that one would pay to fix the paint and the other would pay for the interior. Greg chose to pay for the paint keeping it the original B5 blue.

When growing up Greg had to quickly learn how to work on his car and keep it running. He says how his dad and him would go to the auto parts store and would get what he needed to fix the car and that if he didn’t get it running he would have to walk back home, Greg ended up walking only once.

In 1996 Greg let his brother take the Challenger out one night and unfortunately the car was crashed and totaled. Greg wasn’t going to let this be the end of the Challenger’s story and began rebuilding and restoring. Greg took his car over to a local collision shop to have the body and frame straightened out. Now being the mid 90’s, parts for his restoration were very hard to find. For example it took Greg nearly five years to find a new hood and new front valance, then another six months for new seat belts. These set backs never stopped Greg and he kept pushing forward to get his car to what he wanted. With this restoration Greg wanted to make some improvements as well. He converted the car to four wheel disc brakes, did a tubular QA1 front end, put a 373 true LSD in the rear, some racing leaf springs and took out the factory 318ci engine for the iconic 440 six pack.

The build continued on the Challenger and Greg kept improving it. The engine was built with flat top pistons with 10:1 compression and a Voodoo camshaft with 513/533 lift and 276/284 duration. The transmission is a 727 torque glide with a 2800 stall converter. Also Greg went with Flowtech headers and a 3 inch exhaust with electric cutouts giving the exhaust a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Now upon the first start up and drive Greg realized something was wrong. The heads were off of a 1975 engine and didn’t live up to what Greg had wanted. So Greg swapped them for some Indy heads and got an aluminum Edelbrock intake manifold that he ported himself. Greg also swapped out as many parts as he could with aluminum parts. He wanted to build a street car that has good power but that he can cruise with too, and with an estimated 550 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque he has accomplished this.

Greg built this Challenger in his barn, taking his time to make sure everything was up to his standard. With this intense attention to detail the car was ready for its true maiden voyage around 2012. With Greg eager to drive it, he went 110 miles on his first cruise. To this day Greg has kept that awesome B5 blue paint, the white interior (which is currently being restored), and the factory air conditioning. Before the Challenger was even finished Greg took it to a car show in Willows and won an award for best stock car.

These days Greg has multiple cars and multiple projects that he works on. One such project is his 1964 Valiant, which is a full on race car with its absolute monster 588ci blown hemi making 1500hp on 110 octane and has been certified to run six seconds in a quarter mile (this car will be a story for another time). However another car in his garage is a 2009 Challenger SRT8 that Greg bought so that when his son comes of age he can have it, and make the same life long connection that Greg has, with his Challenger. Talking with Greg about his Challenger and it’s story was an absolute joy for me and I look forward to seeing how far his car goes and what other projects Greg takes on. Greg has a near encyclopedic knowledge of old and new Mopars, and it goes to show that he is a true Mopar guy. For Greg his Challenger was his first love, and a love that he never gave up on. Through thick and thin he has stuck with his car and because of his love for it, he now has a deep appreciation for Mopar and is going to pass this down to his son who will keep the family tradition alive for many generations.

Please enjoy this video of Greg and his dad starting the Challenger for the first time after the 440 swap and all the pictures below.