Kent Steinkamp’s Story

My father was sheriff for this county since 1959 and all those years until he retired in 1983 he drove only Dodges. So you can understand where my passion for Mopars comes from. But in 1970 it hits the peak of performance in the police station. 

I need to start out by telling you that they would use their personal cars for work, and the county would pay them mileage. There were never any requirements on what kind of car you had to buy. So when my father bought a 1968 R/T Coronet in the summer of 1968 it got the ball rolling. His hotshot deputy couldn't let him out do him so he bought a 1968 R/T Coronet also. Well they normally traded every two years. My father went to the 1970 new Dodge announcement show in Kansas City with the Dodge dealer in town in 1969. By this time they all wanted to get in the act and you can see by the pictures they did it in a big way.

The green Charger R/T is my father, it had a 440 magnum/auto. The purple Charger R/T was the hot shots car, 440 magnum/auto. And the last car is the other deputy’s car, hemi orange 440-magnum/auto Coronet R/T. All three of these cars came on the same carrier at the Dodge dealer. There was no one, and I mean no one that out ran these guys for two years. Like always they got traded in on some thing else in 1972. My father’s car got sold to two or three people till the last time I saw it on a car lot in 1976.

Well that fast-forwards us to 1998 when my son, Bryan was fourteen. It was time to start look for a car for him. He wanted a Charger even though I had a nice Challenger R/T ready to restore. So I told him if we were going to get a Charger it had to be a 1970 like his grandfathers. To make it short there is a picture of his Charger just after we got it done by his sixteenth birthday. Now he is twenty-one.

But to add to the story just last November I get a call from a young lady that wants to sell a green Charger. She got my name from the local Chrysler dealer. Them knowing I am a Mopar freak. After calling and talking, I came to the conclusion that is had to be my father’s old car. After close inspection it definitely was his car. So thirty years later it’s back in the family with my name on the title. The car was a very early production date being built on the eighth of August with Chargers starting on the first of August. That might explain why it came with a Dana and six pack skid plate with the auto trans. My father loaded it down with air, cruise, auto, and his favorite option the gator grain top. You can see in the pictures the car is very complete except for the number matching block, (I have some leads where it might be). The car sat in a shed from 1983 till 2003 never being ran. The young lady I purchased it from only had it a year and she wanted to paint it orange. The car only being forty miles away from me the whole time.

Pictures next page

Father’s Charger R/T in 1969

Father’s Charger R/T in 2005

Deputy’s Charger R/T in 1969

Deputy’s Coronet R/T in 1969

Father’s Charger R/T in 2005

Bryan’s 1970 Charger 500