1970 Dodge Challenger Found at the Pawn Shop Hides Daytona Surprise Under the Hood.

Barn and storage unit finds are quite common nowadays, but you won’t see too many American classics emerge out of a pawn shop. It’s also the last place you’d look for a vintage Hemi V8 engine, but this 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T is proof that it can happen.

Documented by YouTube’s “Auto Archaeology,” this Challenger is no longer in original form. The muscle car left the factory with a 383-cubic-inch (6.3-liter) V8 under the hood and with a Go Mango paint job. Traces of the latter can be seen under the hood and in the trunk, where the black paint was applied properly.

The history is the car is a bit foggy. The Challenger was picked up from a pawn shop, which posted it on Craiglist after the owner who pawned it couldn’t repay the load. This happened a few years ago, so what you see in the video is an improved version of the car, sporting newer wheels and a slightly refreshed engine.

Speaking of which, the mill is the most spectacular detail about this car. Because it’s not a period-correct 383 replacement or a modern crate engine. Nope, this R/T hides a 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) Hemi under the hood. One that was sourced from a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona.

There is no info as to how the Daytona Hemi got in there, but the current owner says the 426 V8 was rebuilt and put into the Challenger sometime in 1980. Based on the fact that it came with racing slicks from the pawn shop, it’s safe to assume that whoever did the swap raced the pony car at the drag strip. If that’s the case, it’s amazing that it has soldiered on until 2022.

Finding a Hemi in a 1970 Dodge Challenger isn’t all that strange though. Dodge offered the muscle car with the race-inspired engine in both 1970 and 1971. The mill was factory rated at 425 horsepower. The 426 Hemi in the street-legal Charger Daytona, sold in 1969 only, had an identical mill.

Check out this somewhat unlikely Challenger in the video below. By the way, it belongs to the same guy who has a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 Super Cobra Jet that spent almost 50 years in storage.