Maddened Mopar seller crushes big-block ’70 Charger
Mopar lovers in particular and muscle car fanatics in general are up in arms about a video of a 1970 Charger being gratuitously smashed and mangled out of spite. (Warning: in addition to the unnecessary destruction, the video contains coarse language.)
On October 28, MoparRapidTransit posted the video to YouTube showing Daniel Gagliardi’s decision to destroy his iconic muscle car. Claiming frustration due to a never-ending procession of no-shows when trying to sell his ’70 big-block Charger, he elected to mangle the car rather than let anyone else have it. A front-end loader flattened the roof before using its forked attachment to puncture the fender and quarter panels and collapse the door.
Gagliardi admits in the video he bought the Charger, which had been sitting for years, with the intent of flipping it. His initial asking price—either $10,000 or $8500 depending on the source—may or may not have been in the right ballpark depending on the car’s condition and state of decay, and while the car does appear intact, the video isn’t too flattering either. It would have taken an extensive restoration to bring the car back to full glory, but there were at least some parties interested in getting the car back on the road—even before the clamor rose from the wider audience attracted by the Charger’s wanton destruction.
The folks over at The Drive decided to call Gagliardi and get his side of the story, but it doesn’t make him seem any more rational. Gagliardi said he’d lowered his price and would have taken just about anything to get out from under the car but nobody would show up. Many of the publications that have covered this debacle have suggested alternatives to crushing the car, like donating to a high school automotive program. We could think of dozens of ways the Charger could have made a positive impact, including rolling over Gagliardi’s foot.
The Hagerty editorial team was incensed after watching the video. If the vehicle was that difficult to sell in person, why not put it up on an auction site and let the buyers sort it out? This solution, if you can call it that, has no winners. Hopefully no seller that saw this video will ever sign a pink slip over to Gagliardi and his car-flipping will take a hit. He’s already out the money he’d spent on the car, either $3700 or $4200—again, depending on which version you get from Gagliardi.
The video alone would be disheartening, but the audio is worse. Gagliardi rails on the no-shows in the video, calling them out for not wanting to pay what the car is worth, bragging about the low price he paid for the car: “We got it first. We already robbed it, you can only rob it once.” He follows up with, “Everybody wants to be a car guy ’til it’s time to do car guy s***.”
To us, being a car guy means helping keep the hobby alive and keeping people driving cars, but to Gagliardi it means lining his pockets—or if that fails, making a statement and gloating at taking another classic car out of circulation. At least when the Duke boys did it we got to see some sweet jumps. This is just pathetic.
