Dedicated To The Cause

SERGEANT JOHN LIVINGSTON HAS OVERCOME PLENTY OF OBSTACLES IN HIS QUEST TO BUILD THE ULTIMATE ROAD RUNNER

Cam Benty

When you’re good with your hands, you learn to adapt your skills to a wide range of projects. Sergeant John Livingston is a Bradley Fighting Vehicle mechanic by day (that’s an armored vehicle but different from a tank, such as the well-known M1A2 Main Battle Tank), but on weekends and after hours he works on the ultimate 1969 Road Runner. The road to completing this car was lined with challenges the size of bomb craters that would make a tank commander weak in the knees.

Restoring such an amazing car to show-winning perfection requires an incredible amount of time to execute everything from the creation of the high HP stroker engine to the small details that make it a show winner. Beyond the extensive effort required to create a perfect Mopar, Livingston had to pass a test not commonly required of new owners. He had to gain the confidence of the car’s seller and prove that he loved the Vitamin C Orange Mopar as much as he did and that he would not simply build it to make a buck.

“I drove to Yuma, Arizona, about six hours away, to see the car and knew instantly that it was exactly what I was looking for,” Livingston tells us of the purchase process. “The problem was that he didn’t want to sell the car to just anybody. So we went out to eat and talked about the car for a very long time. I really felt like I was being interviewed to determine if I was an acceptable new owner. After a time we agreed on a price and the car was trailered back to my home.”