Collector Motors’ main complaint about everything Mopar is the same complaint that most of us have about muscle cars in general: they’re becoming too hard and too expensive to obtain. It was a Mopar – a ’71 ‘Cuda convertible with the iconic 426 HEMI and 4-speed transmission – that broke the million dolllar mark several years ago, and since then, it seems that all the Chevys and Fords are following suit. Numbers-matching cars are increasingly reaching astronomical levels, making them increasingly harder for the average enthusiast to land.

The promise, then, behind this original 440, 4-speed Plymouth GTX is that one could possibly own this nice piece of Mopar history without having to feel like they are signing, as Collector Motors exclaims, a “twenty year mortgage.”

For every Mopar enthusiast, the prospect of owning an original 440 GTX with 47,500 some-odd miles on the odometer is a thing of epic size.

But this is no pristine numbers-cruncher. First, the 440 option on the GTX is correct, but the block is not numbers-matching; this particular 440 is a revamped motor out of a ’71 car, and has had such aftermarket components thrown into it as a .503″ lift cam, Crane roller rockers, forged pistons and Hedman headers.

The hinged fiberglass hood, of course, is “borrowed” from its more raucous sibling, the A12 44- Six-Barrel Road Runner, and was never available on a factory GTX.

But things get more personal with this GTX, as it uses a shade of orange called “Classic Competition,” not quite the “Vitamin C” or “Plum Crazy” that we’d expect. That’s because the paint, like a lot of other things on this car, are not what most would call “Mopar-compatible,” in fact, the “Competition” color is not on the Mopar menu at all.

The other historical error is in the pistol-grip shifter; the car is a ’69, while the shifter is out of a 1970 car. The rear-view mirrors look like they’re “cheesed-on,” and we would’ve liked to have seen a better selection in wheels, as these look like pieces off of a Silver-Anniversary ‘Vette, fine for a 1978 and later “smog dog,” but definitely not appropriate for a late ’60s specimen of Plymouth street-and-strip.

Nice car otherwise, and while certain things on this GTX don’t make sense to our tastes and sensibilities, it is, as they say, a “laser” straight Mopar with much to offer, whether one is looking for a restoration project or just a cool door-slammer.