Magnum Historian: Third Time’s a Charm

My name is Claude Lacombe and my dodge story began in 2007. I saw an ad that Dodge was providing a lifetime warranty. We went down and looked at the cars and walked away with a 2007 Dodge Magnum R/T AWD.  After an exhaust, 20 inch rims, tune and cold air intake (30 days later) I took it to the dealer to show off my new mods. Sitting in the used car lot was a ’06 Magnum SRT8 I walked around that black beast having never seen one the sales man gave me the keys. 15 minutes later I was trading in my brand new ’07 R/T AWD on an ’06 Magnum SRT8. I was bitten!

Now a SRT8 owner, in ’08 I did the SRT experience and saw the ’08 Magnum SRT8 had a different front end and interior? Real soon I heard that they were stopping production! The hunt for a ’08 started, and after 3 years of no luck I found an ’08 in Maryland. I live in Philly so looking at the car online showed it to be steel blue, and a search on the Internet showed production numbers for the ’08 Magnum SRT8 to be 240 cars: Black 124, Torred Red 52, Silver 34 and Steel Blue 29. I knew I had to have the car but I was scared. I was scared because the picture of the car had some defects. The front seats did not have the SRT 8 logo on the headrests, and I figured the car was a flood car so the check of CarFax started. I found nothing wrong so I took the trip 200 miles to buy the car. Once there I found out the car was on the lot for 4 months! Everyone came out and were checking out my ’06.

I was in a state of shock as no one knew what was sitting in there lot and I did everything I could to stay cool! When I checked out the ’08 it was clear it was a car that was just used, no mods, lots of chips in the paint, acid rain and covered in tar? But when I opened the door and saw a 02/08 build date I knew it was one of the last ones built! And when I saw the window sticker in the glove box and saw a special order car with all 3 option packages … but the sun roof was missing, the seats were different and the steering wheel was missing the red stitching! I knew I was buying the car. I stole it, but was sad to see the ’06 go as it gave me a lot of fun! And a lot of trophies.

But to have an ’08 Dodge Magnum SRT8, the lowest production color 29 and was just no way I could walk away from the car! So I bought it! When I brought it home the first thing my wife said was “Are you kidding, this car can’t walk in the shadow of the ’06! It’s ugly!” All I could say is when we take it to the car shows you will see people’s reactions!

Now the hunt for information began! I was lucky to find someone that could run every ’08 vin break down the SRT8s and then provide the Chrysler build sheets on everyone of the SRT8s built. This created the spreadsheet on all 240 cars built. Just so everyone knows, car 240 was not built even though it had a destination to go to! I think Chrysler has it. (?)

Anyway, in the end I have become the historian of the ’08 Dodge Magnum SRT8 as I have every production sheet on every car built and the list of what car was built when and where it went.  I offer any information to any owner of a ’08 Magnum SRT8 that asks for it.

So now about my car and what I have done. I am trying so hard to keep it looking stock and every part taken off of the car I have. In the end right now I have done the following:

Interior:
Made a custom baby car seat.

Exterior:
Rims painted Brilliant Black, custom Front end Bra and custom 6.1 Hemi emblems made

Engine:
High House Performance (HHP) Stage 2 Racing package: HHP/BES Stage 2R Custom High-Lift Camshaft: 6.1L SRT-8 HHP61CAM2R, HHP/BES CNC Ported & Polished Race-Grade Cylinder Heads (& Optional Intake Manifold), Precision Industries Double-Plate HEMI Torque Converter (Street & Strip), SLP Harmonic Balancer & Underdrive Pulley, HHP CAI, Magnaflow Cat back. 180 Stats, HHP CMR tune and Gutted Cats!

And while I truly understand the car that I am lucky to own I do once in a while drive her!

Thank you,
Claude Lacombe