While Randy Zaborniak was restoring a late '60s Charger, he happened upon a parts car. A victim of an engine and interior fire, the Charger was little more than twisted metal from the intense heat. Still, Zaborniak found many mechanical parts that were still in good condition and quite usable for his project. After removing what was still serviceable, he scanned what remained. "The '69 Charger is one of the most recognizable cars out there," Zaborniak says. "It just seemed a shame to throw away what was left." The problem was, what was left was pure junk to the average person, but Zaborniak decided it would become a tool or training aid that he could use to help him hone his metalworking skills. Though there was only one side of the car that even looked remotely like a Charger, and with his other two cars occupying the space in his garage, Zaborniak parked the Charger in his backyard.

"I was dining at The Forks one evening and I saw one side of an old car mounted on the wall at the Old Spaghetti Factory and I thought, 'I could do that with the Charger,' " Zaborniak says. While turning an old vintage vehicle into a wall hanging may not sound like a difficult task, doing it with a late '60s Charger would have stopped most people in mid-thought. Their unibody design incorporates many different reinforcement cavities within the centre structure of the car, making the task of slicing off a side much more of a job than any body-on-frame prewar classic.Armed with an air chisel, Zaborniak started to attack the Charger with a little more zeal than even his neighbour could stand. Zaborniak says: "The noise was pretty bad, so I moved to an angle grinder and after wearing out many blades and the grinder itself, I bought a Saws-All to complete the job."

In order to capture the roofline of the Charger, Zaborniak cut the car 20 inches wide and built an inner structure to support the car using steel tubing. The balance of the car weighed only 1,000 pounds and brought a paltry $30 at the scrap dealer. Straightening the heat-warped roof was accomplished by welding the torsion-bar rods that once held up the trunk lid to the underside of the roof. Zaborniak fabricated a new lower rear quarter panel from sheet metal and removed numerous dents and scrapes from the side of the rust-ravaged body. The front grille surround and tail-light housing are pieces Zaborniak hand-formed, and the Magnum 500 road wheels mount with only a single wheel lug. The end result after some 250 hours of labour was a car, or portion thereof, that was 17 feet in length, 20 inches wide and weighed in at about 500 pounds.

After many hours of refinishing, the slice was ready for a Zaborniak original two-tone paint job of silver and flat black that incorporates a unique side detail stripe as well as an R/T bumblebee stripe on the rear quarter panel. While the R/T option referred to the original Charger as having the Road and Track handling package, in this case it defines Zaborniak's Charger as Really Thin. Originally equipped with a 318-cubic-inch V-8, Zaborniak couldn't resist badging it as a Hemi car and describes it as "the only affordable Hemi Charger in existence." Fellow Manitoba Mopar Association member and friend Jim Tchir even penned lyrics for a song called Randy's Slice that just happens to go with the tune of Mack The Knife. While it's doubtful the song will ever be a hit, Randy's Slice is quickly becoming the talk of the town!
Larry D'Argis