Mopar Muscle

What happens when you adorn your garden variety muscle car with retina-burning paint, 18-inch wheels and tires, big disc brakes, an injected 500-inch motor, an overdrive trans with paddle shifters, and enough style to make even sport compact car owners blush? What you get is Romeo Furio's Pure Vision Design-built GTX-R. Underneath all of the bling beats the heart of a '72 Plymouth GTX. Steve Strope, proprietor of Pure Vision, set out to build a modern day version of the GTX, sparing no expense in the quest for perfection. we think they've succeeded in spades.

Since this is a modern rendition of a classic musclecar, Pure Vision upgraded the drivetrain with a big-inch big-block to help move the Plymouth's mass with some alacrity. A Mopar Performance 500-cube short-block was chosen as the foundation. Perched up top is a set of MP Stage VI aluminum cylinder heads and a trick custom Weber-style EFI intake by Chris Wakim, controlled by a F.A.S.T. ECU for an unmistakably high-tech look. An MSD Pro-billet distributor, a 6 AL box, and a Blaster 2 coil round out the spark production team. The engine pretty much remains the way it came down the assembly line. Schumacher Creative Services provided the 151/48-inch tubes that dump exhaust waste into a set of 3-inch Flowmaster mufflers. A US Radiator-supplied radiator makes sure this beast runs nice and cool in the summer heat. Transferring power to the rear is a Mopar Performance A518 automatic overdrive transmission with perhaps the most unusual mod of the entire build-up-paddle shifters mounted on the steering column, designed and built by Steve Strope, allowing Romeo to imitate a Formula 1 racer. The venerable 8 3/4-inch rearend resides out back equipped with a 3.91 gear set from Mopar Performance ensuring brisk acceleration.

What truly separates this musclecar from less modern iterations is the suspension consisting of all new bushings and ball joints from Just Suspension, tubular upper control arms from Magnum Force racing, and adjustable lower strut arms and heavy-duty tie rods by Pure Vision. A Hotchkis sway bar rounds out the front end. Out back is a set of Eaton custom leaf springs providing a 1-inch drop and a 50-pound rate increase, moved inboard 3 inches via a Mopar Performance spring relocation kit. Red Zone Race Fabrication supplied the sub-frame connectors and the enlarged wheeltubs to help clear the big 18-inch rubber. A Flaming River fast ratio gearbox turns the Toyo Proxes 275/35-18 RA-1 tires mounted on a pair of custom 18x10-inch Purespeed wheels by Bonspeed. Traction, or lack thereof, is provided by a pair of monster 335/30-18 Toyo Proxes RA-1 tires mounted on 18x12 wheels, while braking is the responsibility of 13-inch Baer brakes at all four corners.

Every restoration part known to mankind including door locks, weather stripping, molding, trim, and lenses was procured from the good folks at Year One, the one-stop resto shop. the interior of the GTX-R has been subtly upgraded, but Strope and company went out of their way not to deviate too far from stock. The woodgrain dash was hand-sanded by Strope. Red Line Gauge Works was commissioned to create custom gauge faces for an unmistakable look in the otherwise stock dash. While the front bucket seats remain stock, extra padding was added in the bolsters to increase support while carving the canyons at extra-legal speeds. The effects are understated and very trick. While Pro Touring has not strayed much beyond a big wheel/tire package and some lowering, Pure Vision has taken the theme 10 steps further by modernizing the entire package from top to bottom and inside out. So what's next for Pure Vision and Romeo Furio? One can only imagine.