By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier. Ohio
Born and reared in Detroit, for the youth automobiles were more than a car, they were a passion. When the 1962 automobiles came out, a fellow student, whose father worked at Chrysler, drove his father’s new, loaded, 1962, jet-black Dodge Polara-500 convertible to school one day. I was hooked.
Within the week I visited their home and talked to his mother about the car. I was not quite 16 and this car was listed for close to $4,000. Fortunately, I had been saving my money earned from my Free Press paper route for several years now.
I wanted a black convertible, so I had to search to locate one, finding succeeding at Northwest Dodge in Detroit. When the salesman drove it to the house, Mom relented and signed.
The car was a used factory demonstrator I paid $3,400 for. I never missed a payment, owned the car for 26 years and sold it for $4,000.
Very few students at Royal Oak Kimball High School owned a new automobile—most had 1950s-era four door sedans. My vehicle boasted a 361 cubic inch engine, a Carter AFB four-barrel carburetor, and was one of the fastest cars on the road. Only a Chevy 409, a Dodge 425 and a few other muscle cars were faster.
When I started driving my Polara-500 to school my status among my peers rose precipitously. I worked hard and saved for years to buy the car, so I felt I deserved it. I also noted some resentment.
My convertible top was slit once, and the hubcaps were stolen twice. Once the spark plug wires were taken, and various assorted other damage occurred while I was in high school.
Nonetheless, I had a pile of new friends and enjoyed immensely my newfound popularity. The car, an important part of my identity for years, carried me through my associates, bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.
Modifying My Polara
A neighbor, Mr. Ceglarek, lived next door to the north of our house. His wife, Jenny, was very nice and their son, Wally, was my age.
Mr. Ceglarek was a TV camera operator for station WJR in Detroit. He also collected a variety of electronic stuff—much of which he obtained from where he worked.
He eventually constructed a building about twice the size of a four-car garage for his tools, machinery, and tons of electronic equipment.
I stopped by to see him once for help when I was attempting to install a speaker inside the middle of the back seat of my Dodge. Because my car was a convertible, there was no other place to install it. I obtained a speaker frame from a ’64 Chevy and built brackets to mount it inside of the seat.
I designed it so that it worked perfectly, even though, everyone told me, it could not be done. Mr. Ceglarek helped me build the brackets to ensure that the speaker would be stable.
My seat-mounted speaker never ripped the seat vinyl as my critics predicted it would from the stress on the seat. I was careful to cut the hole in such a way to prevent it from tearing.
I folded the vinyl over and glued it to give it strength to prevent ripping. The speaker looked like it had always belonged in my back seat.
I also installed a vibrasonic sound system (actually an echo chamber), which produced a sound quality that I haven’t experienced in a car, before or since. I also added a Dodge symbol on the speaker grill to make it look like it was original equipment.
I drove the car until the late 1980s—then sold it for more than I paid for it. Within a day of placing an ad in the Toledo Blade I received a phone call from a Detroit collector who planned to do a ground-up restoration on the car.
He journeyed down to Montpelier, Ohio a few days later with the money and drove home with my car (and got a traffic ticket on the way home!). My car was gone but not forgotten. It was now both a rare, and prized collectors’ car.
While in college I purchased a 1961 Chrysler 300-G convertible in 1967 and fully restored it. The 300-G had all new chrome, new triple chrome plated bumpers, and most of the trim was factory new or flawless.
When forced to sell it I called the Chrysler 300 club to pass the word around that it was for sale. It sold within a week. As of 2025, the fully restored car now sells for around 350,000 dollars at auction, $347,000 more than I paid for it. Now, as a family man, I drive a 4-door Chrysler.
In October 2009 I received an e-mail from Johan Andersson from Västerås, Sweden to tell me that he now was the proud owner of my car. Johan had looked for a 300G for 15 years.
When he learned of my old one he flew to America, picked it up in March of 1998, and had it shipped to Sweden. The now 64 year old Chrysler has never let him down. Aside from normal maintenance, he has not had to do any major repairs on the now classic muscle car with over 110,000 hard earned miles.
Johan noted that Swedes love American cars and, in Sweden alone, 6 or 7 Chrysler 300Gs now exist. An American car meet is held annually in Västerås, that typically includes many of the over 10,000 American cars in Sweden.
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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,800 publications in 12 languages and 60 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,500 college libraries in 27 countries.
