BUILDING a car is a big job; doesn’t matter if it’s 10 years or 10 days, they all take their toll. Our latest Carnage build – nicknamed Mr Dodgey – took just three weeks from start to finish, and it was tough.

To make things a little easier, we pre-ordered a 440ci crate motor from Eagle Auto Parts and made sure we ordered our wheels and tyres on the first day so we knew that we’d have them in time. In fact, we did plenty of online shopping in this build and saw both the good and bad sides of buying stuff on the web. Being able to get parts delivered from the US in just four days is a definite win, but we also ended up with a few parts that were either mislabelled or just not suitable despite what the manufacturer reckoned.

Mr Dodgey 440-powered Dodge Phoenix Part One

The car itself – a 1963 Dodge Phoenix – was an online purchase from GraysOnline, but we made sure we checked it out in person before hit that all-important ‘bid’ button. We knew we could build something cool if all the pieces fell into place.

Our LSX Tuner magazine editor Iain Kelly came down for a few days and helped us get the car across the line, and our social media guru Paul ‘Gus’ Cronin also joined the party with plenty of crimping, welding, painting and swearing in between.

Mr Dodgey 440-powered Dodge Phoenix Part Two

Which brings us to the third part of our build. At the start of the video we were just four days out from the date we were supposed to leave for Cobar for the Running On Empty Festival. By the end we had bumped that departure date back by a day, so instead of heading up Thursday morning we ended up leaving at 11am Friday. But that’s a story for part four!