– Southern California’s exciting monthly muscle car and hot rod get-together
– Mopar® vehicles of all eras regularly join in the early morning San Diego fun
– JBA Full Service Speed Shop keeping automotive performance alive
“It’s just like high school!” proclaimed JBA owner J. Bittle, during the latest Coffee & Cars gathering we attended; the scene is always fun, upbeat and filled with cool cars. And Mopar vehicles have a long history of showing up to this colorful gathering each month. It was way back in September of 2010 with the JBA Speed Shop decided that one of the best ways to give back to the San Diego and surrounding car enthusiast community was to host a monthly gathering, rain or shine, early morning second Sunday of every month. Granted it’s not an exclusive Mopar-only show, however there’s typically a great selection of JBA-built Mopar vehicles and local friends of the shop with their Chrysler products represented, from the early days all the way to GEN III HEMI® engine-powered Challengers and Chargers. Open to all American muscle cars and domestic super cars, hot coffee, fresh donuts and a good time to be had by all!
A-BODY ASSORTMENT
Here’s J. Bittle greeting one of the participants in his ’73 tunnel-rammed Plymouth Duster, the people who attend, with a car or as a spectator, they have an early morning dose of automotive dopamine, rain or shine, year-round!
A rather “unique” early A-body, a 1965 Plymouth Valiant 2-door sedan body with 1965 Dodge Dart front clip … and with a “Dart” emblem on the decklid!
Two 1967 Barracudas: The Fastback is an “H-Code” car, factory fitted with the 383-cid four-barrel engine, and a convertible equipped with 273-cid “LA” small block.
1969 Dodge Dart GT Sport examples: Purple 340 car with Cragar S/S wheels, and rare “M-Code” 440-cid version in F8 Dark Metallic Green.
Potent street machine, ’73 Duster with 1968 340-cid V8, narrowed 8 3/4 rear end and A12 style hood scoop. Sano!
B-BODY SELECTION
Vintage Coronets, HEMI Satellites, ’69 Super Bees, convertible and 440-6bbl Road Runners, including a not-often-seen ’71 example, the variety of B-body Dodge and Plymouth cars that show up is always a sight to see, especially when there’s smoke pouring off the rear wheels!
EVEN C-BODY CARS MAKE THE SCENE AT JBA!
It’s a ’66 Dodge Polara Wagon, rolling on a 121-inch wheelbase Morrison GT Sport chassis, fitted with a GEN III 392-cid HEMI engine, 18/20-inch rollers, big Wilwood brakes.
Not often seen, here’s a ’65 Chrysler 300 convertible, rare. How rare? Just 1,418 were built and this example looked factory fresh!
HEMI ENGINE-POWERED HOT RODS
Traditional old-school hot rods are part of the JBA Coffee & Cars scene, here’s a couple HEMI engine-powered roadsters that participated: one with the 392-cid “Fire Power” Chrysler, the other with Dodge’s “Red Ram” version … there’s no question that a ’50s HEMI from Chrysler, Dodge or DeSoto provides a distinctive appearance in any roadster hot rod application!
MODERN ERA MOPAR CARS GALORE
The monthly gathering of awesome Mopar vehicles is part of the JBA Coffee & Cars experience! Among the rarest of the rare that congregate at the speed shop is a “Black Ghost” SRT® Hellcat Redeye Widebody Challenger (one of 300) and a Hennessey H1000 SRT Hellcat Charger, as well as an assortment of Chargers and Challengers from modern times, including one converted into an El Camino-type truck!
CHARGERS
CHALLENGERS
SOMETHING FOR EVERY (MOPAR) TASTE
Be it a 1935 Chrysler Airflow C-1 Coupe (fitted with a 6.1L GEN III HEMI engine), a Viper GTS or a 2004 Dodge Ram “Rumble Bee” with a 5.7L HEMI engine, they were all represented at the JBA early AM gatherings.
INSIDE THE SPEED SHOP
JBA opens its doors for all, and a walk through the retail storefront, then out back to the huge installation center (which includes a 4-wheel alignment rack), includes a look at the engine dyno cell, 200-mph chassis dyno, all self-contained in their 22,000-square-foot main building. And there’s the addition of their “Meltdown Tires” full-service Performance Tire Shop located on the property.
PERFORMANCE ENGINE BUILDING
An important service that the JBA Speed Shop provides is a full-scale engine shop, building complete performance street and race engines, hand-built to the specific application. In their decades of experience, JBA has built early HEMI engines, Poly V8s, Wedges, LA small blocks, 426 HEMI engine and even Slant Six powerplants. And their expertise includes building, servicing and upgrading GEN III HEMI engines to verified 1,000 hp. All under one roof at their facility. And when balanced, blueprinted and assembled, then completed, they are dyno tested and tuned on their in-house DTS dynamometer. Once installed in the vehicle, JBA also has a chassis dyno for further fine-tuning.
BURN BABY BURN
It’s a car show, a fun place to talk cars, and for those that want to spin their tires, JBA Coffee & Cars is the place to be for any serious car in and around the San Diego area!
Joining in the monthly gatherings are customers of the JBA Speed Shop and members of the Mopar Club of San Diego, as well as local racers from the Barona Dragstrip. Coffee & Cars, the camaraderie, the cool cars, taking a tour of the shop, this long-running monthly gathering by the “JBA Dawn patrol” is an event that is enjoyed by many!
Author: James Maxwell
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