Doug Monin is always working on something. This resident of Sheridan, New York and father of three has a large car collection, but what really peaked my interest is the 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee.

The car was last registered in Georgia in 1977 and Monin bought this car a year ago from Earheart Collision in Dunkirk, New York. He has been working on it ever since. The first thing he did was strip the car down to nothing and replaced the rotted floor and trunk pans. To give an idea about how bad those were, this is the original rear seat. You can tell it needed work.

Monin likes his cars “sweet and clean,” meaning mostly stock and as original as possible. Besides the floor pans, the roof and engine are the few parts that are not original.

A 325 hp (estimated) 440 with a four barrel carburetor will replace the stock engine. The Pro Shop in Angola had the honor of freshening up the engine.  The transmission is the original 7727 Baby H Torque Flight and as was reworked by American Transmission in Irving, New York. The rear axil is stock with 3.23 gears.

Once finished the Super Bee will have factory a/c, an upgraded electronic ignition and a new radio. The radio with have a factory look right down to the tuning knobs, but will be Bluetooth enabled. The car will be panted the original emerald green and have factory Super Bee graphics.

Monin hopes the car will be done in May.

“Are you every really done?” Monin said. You get them running, and you drive it down the road and think, ‘Ok, there’s one more thing I wanna do and I will do that later.’ It never ends. It’s like building a house, is it ever really done?”

Monin keeps his family involved with what he builds. His wife helps him to look up parts online, and even though his kids are very young, with the oldest being 3, they come out to help him sand.

“I hope my kids will develop a liking for it and continue to do it on their own,” Monin said.

As the car progresses, we will visit Doug Monin again to see how the car is coming along.