How many people do you know who have owned their cars for nearly four decades? I would say it’s a fairly small number. Lucas Nylund has celebrated forty years with his 1968 Dodge Dart, and it wasn’t long after acquiring it that the dream of owning a HEMI^® Dart began. However, the road to that dream was anything but straightforward.

“This comes straight from the heart. I’ve loved this car since the day I bought it. The Dart is a big part of my soul. I’ve received many offers over the years, but I refused them all. No, I will never sell it.”

That’s the voice of someone deeply in love with their car, beyond any doubt. Head over heels in love. Someone who has been in love for a long time, and who has nurtured that love with a great deal of time and energy.

Like all deep loves, there are many reasons why the bond between Nylund and his Dart has taken root so strongly. Of course, not all of those reasons can be covered in this article.

There are, however, a few very clear causes, and one of them surfaces immediately when I ask Nylund to tell me about buying the Dart.

“I was 18 years old when I bought it, and the Dodge was my very first car,” Nylund says.

Ah… that explains a lot. And if you’ve managed to keep your very first car for well over four decades, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever sell it. Naturally.

Nylund continues, explaining that in his group of friends at the time, there was only one “brand” that mattered: Mopar_®.

“Personally, I was on the hunt for a 1968 Dodge Dart GTS. I had already fallen for this model for various reasons, not least because it’s simply a cool car. But they weren’t easy to find. I posted wanted ads and checked classified sections in newspapers, but with no results,” Nylund says.

Then one day, Nylund’s friend Peter Liebl got in touch. He had heard that the car salesman Rune’s Bil in Frövi (small community in southern Sweden) was selling American cars. The two set off on a snowy, slippery day in November 1979 in Liebl’s two-stroke SAAB, heading westward. Once they arrived, they searched for a long time, thinking Rune’s Bil must be a regular car dealership like a Volvo dealer. They searched and searched, but Rune’s Bil was nowhere to be found.

“Around 5 PM, we stopped at a gas station in Frövi and asked the man behind the counter where Rune might be. ‘He’s in the trailer behind the wall here’ was the reply,” Nylund says.

Nylund and Liebl quickly ran around the corner, knocked on the trailer door and started talking. Nylund explained what he was looking for. “OK,” Rune said, and then brushed off the snow from a car. There it was, the 1968 Dodge Dart GTS.

“We took it for a test drive right away, and then I made a quick decision. ‘I’ll take it!’ I said,” Nylund says with a big smile.

By 5:45 PM, the seller and buyer had shaken hands. They hurried to the local post office before it closed at 6 PM. 18,500 SEK, around today’s €1,850, changed hands.

“Happy and thrilled, we headed home. In Arboga, 30 kilometer from Frövi, I thought, ‘It might be fun to see if the car has any power.’ So, at an intersection, I stepped on the gas ‘a little’ and suddenly I got into a massive skid. I had to do a lot of steering back and forth because a pedestrian island was rapidly approaching the Dart. After a few more skids, I managed to miss the island by two centimeters,” Nylund says.

After sitting pale-faced and staring straight ahead for a moment, the two friends agreed that no more acceleration would be done with the Dart until the snow had melted that winter. The rest of the journey was a calm glide through the snow.

Years passed, and Lucas drove around in his Dart, enjoying it. He drove it for ten summers before the car was stored away and left untouched until 2004.

When the car was finally brought back out, on the other side of family life, it got another near-decade of driving. Until one day, six years ago, the news came. Lucas had turned 51, and prostate cancer made its entrance far too early in life. At the same time, the illness also gave him something back — a new perspective on life, and eventually, a HEMI Dart.

“Did working on the Dart help me mentally during the illness? Yes, to say the least. It was during my third cancer surgery, lying there in a morphine haze and bleeding, that I pondered what life might be worth. I thought about how to move forward in life, besides being with my family and working at my business. That’s when I decided to pursue my dream with the Dart: to put a HEMI in it,” Nylund says.

When Lucas got home from the hospital, he began searching for an engine and started working on the rest of the restoration.

“Getting a cancer diagnosis is like getting punched in the face ten times over. The first thing you think about is how serious the illness is. Am I going to die now? You find yourself in a sort of life vacuum. The HEMI project has been very therapeutic for me. Doing something you’ve always dreamed of, no matter what it is, helps you get back on your feet,” Nylund says.

Lucas explains that it’s been a tough time, both fighting cancer and building the car. But today, with the disease under control and the HEMI Dart completed, he feels incredibly strong and happy. You can see it in Lucas — he smiles often, eagerly, and a lot.

“I definitely recommend anyone who finds themselves in a tough situation in life to take steps toward fulfilling their dreams. It really helps,” Nylund says with that big smile of his.

However, getting all the way to the finish line with the HEMI Dart has not been easy. Not at all. The problem we’re about to discuss now has nothing to do with the illness. The medications, the nausea, the anxiety and all that.

No, it’s about getting the Dart approved in Sweden with the HEMI engine.

“It’s been a real hell, to put it bluntly. The Dart isn’t actually registered with a HEMI, only inspected with one. Why? I’ll explain now,” Nylund says.

He then tells a long, colorful story that includes one of the Swedish organizations meant to help car builders with certifications. Lucas says he was opposed at every turn and was €900 poorer with nothing to show for it.

“So, I started researching my car’s papers myself. That’s when things got really interesting. When I checked the car’s documents, I discovered that when it was registered in 1969, no engine displacement was specified. No specific engine was listed at all,” Nylund says.

Thus, Lucas did a deeper check with the Swedish Transport Agency, where he spoke to a pleasant woman. She looked up the car and told Lucas that what matters technically for him (and everyone else, for that matter) is what’s in the car’s registration documents. That is, what governs the Dart’s specifications is what was once entered into the documents at the registration inspection in 1969, nothing else.

“She also explained to me that no inspector can override the 1969 registration inspection and make their own interpretations. That’s against laws and regulations. If no specific engine was entered into the documents, it’s open to install any original engine that the car was available with,” Nylund says with a big smile.

Nylund was so happy that he immediately drove to the nearest inspection station without even making an appointment. He confidently asked if they had time for an inspection.

“‘Well… we’re fully booked and were about to take a break, but is that your car outside? Eh, we’ll skip the break and inspect the Dart instead,’ said the inspector. So I rolled the Dodge in. The inspector started by opening the hood and… ‘What the heck, there’s a HEMI engine in the car!'” Nylund says.

Nylund thought he was done for. Time to go home with his tail between his legs. But then the inspector said something else. Something unexpected.

“‘This is the coolest thing I’ve seen! Guys, come over here!’ What a dream inspection it turned out to be. The inspector knew everything about HEMI Darts. He checked all the numbers on the leaf springs, torsion bars, brakes and more. He examined the entire build in detail and concluded, ‘I’ve kicked so many car owners out of this hall because the builds were a disaster. This is the best build I’ve seen.'” Nylund says.

The inspector also looked up the car’s documents and was of the exact same opinion as the woman at the Swedish Transport Agency.

“‘It would be a dereliction of duty not to approve the car. Congratulations, the car is approved and exempt from future inspections.’ Overjoyed, I drove home. Finally, the HEMI project was complete,” Nylund concludes.