Self-described Mopar® fanboy Bobby Rowlett was 19 years old when he, his mom and his stepdad (Anna and Harold) drove from their home in Harlan, Kentucky, to Warsaw, Indiana, so that his mom could buy herself a 2013 Dodge Charger Super Bee. Although her son was fairly young, she wanted a Charger rather than a Challenger because it had plenty of room for her grandbabies. Bobby explains that his mom “loved and cherished” her Charger Super Bee, as she had never had a new car that was so nice and so fast. Sadly, Anna passed away in 2015 and an emotional Harold sold the car shortly after her death without talking to anyone else in the family about the decision to sell.
Fast forward to early 2019 and Bobby Rowlett is flipping through the local Facebook Marketplace listings when he found a 2013 Dodge Charger Super Bee that looks just like his mom’s. The car was at a local dealership, so he hurried there to check it out, but the VIN revealed that it was not Anna’s Charger. However, the excitement of possibly finding his mom’s Super Bee led him to begin hunting for the actual car.
With the help of a friend who works in the dealership world, Rowlett located his mom’s Dodge Charger Super Bee at a dealership in Kentucky in March of 2019. He immediately contacted the dealership, only to find that he was too late. Someone had called before him and bought the car over the phone, without even coming in to see the car first. Rowlett was crushed, as he figured that someone who bought the car sight unseen obviously wanted the car very badly, so they likely wouldn’t be interested in selling it right away. As a result, he didn’t try to find the buyer and he gave up his quest to buy Anna’s Charger Super Bee.
On December 25, 2019, Rowlett’s stepdad, Harold, came over to Bobby’s home to celebrate both Christmas and his stepson’s birthday. When he got there, Harold had some exciting new – he had located the person who owned Anna’s Dodge Charger and he wondered if Bobby would be interested in trying to buy the car. Bobby was so excited that he quickly said that he would sell the 1975 Corvette he had in order to raise the money to buy his mom’s Super Bee. Harold suggested that they go look the Corvette over to further discuss the prospect of selling the classic Chevy to buy the modern four-door muscle car.
When Bobby and Harold opened the garage door, it wasn’t his 1975 Corvette on the other side. Instead, Anna’s black Dodge Charger Super Bee was parked in Bobby’s garage.
As it turns out, Harold was the person who bought the car from the dealership in Kentucky sight unseen. He was living in Florida for work when the car turned up at that dealership in Kentucky, so he acted quickly to make sure that the family got Anna’s Charger back. Harold then held onto the car for almost 9 months, giving it to Bobby for his Christmas Day birthday. Today, Bobby Rowlett calls his mom’s Dodge Charger Super Bee – Super Bee sequence #4000 – his “most prized material possession”.
Today, Anna’s Charger is part of a fleet of Mopar vehicles that includes a 2019 Dodge Durango, a 2017 Ram 1500, a 2003 Dodge Neon SRT-4 and one of his mom’s other previous vehicles – a 2005 Ram 1500 that he plans to convert into an SRT-10 clone.
When Anna bought her 2013 Dodge Charger Super Bee, she wanted the larger performance vehicle because it had more room for her to drive around her grandbabies. On September 28, 2021, Bobby and his wife welcomed their first child – a baby girl – into the world. This would have been Anna’s first grandchild and, in fitting fashion, Lakyn Rowlett was driven home from the hospital in the Super Bee, just as Anna would have wanted. Anna’s vision of her grandbabies riding around in her Charger was realized and her memory will live on forever through the car that her son and his family continue to enjoy today.
That’s a very inspiring story and made me think of my late wife who always wanted a purple Dodge Charger someday but unfortunately that day never came! Mopars are still to this day cherished members of countless families across the US and they have a VERY SPECIAL PLACE in my life as I’ve owned many and my 1st car was a 1972 Plymouth Duster and I grew into an adult driving it and also my 2nd car (a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda)!! I passed the Mopar gene to my oldest son and he will carry that love into the future even after I’m gone!! And as always, Mopar or No Car!!