Found out that the Chrysler Power CPPA is back.

Chrysler Power... National Hemi Owners Assoc...
Mopar Muscle... CPPA...
The Godfather deluxe of the Mopar enthusiast movement is back…

The National Hemi Owners was birthed in 1975 by a couple of college students at Michigan State… Popular Hot Rodding carried a letter and 12 responded. But they then went to work finding others and pretty soon Hemi Hunting was a household word in the NHOA… Thousands of cars were found and thousands more were resurrected.

Cars Magazine editor Roger Huntington did a couple of stories on the young guns from Lansing and Car Craft got wind… Roland Osborne graduated from MSU, put together the first national meet at Tri State Dragway in Ohio and promptly moved to California. The NHOA grew dramatically in the warm California sunshine…

In 1978 Mopar Muscle was spun off as non-Hemi owners wanted the same benefits as the Hemi owners but there was a faction of Hemi owners that demanded purity-you had to own a Hemi??? Direct Connection parts below dealer cost, national and local get togethers, information –packed newsletters and parts exchange was the order of business and it flourished to the max.

Mopar Muscle took off in its direction led by gifted and passionate appointed prez Christina Grinius with local clubs springing up nationwide and as many shows. Northeast Hemi Owners took off on a regional basis doing very well and Hemi Owners Parts Division spun up into Chrysler Performance Parts Assn (CPPA). In a very fascinating coup de etat, the NHOA board changed the NHOA articles of incorporation and ousted Roland. They quickly dwindled to near oblivion within a year while Roland went on to start Chrysler Power Magazine-the first and foremost Mopar enthusiast publication.

Chrysler Power led the charge for 15 years promoting new developments in parts, restoration, business and collectability advances, including information and enthusiast events from the Mopar Nats to Monster Mopar… TTI Exhaust to Ray Barton Racing. We were there when Direct Connection closed the Spehar performance skunk works and Chrysler offered us the whole shebang-we couldn’t do it but McCandless did and got 10 tractor trailer loads of secret and prototype stuff…We were the first to have a tractor trailer when everyone else still had doolies and Chapparals. We were there when Ray Barton came down from Canada and expected to apprentice with Bob Lambeck… we were introduced that weekend at Pomona and put Ray on our business member map to start his own shop in PA. We were there when Indy took the Zeeker aluminum big block head and turned it into a gold mine… We were there when Koffel introduced the B-1 and Wayne County Dodge pro stock dominated-then the disaster… We were there when the government bailed Chrysler out and Chrysler liquidated all the motorhome, marine and tank divisions…

There were thousands of big block parts and from that came the CPPA hi flow head program, the 444-440 crank in 400 block program, big block A-body headers and on and on and on… We were there with A&A covering the long running Talking Torqueflite series that set the stage for the fastest torqueflites on the planet and gave Allison the impetus and enthusiasm to go on and do the crossram Hemi and Max Wedge manifolds to name a few of Rick’s innovations… Shows at Maple Grove, Englishtown and Bristol all got initial consulting from Roland… Of any entity, Chrysler Power helped to shape the world of Chrysler Performance enthusiasm as we know it today… When Chrysler Power started there were no Mopar enthusiast magazines… In the height there were six magazines-more than all Petersen or Dobbs. Both Dobbs and Harris (Mopar Action) approached Roland to do theirmagazines... Great editors like Geoff Stunkard, Dave Freiberger and SteveMagneto Magnante and many others did their first stories with Chyrsler Power…The BFG HemiCuda poster car came thru Chrysler Power…The untimely death of Roland’s wife Jane caused publishing to be suspended in November 1998.

It’s a new day!!! Roland had been drafted by Racers For Christ in 1993 to develop chapel services at all the Mopar shows; Maple Grove, Englishtown, Bristol, Carlisle and Indy. In 1995 Christian Motorsports Illustrated magazine was launched. Then as chaplain for the Monster Mopar 2008 show, Roland decided to make up a batch of the old NHOA shirts and see if there was any interest… There was and the encouragement mounted to the place where it was decided to do a series of Chrysler Power “one shot” magazines… the first issue being invited to be in the magazine racks at the 2011 Las Vegas SEMA Show.

Chrysler Power CPPA

Mark D.

1968 W200 Sweptline
1969 D100 Utiline
1971 D100 SE Sweptline
1993 D250 Club Cab Sweptline
1986 W250 Cab & Chassis
1978 D300 Sweptline

E. Brookfield, Massachusetts