“It’s alive! It’s aliiive!” At least that’s what we would have said when this crusty B-body suddenly roared to life – with little coaxing – after a multi-decade nap. This ’68 440 Charger R/T looks pretty beat but its still got a lot of Mopar heart it seems. That’s the thing about barn finds, with a little time and some care you might be one of the lucky ones who gets the beast to fire right up. Or you might succeed in wiping out every cam lobe because of a failed 40+ year-old oil pump. It’s called barn find roulette. And it looks like these guys won. Or did they?

The barn find craze has reached a fever pitch these days with many print magazines devoting their covers to the crusty creatures featured inside. Tons of car-related TV shows heavily promote episodes where a dusty gem is pulled from some backwoods shed. It seems everybody wants to discover a long lost musclecar, frozen in time. But it’s a bit like the dog that caught the car: what do I do with it now?

Sure, if it’s nice enough (as many are) you do some tune-up work, some careful cleaning and photo document its undercarriage or interior and you drive off, preserving history. Sometimes it’s a disaster that happens to run, albeit poorly, but it runs. The latter pretty much describes this Charger. It’s a mess, needing a complete restoration. But boy, is it worth it.

We understand that its lucky “discoverers” passed it on to somebody willing to take on the task of bringing the rest of this once-proud Dodge back to life. At least, as this video shows, that 440 heart still has miles of pumping left in it yet.