Larry Pontnack’s Best Kept Secret

Words & Photos By: Roger Meiners

Larry Pontnack had a Big Secret—his muscle car restoration parts business, Mo-Par City, in Oregon, Ill., but he didn’t intend it to be so. He started the company back in 1974 and it was a success because he has a knack for uncovering hard-to-find parts. But, when he took the business on the swap meet circuit, people were surprised to hear about Mo-Par City.

“I meet guys all the time who say, ‘I never heard of you,’” said Pontnack, “but I found out they had friends who were my customers for years and weren’t sharing the information. They wanted first choice of the rare parts.” Pontnack said that one new customer had a next-door neighbor who used Mo-Par City for seven years without telling him. It was a best-kept secret. Well, no more. Pontnack is telling the story and telling it loud. We’ll help him blow the whistle on this secret Mopar® parts source.

It’s not like he needs the help. He has a lot of energy. In fact, we met a few of his neighbors at Charlie’s Breakfast Nook in Oregon, Ill., when we were in town for this story. Charlie good-naturedly calls him “Dog.” “It’s because he’s always in heat,” he says, referring to Larry’s boundless enthusiasm. The heat waves coming off Pontnack have a definite blue haze—Mopar Blue.

He has something north of 800 “slightly used” Mopar cars on his seven-and-a-half acres, and a huge cache of used Mopar parts in seven buildings on the property.

His wonderland is called Mo-Par City and the pictures presented here don’t really do it justice. You have to see it to believe it; and you too will feel the heat when you see all the stuff he has for your 1960s and 1970s Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth cars. The buildings house thousands of feet of shelves; supporting untold numbers of rare and hard-to-find parts for the dream cars of one of Chrysler’s golden ages.

Feast your eyes on the possibilities presented here for owners of classic Mopar muscle. Pontnack has this to show you for his thirty-five years of effort. It has been a labor of love and of necessity, begun at first to support his passion for drag racing Mopars, including a rare ’68 Dodge Dart HEMI® super stocker he bought from his pal, Larry Griffith. He also ran an unusual 1983 Chrysler Imperial in Super Gas. That car recently came back to him and he will restore it (The old Dart is now restored and in the hands of retired Mopar VP Joe Hilger).

Griffith, Hilger and Pontnack are now involved with Griffith’s new car, a Dodge Challenger Drag Pak by Mopar—the second one made. It will be on the track soon. Look for its transporter, the one with Mo-Par City on the sides, in big blue letters. Look for Pontnack, too. He’ll be the guy with the big smile, the hearty laugh and the Mopar Blue haze around him.