Clair Luttrell, 70, a retired railroad conductor living in New Braunfels, Texas, on his 1968 Dodge “Bengals” Charger R/T, as told to A.J. Baime

In 1993, I was on vacation in Hazard, Ky. I was visiting my brother-in-law and I told him, “If there’s any Chrysler cars I should look at while I’m in your area, let me know.” He told me about this 1968 Dodge Charger R/T he had seen with emblems of the Cincinnati Bengals football team. Dodge was of course a division of Chrysler. The car was in Bengals football colors. So we went to see it.

There it was, in bright orange. This car intrigued me because I had never seen anything like it. It had football helmet stickers and Bengal logos on both fenders. 

The story I was told was that, in 1968, the year the Cincinnati Bengals team was launched, the team debuted their colors of orange and black. Apparently the team went to a dealership to buy 50 Charger muscle cars in these colors, and the dealership special ordered them. I thought, I need to find out if this is all true. 

I went to a pay phone and called a Chrysler expert I knew about. He confirmed the story and asked if it was an R/T, referring to a higher performance version of the car. I said yes. Apparently, only about 10 of the 50 cars special-ordered were R/Ts, which made the car even rarer. He said that, over the last 20 years, this was the only R/T version he had heard of, in existence. In addition, this car had a white interior, and it appears it is the only one that has this color scheme.

I went directly to a bank in Hazard, got the money, and bought the car. I have always had a priority of family first, hobby second. And cars are my hobby. I began working to find parts, and I knew it was going to take a long time. I wanted the car to look exactly like it did when it was new. I spent 15 years finding N.O.S. parts, which means new old stock. Real, original parts. My wife, Sue, was very patient.

There is a guy in Missouri named Roger Gibson, whose business Roger Gibson Auto Restoration does the kind of meticulous work I was hoping to do. Roger said he would do the job but I had to be on his waiting list. I was on that waiting list for four years.

During his restoration, he worked over every nut and bolt. I cannot overstate how meticulous it was. When I found the car, it did not have its original engine, so part of the job was to put a 440-cubic-inch R/T engine in it.

Last year, the car was finally done. I took it to a huge Chrysler show in Carlisle, Pa. It won an award there; then I took it to an invite-only car show in Chicago, and it won an award there.

I have owned this car now for 32 years, and for almost all of that time, I have been waiting for it to become all that I hoped it could be. I live in a gated community, and there are about 5 miles of roads. I cannot take a chance of someone hitting the car, so I only drive it on these roads. What I am really hoping to do is take this car to Cincinnati and have it photographed at the Bengals’ stadium. The car is essentially a Bengals mascot.

Perhaps the funniest part of this story is that I do not really watch football. But I guess I am a fan of one team now. Go Bengals!

Write to A.J. Baime at myride@wsj.com