The Most Famous Car Chase Car of all Time

THE GENTLEST BRUTE

These pics are hot off the press! I stumbled out of my house this morning to grab some coffee beans and look what was waiting for me just a block away:

YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAWW!!!!

Yes indeed this is a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T in Yellow. This car in this color is this is the most punk rock thing I've seen in a long time. Picture this: It's 1968 and you want a muscle car. Not only that, but you want a car so brutally powerful and dialed in that it can compete in Nascar or on the drag strip the moment you leave the dealership. And then you find yourself taken with that gentle sunny yellow color more commonly seen on Darts and station wagons! Since I have a special place in my heart for odd colors and/or tough guy rides that go against type I LOVE this ride.

At first glance you might think this is the exact car that the General Lee started out as. It's very close; that one was a 1969 with a central vertical bar dividing the grill. This one has its power headlights in the open position but when they're closed it's just one menacing expanse of black.

*Big shout-out to the turn signal repair. The original lenses have been replaced with completely generic hardware store lights that probably cost $5 for the pair. Keep in mind that there are 4 '68 R/Ts on eBay right now and they're all in the $80,000-$95,000 range (this is excluding a $300,000 custom show car).

The R/T stands for Road/Track and was the high performance model of the Charger. A set of Bumble Bee Stripes wrapped around the trunk in either Red, White, or Black on the R/T. It seems the original owner preferred to skip the stripes (they could be deleted at no cost). 

The base engine for the R/T was the 7.2 liter 440 Magnum V8 rated at 375 horsepower! Officially the top speed was 136 mph but many owners reported speeds of 150mph in stock form. The only engine more powerful for this car when new was the 426 Hemi, itself a $605 option. Not many Hemis were built and fewer survive today.

Since it was behind the velvet ropes I didn't want to get too close so I can't tell what transmission this has. The steering wheel is aftermarket but so out of style at this point that I dig it. The small paint loss on the hood and rust creeping around the window trim makes me believe this might be original paint.

That symbol above the word Charger is known as the Fratzog. As far as I know there's no known origin of the name other than the fact that it was the '60s and they had to name it something.

Let's go ahead and get this over with: This is the exact year/make/model as the famous bad guy car in the movie Bullitt. Due to copyright laws they've uploaded it in 2 parts so here's the second half where they climb up into the hills above San Francisco. The cars reached speeds of over 110mph during filming! Supposedly the Charger was so much faster than the Mustang in real life that they had to keep letting off the gas to make it seem close.

In my opinion the car chase from the Seven Ups has the greatest finale and Bullitt is tied with the French Connection. Regardless the legendary stunt driver and actor Bill Hickman is driving in all three (though he's not shown in the French Connection).

That deep set rear window aped the GM versions seen on the Le Mans/GTO and Cutlass/442 the previous year. Those quad round taillights were replaced with a single wide unit on each side for 1969 (the year of the General Lee). Speaking of the General Lee, here's a compilation of every jump they ever did with their '69 Charger across 7 seasons and 2 movies! Terrible in many ways as somewhere between 256 and 321 cars didn't survive filming.

Well there we have it; one of the most famous and famously abused cars of all time. I, like many people my age, have loved this car since I was a kid. They were actually built in large numbers with something like 17,000 R/Ts out of 96,000 total Chargers built. These days they are very sought after in any condition and so there are really no cheap examples out there. A couple of times at car shows I've seen non-R/T Chargers that left the factory with the slant-6 cylinder engine under the hood! Those are unbelievably rare as most that did exist have had their engines replaced with big V8s.

PS - a more gently driven example was used in the movie Christine by Dennis.

Enjoy the lazy 4th weekend everybody!

The Jersey Blindbird and its multi-colored freaks

JERSEY RIDICULOUSNESS!

I was on a rambling drive to the Delaware Water Gap when I decided to roll through some local New Jersey streets to see if there were any cool industrial ruins or cars. I found plenty of both but this freaky vision takes the cake!

What? Why? Who?
Look I don't have the answers. NOBODY has the answers. I think this might be an answer to an unspoken question by a madman. Regardless, what we have here is a 1965 Ford Thunderbird convertible in some ungodly horrific aftermarket LOOK AT ME yellow. Whatever with the color let's get to the glaring fact that this thing is bizarrely customized to the point where there are no headlights. Dude! You got rid of the headlights? If you're going this bonkers why start with such a nice and somewhat rare car? Are you absolutely certain you only want to cruise in the daytime?

Alright perhaps there are lights behind that grill but still, what a strange decision. I love cars with their headlights behind power flip-up doors but this seems unnecessary. Maybe it's a fiberglass front to save weight but then why choose a convertible with its heavier reinforced frame? I'll lay off now.

I'm fairly certain the bumper is the original under that paint. The main identifying feature of the '65 is still on display here; that small faux vent indentation behind the front fender well is a 1 year only detail for this generation 'bird.

This just added to my frustration! It seems this particular 'bird is fitted with the rare roadster option. The backseat exists in this car, it's just hidden beneath this large removable cover from the factory. These are referred to as the Batman Roadster covers as they make the car look faintly like the '60s Barris Custom Batmobile when the top is down. This is a scarce and sought-after piece for sure.

This is obviously going through a revamping so it can continue to bring tears of shock to people for years to come. While the exhaust tips are poking out from underneath the rear bumper you can see the yellow protrusion just behind the lower edge of the front wheel suggesting that this might've had lake pipes at one point.
Let's turn our attention to that magenta schnoz poking out in front of this blindbird.

What we have here is a 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle SS all tarted up in some sort of trashy magenta. Really subtle with the high-rise hood scoop and fat tires in the back but you know what? On a Chevelle it makes total sense!
Both the '71 and '72 Chevelle had identical bodies and a single headlight on each side as opposed to quads, but the '71 only had a single horizontal grill bar while the '72 had 2.

This car should be all set up for the dragstrip. Heck I know a guy who races a '71 Chevelle on the quarter mile all season every summer. This one is sporting a vinyl roof which, while light as can be and not too much of a drag on aerodynamics, is superfluous when it comes to racing. Who knows how this started out. Maybe it has air conditioning too.

But wait a minute! There in the background lies one of the ultimate muscle car icons; a 1969 Dodge Charger. This is the same year, make, and model as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard!

This example looks like it's wearing remnants of the original color Bright Blue Poly. That massive hood scoop is aftermarket but these could be ordered ready for the dragstrip from the factory in '69. The large enough 383 V8 was standard, but you could specify a huge 440 Magnum or the legendary 426 Hemi as well. Incidentally the way to differentiate the '69 from the '68 from the front is that the '69 had this center divider to the grill. There was a Nascar-inspired version called the Charger 500 that had exposed headlights which saved weight and very slightly helped with aerodynamics. Of course there was also the Charger Daytona which came with the pointed metal nose and massive rear wing (among other drag-killing aerodynamics) but that was so wild that it's hard to think of it as the same overall model.

This beast is in pieces with the entire quarter cut out and doors removed.

This goes to show the value and increasing scarcity of this car. Even if you have a frame and a vin tag it's probably worth the time and effort to try and create a car out of it. The Dukes of Hazzard went through somewhere between 255 and 320 1969 Chargers jumping and totaling them constantly. That and the fact that they were built to drive mercilessly used them up before they became valuable again.
Hats off to New Jersey for not disappointing!