Finding a 1969 Dodge Charger that is complete enough to make a running and driving car out of for under $10,000 in any condition is like finding the golden ticket in your chocolate bar…stupid luck was on your side. You shouldn’t expect what’s coming next to be easy, and chances are good that you’ll get pissed off and have to work hard to meet your goals, but if you persevere and see everything through properly, the payoff will be more than dramatic, it will be epic. Why? It’s a 1969 Dodge Charger…there’s a reason why Hollywood has sacrificed thousands of these cars: this is a car that looks handsome, rugged, and menacing all at one time. Very, very few cars have been able to pull off not only the look, but the gravity that the second-gen Charger managed to do effortlessly. Even if the Duke Boys had wound up driving a Ford Gran Torino, people would still be shelling out unholy amounts of money for their own Mopar with the hideaway headlights.
If you’re digging for one with a minuscule budget, however, you have to start with what I call an “honest” car, and brother, this car tells no lies: it’s rough. The black roof used to have a vinyl covering, before someone with excellent foresight ripped that crap off. The car was hit in the back, the wheel wells have rotted out, the interior is mostly M.I.A. and the engine and trans have been gone for quite a while. But, you have every body panel there, the seller doesn’t appear to be hiding anything at all about the car, and you can only go forwards from here. If you need proof, look at Roadkill’s General Mayhem Charger: have 440, trans and spare wiring to rig everything up, and you’ll go far…if you have the desire to spin a wrench or two.
And that’s where you come in, readers: let’s give you a budget of ten thousand dollars. That doesn’t include having to buy the car…you have the Charger in your driveway and ten large in your hands. How would you put one of the most desirable cars on the planet back together? Would you do everything you could to bring the body back to good, flip it and move on? Would you immediately start hunting for an RV that might have a Chrysler big-block buried somewhere under the floor? Maybe you’d hit up Copart or IAAI and start looking for a new Hemi donor. Whatever you’d do, let’s hear it! Personally, we’d get to work on duplicating Stuntman Mike’s “death proof” Charger from the Tarantino movie: a menacing Dukes of Hazzard look-alike without the General Lee paint job. That would allow for plenty of roughness around the edges.
eBay Link: 1969 Dodge Charger
I have wanted to do a twist on the General Lee I would call ‘Realistic Lee’. It would be done as a more authentic looking late seventies asphalt street stock / super stock short track car with the iconic ‘General Lee’ paint scheme. I’m talking radiused and slightly flared wheel openings, set of Bart kidney bean slotted stock car wheels, side dumps, you get the idea. What the General Lee would have been had the show’s producers cared a whit about authenticity.
In 1976 I turned down a nice 69 Charger R/T with a 440 6 Pack and pistol grip 4 speed over concerns about gas mileage. Also the headliner was missing. The guy wanted $1500. Kick me.
I have actually seen a few basket case Chargers for sale for cheap and even though I’d be burned at the stake for this… I really want to buy one that’s beyond saving & turn into a Hobby Stock or Street Stock car for dit track racing.
Sell every salvageable part from the grille to the interior to restore another one but gut the whole car, throw a cage and a nice small block in it and throw it around a dirt track like I stole it. That’s what I’d do with it
Simple. The ultimate resto rod on this platform would have a GenIII Hemi of 426″ displacement, dressed up to make one think it’s a regular Hemi car at first glance under the hood. I’ve seen some GenIII’s dressed this way and it is quite deceiving. A 5spd with O/D, A/C, hidden satellite radio, power windows and seats are a must. The body would require some stiffening to bring it closer to newer standards, and discs all the way around.
The interior would look dead stock, and it would ride on 15″ Magnum 500 wheels. Tor Red, black vinyl roof, and saddle tan interior.
Every thing would point to it being a nicely done resto, but with the 400 mile cruising range of a properly geared modern Hemi. The power and speed of a modern Hemi, too.
Fix the rotten bodywork and then recreate the scabs with airbrushing. Fit all the panels then swap in a GenIII Hemi and tune the suspension for the ultimate ‘shine car – lets see the revenuers keep up with that!
I’d weld up the body panels. Drop in a 5.9 twin turbo Cummins boosted to the sky. Nascar take off wheels/tires, and OD green paint. Then I’d do smokey burnouts until someone offered to buy it for enough money to fill my bottomless pit that is my AMC.