TV Show Made
Dodge Charger a Star

For those who remember the old 1980s hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard - Bo, Daisy, Sheriff Rosco and the rest of the gang, most people will agree the biggest star of the show was General Lee.

For those who don't remember, or never saw the show, the General wasn't the grizzled old-timer on the set. It was the bright orange '69 Dodge Charger that jumped through windows, over trucks and across lakebeds to escape the shoot-first, ask-questions-later bumbling police officers.

Once the show became a ratings champ, the General became a star in its own right, featured in posters, games and model toys across the continent, and its likeness brought in more than $100 million a year to Warner Brothers TV.

Yet even before the Dodge Charger became a famous TV car-sonality, it had earned plenty of respect on the muscle car scene. Introduced in 1966 as a two-door version of the mid-size Coronet, it earned the admiration of muscle car enthusiasts in the best (some would say only) way possible: by stuffing as much engine under the hood as possible.

Two big burly V8 powerplants were available when it first debuted, serving notice that it wanted to be a heavy hitter in the burgeoning segment, and dwarfing competitors' underhood muscle.

Keep in mind, however, that all these engine output figures are in "gross" ratings, meaning they were measured before all the accessories were attached to them.

The Charger was conceived as a competitor to the hot-selling Dodge Charger, but on a larger frame than the Plymouth Barracuda. The Charger's bigger body meant more room under the hood, which was pretty much the main constraint on engine size in those pre-emissions, pre-fuel economy regulation days.

After a sales slump in its second year, a curvier Charger hit the market for 1968, offering a mammoth 440-cubicinch (7.2 litre) Super Magnum engine in its top-line Charger R/T line.

Yet 1969 is the year that's most closely associated with the zenith of the Charger's illustrious history, and not only because it was the model that was seen in more than 18 million households every week as the General Lee years later.

With Dodge wanting to make a dent on the NASCAR circuit, whose rules dictated that the cars be based on the bodies of actual production vehicles, the company went out and added an 18-inch extension to the nose and a large soccer net-worthy rear wing on the trunk. These were called the Charger Daytona, and even though the aerodynamic doodads were heavy and only helped stability over 100 mph speeds and above, the Daytona was seen as the most outrageous muscle car of its time.

By 1979 the Charger had long lost its performance car roots. The General, of course, received plenty of extra attention by show stunt coordinators, whose high-flying shenanigans junked about three Generals per episode.

On top of stiffened springs and heavy-duty shock absorbers that all of the show's Chargers received, all "jump" cars were also loaded with roll cages and anywhere from 500 to 1,000 lbs of lead weight in the trunk.

"Without the ballast to balance the weight of the engine in front, "Dukes" stunt co-ordinator told TV Guide in 1982, "the car would turn end over end in the air."

No Matter whether you remember the Dodge Charger for its fleeting runs down the back straight or from the living room sofa, it made quite an impact on muscle car history.

- Story by Michael Bettencourt -