General lee chargers. Is there more To a 69 charger faith?

[petercharger]

Just THE good ol' boys
Never meaning no harm
Beats all you EVER saw, BEEN in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born

Straightenin' the curves
Flattenin' the hills
Someday the mountain might GET 'em
But the law never will

Making their way, the only way they know how
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow

Chorus.

I'm a good ol' boy
You know my mama loved me
But she don't understand they keep a showin my HANDS
And not my face on TV

Just good ol' boys,
Wouldn't change if they could,
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood.

[jaak]

Just THE good ol' boys
Never meaning no harm
Beats all you EVER saw, BEEN in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born

Straightenin' the curves
Flattenin' the hills
Someday the mountain might GET 'em
But the law never will

Making their way, the only way they know how
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow

Chorus.

I'm a good ol' boy
You know my mama loved me
But she don't understand they keep a showin my HANDS
And not my face on TV

Just good ol' boys,
Wouldn't change if they could,
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood.

[MaximRecoil]

Why not buy a ratty 318 charger, spray bomb it orange with the decals..the push bar makes it look cheap anyway.

Do you think a push bumper also makes a cop car look "cheap"?

When they made the dukes they just put the vectors on as the common aftermarket rims of that era.
To make the car look cool, could have been keystones, cragars, slots or anything else. (all of which look better imo)
I get the accuracy point but being a make-believe tv show, at a point it seems silly.
I guess my dukes allegiance just doesn't run that deep.

Except, they weren't the common aftermarket wheels of the era. Keystones, Cragars, slot mags, Torque Thrusts, etc., and even cheap steel spoke wheels for that local dirt track look, were all far more common.

I've always thought the Vector wheels were inherently good looking, maybe because they are modeled after a turbine, which gets its form from its function (i.e., "form follows function"). A lot of OEM wheels were of this basic "turbine" design too, including the exact same wheels on Buick Grand Nationals. Some Corvettes came with turbine-style wheels, the '77 Thunderbird that my father had when I was a kid had OEM turbine style wheels; there are many OEM examples.

I'm not sure why they chose those particular wheels for the General Lee, but it wasn't because they were a particularly common aftermarket wheel. It may be because they had Carroll Shelby's name on them, a racing legend (and the General Lee was a race car). The wheels on the very first General Lees were Shelby; most General Lees ended up with the more common American Racing ones though, which were practically identical. They may have used other brands too, such as "Modern Wheel", the company that made the Buick GN ones.

Whatever the reason, it was a good choice in my opinion, because they looked good and it was something different than run of the mill Keystones, Cragars, or slot mags, which for starters, seemed to be on practically every '70s Nova ever owned by a high school kid (and if they didn't have them yet, you can be sure they already had them circled in their JC Whitney catalog).

I used to keep an eye out when I was a kid throughout the '80s for wheels on cars identical to the ones on the General Lee, and other than the few Buick Grand Nationals I saw, I never saw any (though I saw plenty of similar ones of the basic turbine style).

And yes, the right wheels are important for a General Lee replica, because wheels are such a big part of the overall look of any car. There are a few big items you need for the right overall look, and then there are details which are less important. Wheels, paint color, and accurate graphics are the most important things (along with the correct year/make/model of car of course). Less important are things like the rollbar and push bumper. Even less important is interior color, CB radio, and CB antenna. Still less important are the details of the engine and engine compartment, the overload springs, and the Dixie horn (though having the horn isn't important for appearance, it is an important "Dukes fan pleaser" if you care about that sort of thing).  

[JB400]

Darn, I run out of popcorn

[Ghoste]

Thats ok, I think its about to fade out to credits anyway.

[Cooter]

Bottom line is it takes very dedicated people to own and drive GLs...can't stand the heat owning the most popular Car ever, then maybe a Chevelle will be more your speed.

[bill440rt]

Thats ok, I think its about to fade out to credits anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78FGPVHOPYA

[Back N Black]

Bottom line is it takes very dedicated people to own and drive GLs...can't stand the heat owning the most popular Car ever, then maybe a Chevelle will be more your speed.

I don't own a GL and its not because i "can't stand the heat of owing the most popular car ever". I would feel absolutely silly driving around in a GL. It was great when i was 12 years old,but I'm not 12 anymore.

[F8-4life]

Why not buy a ratty 318 charger, spray bomb it orange with the decals..the push bar makes it look cheap anyway.

Do you think a push bumper also makes a cop car look "cheap"?

A cop car is a different then a 69 charger yes?
The push bar looks cheap because it messes with the look of the front end & grill.
Why would you do that to a 2nd gen charger, one of the best grill designs ever imo.

AS for the rims, they look ok but I got tired of vectors after seeing them on alot of 70's street machines, anything from 4x4 to vans had them back in the day.

[Cooter]

Bottom line is it takes very dedicated people to own and drive GLs...can't stand the heat owning the most popular Car ever, then maybe a Chevelle will be more your speed.

I don't own a GL and its not because i "can't stand the heat of owing the most popular car ever". I would feel absolutely silly driving around in a GL. It was great when i was 12 years old,but I'm not 12 anymore.

Yet one would feel completely comfortable riding around in say a neon green, hot screaming PINK, or volumn knob yellow Charger...
Those colors were great when I was 12 years old, but I'm not 12 anymore.
Potato potahto. Has everything to do with the popularity. Afterall, that popularity is why you get asked when your gonna paint it orange. Aint got nothing to do with age, or all I'd see in John S' s autograph line would be 12 year olds.

[Aero426]

New bumper sticker:  "It's a GL thing.   You wouldn't understand."   

[mopar0166]

Some people cant handle the spotlight,  You gotta know that going in

[Back N Black]

Bottom line is it takes very dedicated people to own and drive GLs...can't stand the heat owning the most popular Car ever, then maybe a Chevelle will be more your speed.

I don't own a GL and its not because i "can't stand the heat of owing the most popular car ever". I would feel absolutely silly driving around in a GL. It was great when i was 12 years old,but I'm not 12 anymore.

Yet one would feel completely comfortable riding around in say a neon green, hot screaming PINK, or volumn knob yellow Charger...
Those colors were great when I was 12 years old, but I'm not 12 anymore.
Potato potahto. Has everything to do with the popularity. Afterall, that popularity is why you get asked when your gonna paint it orange. Aint got nothing to do with age, or all I'd see in John S' s autograph line would be 12 year olds.

Again, my opinion, not looking for an explanation. You would drive it proudly and i would not.

[Mike DC]

   
The downside of a GL in public is not just the attention itself.  It's also what kind of attention.  A lot of people literally don't respect that the car is private property at all.  They see the car in a regular public parking lot space, and they treat it was set up on display for them at a theme park.  

People will lean on it, pull the door handles/etc, pile their kids onto the hood to take pictures, etc.  Hood slides are not unheard of.  

The same people wouldn't dare do that kind of thing to somebody else's P.O.S. 1987 station wagon parked next to it, but they will do it to a $30k General Lee without thinking twice.  Their brains just don't register that the big orange TV star in front of them is somebody's privately owned automobile. 

     

[Aero426]

Again, my opinion, not looking for an explanation. You would drive it proudly and i would not.

Well said.

[Aero426]

   
The downside of a GL in public is not just the attention itself.  It's also what kind of attention.  A lot of people literally don't respect that the car is private property at all.  They see the car in a regular public parking lot space, and they treat it was set up on display for them at a theme park.  

All true. 

[jaak]

 

[MaximRecoil]

A cop car is a different then a 69 charger yes?

Usually, though any car can be a cop car.

The push bar looks cheap because it messes with the look of the front end & grill.

A push bumper will always affect the look of the frontend and grille no matter what car it is on. How does that translate to "looking cheap"? Can you clarify what you mean by "cheap"? Do you mean (a) inexpensive, (b) low quality, or (c) low class?

Why would you do that to a 2nd gen charger, one of the best grill designs ever imo.

Well the reason for the General Lee's push bumper in the context of the show was obvious: the General Lee was a race car of the "stock car" variety (and a car for "running shine", which was the root of stock car racing in the first place), and traditionally these types of cars often had push bumpers because of the contact that was allowed in this type of racing, and the contact that was likely when "running shine" (example, another example, and another). The grille is one of the most vulnerable areas of a car, and damage to the grille can easily disable the car due to damaging the radiator behind it. It makes sense to protect the grille area if you expect some car-to-car contact.

As for people making a General Lee replica, the reason is obvious as well, i.e., because it is a replica of a car that had a push bumper.

AS for the rims, they look ok but I got tired of vectors after seeing them on alot of 70's street machines, anything from 4x4 to vans had them back in the day.

I don't believe they were ever as common as you claim. I suspect that you are lumping all of the various "turbine" style wheels together. The exact 10-fin design that was on the General Lee was never a particularly common wheel, which is part of why original ones sell for such high prices these days, even when they're not in very good condition.

[hatersaurusrex]

Should make a sign for the car shows that says:

I HAVE NO @#$%ing CLUE WHERE DAISY IS

[F8-4life]

Yea I'm lumping all turbine wheels together in that comment, your right.
As for the  push bar looking "cheap" on a 69 charger, well that is hardly dabatable in my eyes.
Just cause warner brothers decided to dress the tv car with a push bar  back in '78 doesn't mean it looks good on the car itself or is an improvement.
I grew up watching the show & loved it but at a point it is just a tv show. The charger is a too great a car to have a telivision show dragged up in association so often IMO.

[JB400]

You're fighting a losing battle.

[F8-4life]

You're fighting a losing battle.

I was thinking the same thing

[69finder]

Maximumrecoil is an expert on replica cars based on an ancient TV show.  He has intimate knowledge of minutia that no one gives  about.

Well done! 

[MaximRecoil]

Yea I'm lumping all turbine wheels together in that comment, your right.

Which negates what you said about "Vectors" previously, given that most of the wheels you remember seeing on vehicles in the '70s weren't Vectors at all.

As for the  push bar looking "cheap" on a 69 charger, well that is hardly dabatable in my eyes.

Again:

Can you clarify what you mean by "cheap"? Do you mean (a) inexpensive, (b) low quality, or (c) low class?

Just cause warner brothers decided to dress the tv car with a push bar  back in '78 doesn't mean it looks good on the car itself or is an improvement.

Except, in the context of the show, it wasn't a "dress up" item, it was there for a practical purpose (just like the ones on cop cars are there for a practical purpose rather than as a "dress up" item). I liked it for this reason, and because it was highly unusual (I had never seen a push bumper on any car other than a cop car or "Baja Bug" when I was a kid). One of the great things about the General Lee, and the thing that makes its appeal so timeless is, that they didn't really follow the hotrodding / custom car trends of the day. They built the car largely based on stories/input from Jerry Rushing, a former "moonrunner", which represents a niche of car culture that wasn't familiar to most of America in the late '70s. I mean, they could have slapped Cragars, side pipes, a hood scoop, airbrushed graphics, "groovy" '70s style letters/numbers on it, and fat tires on the back, but they didn't.

I grew up watching the show & loved it but at a point it is just a tv show. The charger is a too great a car to have a telivision show dragged up in association so often IMO.

If not for The Dukes of Hazzard, it is a safe bet that there would have been significantly fewer crusher-bait Chargers saved over the years. The Dukes of Hazzard made the second-generation Charger a "classic" before its time. It was only a 10-year-old car still commonly kicking around the streets and used car lots when the show began, and when the show ended it was still less than 20 years old, but it had millions of new fans, many of whom were too young to have even been born when the car was new, but came of age in the late '80s and early '90s and wanted a '69 Charger (I'm one of them).

Maximumrecoil is an expert on replica cars based on an ancient TV show.  He has intimate knowledge of minutia that no one gives   about.

Well done!  

^^^ Reading disability alert.

[69finder]

Truth hurts?