automatics versus 4-speeds?

[lloyd3]

I could probably dig this up somewhere, but for purely speculative purposes, what is the ratio of observed cars? I've almost never seen another '68 4-speed R/T, other than the one I own. If I had to guess I'd say it was less than 15% of production.  Now, I grew up in the sticks (and money was never prevalent there, & still isn't) but after over 50-years of rather-pointed looking...I just don't ever see them. What says the cognoscenti here?

[Kern Dog]

Both of my '70s were built as automatics. I converted the red one to a Tremec 5 speed.
Rarely would you hear someone say "Hey cool, it has an automatic" !

[Mike DC]

Chargers were marketed/priced as a "gentleman's hot rod" compared to a Road Runner or Coronet. 

Automatics were still relatively new to the performance market.  Chrysler's torqueflite was a point of pride for Mopar (and rightly so). 

I'm saying the percentage of Dodge Chargers with manuals would have been on the low side even for the era.   

[70 sublime]

Over the years I have looked at least 50 different second gen Chargers
I have only seen 2 that were factory 4 speed cars
A hand full more that said they swaped in the 4 speed set up

I have swapped in a factory 4 speed set up in my 70 Charger

[lloyd3]

Thank you folks. What you're telling me only confirms what I've seen myself.  I've read that only 1 in 10 were 4-gears but I've never seen the data to support the assertion.  I had also wondered if 4-speeds just didn't survive as well (which wouldn't be far-fetched) but now I'm thinking that there just weren't too-many made.





My co-pilot needs a haircut I fear.

[timmycharger]

Gorgeous Charger, Lloyd!

Since my car was originally a 318 base model Charger, I was going to build it my way. In went the 440, hemi 4 speed, Dana 60 so I can really have fun with it.  It was faster when I had the 727 in it 20 years ago but that is just because of me learning how to race it.  It is so much more fun now with the 4 speed, even taught my son how to drive it last year!

[lloyd3]

TC: Thankyou! Yes, I taught my son how to drive a clutch in my car as well. Pretty hard to stall all those cubic inches hooked to a Dana 3.54:1 setup, and then having those nice big pedals, all spaced well apart. Like me, he's a bigger boy and he has my large feet. Driving a modern stick car usually has me struggling to make my size 14s work on those tiny pedals in a fairly small space. I shift my wife's Volvo sometimes with my foot turned sideways.  Heavy boots in cold weather make driving that car almost impossible.

[496polara]

My 70 Charger R/T was a 4 speed car. My 68 Charger R/t was an automatic.

[cdr]

a

[cdr]

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1019162/re-how-many-4speed-68-charger-rts-were-made.html#Post1019162

[lloyd3]

CDR: Thankyou for that (I'd guessed that number was out there somewhere). So, 15% of original production sounds about right. With attrition, that's probably down to about 10% now... meaning that my guess of about 1 in 10 isn't too-far off. Four speed 2nd Gen Chargers are just not very common and they never really were. Converted cars are probably now more common than the originals (& that's not a knock on converted cars).

[marshallfry01]

I've owned a total of six 68-70 chargers. All of them were original big block cars with automatics. 4 speed chargers are very rare around my area in South Arkansas. I know of a couple that have been converted but they were originally autos.

[Kern Dog]

Uncle Tony has some opinions on the 68-70 Chargers....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeiShAZHUSU&ab_channel=UncleTony%27sGarage

I'm going to assume that the Charger was thought of as a "Luxury Performance" car so the traditional hot rod thinking of having light weight and 4 speed may not have fit the theme of the Charger as well as it did a Road Runner or Super Bee.

[HANDM]

Uncle Tony has some opinions on the 68-70 Chargers....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeiShAZHUSU&ab_channel=UncleTony%27sGarage

I'm going to assume that the Charger was thought of as a "Luxury Performance" car so the traditional hot rod thinking of having light weight and 4 speed may not have fit the theme of the Charger as well as it did a Road Runner or Super Bee.

I saw that last night, good vid, I watch his channel regularly. If course it comes right on the heels of me selling mine!

[lloyd3]

I just posted that video as a separate item. Teach me not to read it here first.  Tony makes a good point (and KD seconds the idea). Chargers were not "lightweight" stripper cars. Perhaps a 4-gear wasn't entirely suited to a "personal luxury" car?  Chargers are heavier than Roadrunners and Super Bees (by ~500 lbs according to the video).

I find the combination quite satisfactory but....I wasn't buying cars in the 1960s.  For me it is the best of all those worlds (looks, performance, nostalgia, relative comfort/safety & of course... easy to maintain).

Uncle Tony stated it fairly succinctly "you wanted a little luxury with your muscle".  A little, but not too-much.  When I was still fairly young (20-21?) I had a white, plain, '65 Coronet 440 2-dr hardtop automatic that had a healthy, replacement 440 in it and it was indeed very-fast, but...it was a bit too-boney & too strippy (crappy brakes, poor handling, plain interior, etc.).  This R/T simply hits all the marks for me, the only improvement to this one (for me) would be maybe a  4-gear Hemi Charger.  And, even 27-years ago, they were prohibitively expensive (they're stratospheric now).   As the years go by, I'm finding this stock 440 to be very easy to live with. I'm not sure any hemi can make that claim.

[Mike DC]

 
IMO Tony is correct on the whole but he exaggerated the Charger weight penalty a bit.

It might hit 500 lbs if you compare a loaded '68 RT/SE to a '66 Coronet slant-6 taxicab.