General Lee#1 . . . back from the dead!

[Mike DC]

You see more of me at the "Confederate" GL fan club these days, but I gotta give props where props are due: 

LEE#1's been restored. 

A private owner bought the car, and T.Bell & several NAGLFC members were involved in all this.

Yeah, MAJOR outer skin sheetmetal work/replacement had to happen.  But it's still mostly the same (now straightened) unibody shell and it's the same 383/727 under the hood.  It was a controversial diecision to restore it, but I'm glad they did such a good job on it.

1978:




2001:




Now:


The 1975 "Corvette Flame Red" orange paint color, the dimensions of the flag & graphics, the factory tan vinyl interior, the missing back seat, the bronze engine bay, the crooked driver-side "1" number, the missing gas-cap trim ring, the radio antenna on the fender, the lighter-tan paint on the rollbars . . . everything.

Bravo, guys!

[Zentelis]

Wow..just wow! 

Any more pics of it before-during-after ?

[Bandit72]

thats simply awesome...i'm glad they did such a good job keeping it accurate.....it looks like they even used the original windshield *note yellow parking pass still in place

[Ghoste]

Wow.  All GL fans should stand up with pride on that one.  That first 2001 pic should always be displayed with the car.

[bull]

So I guess the restoration is supposed to pre-date Luke breaking the antenna off with his butt while sliding across the hood?

[Ghoste]

Predates that opening credits jump from the first episode too.   

[duo-stripe]

controversy or not.. I think they did a heck of a job!! The icon of the Dukes is preserved for the future.
Hope to see it sometimes in the future!

Grtz Marcel

[Chris G.]

wow, that looks nothing like every other General Lee out there. 

Should have never touched the car, but that's just my opinion.

[BrianShaughnessy]

Looks good to me   

I never knew the differences between LEE1 and all the rest of em'.    Thanks for pointing them out!

[6pkrunner]

This is much like the 1970 Landy Charger in the other thread. There are the two camps - 1/leave it alone as its historical and 2/return it to its days of glory. I really am torn between these two thoughts. If you say the car is original but have replaced the rear frame/trunk/quarters/floor/doors/fenders/firewall, can one claim its still the same car? Alan is living through this with his "barrelcuda". some applaud the total effort and replacing 80-90% of the car rather than a rebody. But as it sits currently, it is but a shadow of the car that made itself famous (infamous) in days gone by.
No matter what one does, its going to be the wrong choice for almost 50% of the people. And those 50% will not be shy about letting you know you screwed up, in their opinion.

[JMF]

Nice history, how did it come to be in that kind of shape like in the 2001 picture?

[Mike DC]

Nice history, how did it come to be in that kind of shape like in the 2001 picture?

First off, in 1978 the TV stunt crew hastily poured several hundred pounds of liquid concrete into the trunk to ballast it for the jump.  (Literally - they opened the trunk and poured wet cement onto the trunkfloor and let it harden up.  The crew later went to removeable weight boxes for future jumps in future cars.)
 
After jumping the car, the TV crew purposely scavenged it for parts and then redid it to serve as a "wrecked Richard Petty race car" for a later episode.  That's why it wore green paint and a #71.  They beat the body with cinder blocks so it would look wrecked.

When the crew sent all their cars to the junkyard shortly after filming ended, this car avoilded being scrapped because of the concrete in the trunk (bad for the car crusher!).  So the car was left in the woods for 25 years instead of being scrapped like most of the Georgia DOH wrecks.  The car's trunkfloor was still covered in solid concrete when the car was torn down for resto last year.

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There are the two camps - 1/leave it alone as its historical and 2/return it to its days of glory. I really am torn between these two thoughts . . . No matter what one does, its going to be the wrong choice for almost 50% of the people. And those 50% will not be shy about letting you know you screwed up, in their opinion.

It's already been debated among the GL fans.  Debated A LOT.  Still gets debated almost every single time the car gets brought up.

I was strongly in the "don't restore it" camp myself.  I thought (and still do think) it would have been cheaper & more history-sensitive to build a perfect clone of the car in its pre-jumped glory and just display the two together.

But it's someone else's property, it was always pretty easy to understand why the 50% wants it restored, and it's all over & done now.  There were plenty of worse things that could have happened to the car.  I'm just glad they did such a great job on the resto.

 

[ChargerSG]

I think its great he restored it, and did a good job

[resq302]

Fantastic job on the resto.  I never knew the small details about the missing items such as the gas cap trim ring and the rear seat.  Certainly intersting.

[Charger_Fan]

Sooo...did they fill the trunk back up with concrete?
I don't feel strongly about the car, one way or another. It looks like they did a good job & at least the windshield seems to be the original one.

On a side note, I saw a GL on the top rack of a southbound car hauler this morning on my way to work. Kinda funny.

[Drache]

Is it just me or do I see a gold '69 Charger behind the banged up "petty charger" in the first old picture? Looks like it has a dented up hood! 

[FastbackJon]

I'd rather look at the beat up unrestored version at a car show than the restored version.

[MoparManJim]

well me personaly, heres how I feel about it, sorry if o effend anyone as this isn't meant to do so but just the way I see things. I think they did a great job on him! bring him back to life after all those years gone by was good, now when you say its not the same car? look again as it is, the frame most as I know is still under him yet. The Vin # is the real thing, the dash is the same one (I think). All they had to do more liky was pound out the big dents and repair the rear area of the car. To what I understand is they used real General Lee parts for the restore of the car. Now for those of you that say they should have left it alone, well why don't a person just go to the junkyard get a old junk car an place it in the agarage LOL, hey its not restored and its not been touch, If it was me I would rather have the car running an drivable and not have a 3500 or how much that car ways of dead metal in my garage setting and can't really move it around. Heck I even built a model of this car and it right on with the car I would say LOL. 

[Lowprofile]

I'm not a big GL fan, but I am glad to see another classic Charger up and running! Now that this car has been raised from the dead, is it considered the "Holy Grail" of all GL's, and will all others be judged by its standards?   

[Mike DC]

         
Yeah, the "Holy Grail of GLs" isn't a bad description of it!

But seriously, different fans like different eras of the show.  There's a lotta Georgia-GL lovers out there but some DOH fans also like the later-series cars better. (Late-series ones had much more consistency, smoothed-over signal lights, the wider pushbars, etc.)

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Any way you stack it, LEE#1's popularity is probably gonna be bigger than ever now.

   

[Shakey]

When are they gonna jump it?

[Chris G.]

I'm guessing the resto cost at least 60K. I don't know what these cars are worth, but maybe Mike DC or someone else can give us a good idea of it's worth now that it's restored.

[JMF]

It's an amazing job whoever restored it whether you agree with it or not considering what it looked like

[tan top]

awesome  job on the  restoration , Travis , Jim shine & every one else who was involved  , would like to see more pictures of  Lee 1 , under side /hood / restoration etc,  each to there own in weather the  lee 1 should of been restored every body has there own views , but in my opinion , yes a historical significance  for (DOH) fans before it was restored  ,although i hate to say this  it was basically junk , a restoration was the only thing to do . although  if  WB had just dumped LEE1  in the woods after the jump , and not striped any parts off it & not painted it blue and damaged some more for another episode , and thats how Travis & co found it 2001 or when ever it was , then i would say it might of been better to leave it un restored

[resq302]

Well.... if its anything like the original George Barris Batmobile from the original TV series, that sold for $250,000 or so.