Well, theres one less 69 Charger out there...

[69bronzeT5]

I was at school doing a project on my life. I was doing a section about my Charger and I had some pics of it. Well my teacher walked by and said "Hey, thats a 69 Charger". He told me that his parents had one back when he was younger. I asked him what happened to it and he told me that he drove it for the first time when he was about 3 and a few years after that, his dad tried running a train with it and somehow flipped the Charger onto the tracks. He said his dad got out in time but the Charger got wiped out by the train. He also said he remembers it was blue and it had a 440.

Possibly an RT?


But, theres one less 69 out in the world guys

[Chris G.]

Everytime I check eBay and see a trunk lid or front clip or whatever else, I know that another Charger bit the dust at some point. Survival rate isn't as high as some might think.

[69bronzeT5]

Or somebody restored their Charger and got a repop part and is selling the original on Ebay

[terrible one]

No one currently repros deck lids or front clips.

[Chad L. Magee]

No one currently repros deck lids or front clips.

I was doing some cleaning up one of my storage areas for second gen Charger parts this summer, when I realized the same thing which is sad.  I have eight trunk lids and five sets of doors stored there that I plan on using to restore my different projects.  I had bought them off of different parts venders over the last decade, all of which came off of Chargers that did not survive.  Some even came with a story about the car before it got junked or parted out.  One was once a 1970s style show car (painted gloss black with CHARGER done in gold leaf on the end of the decklid), but it is now been recycled (totalled in an accident with a tree) except for the one part that I got........   

[Charger_Fan]

Yep, it's a sad fact of life with old cars. At least with each part saved, that'll help to help keep some other car alive in the future.
I just try to not send any more cars to their grave at my own hand...I have enough remorse as it is.

[Mike DC]

 
There were also hundreds of thousands of them originally produced though.  If there were that many still around today they wouldn't be as exclusive & cool anymore. 

 

[Ghoste]

Hundreds of thousands if you lump the whole 66 to 74 run together.  If you just take 1969, did they even hit one hundred thousand?  They are even more exclusive and cool than you infer Mike.

[69bronzeT5]

I think they built something like 69 thousand???

[69charger2002]

they built basically 200,000+ 2nd gen chargers total. that much i know.. i think it went like 90000 68's, 85000 69's, and 40000 70's or so.. lot for back in the day, but not that many when you factor in how many are REALLY left after 40 years of abuse, rust, and parting out.
trav

[TruckDriver]

I'm guessing here, but isn't the rule about survival like only 2% ? Or is it like 20% ?

[Ghoste]

I think it's 20 but either way, it just isn't enough.

[dukeboy_318]

I think it's 20 but either way, it just isn't enough.

i doubt its that high, more like 10, especially when you talk mopars in general

[Ghoste]

I don't know.  20 seems to be the number I've heard most often but I have no idea how anybody is coming up with these numbers.  I think they're all just gut feelings. 

[hemihead]

Or somebody restored their Charger and got a repop part and is selling the original on Ebay

Or it was one of the thousands of replacement parts Chrysler made in 1969 for dealerships and body shops. 

[Old Moparz]

Everytime I check eBay and see a trunk lid or front clip or whatever else, I know that another Charger bit the dust at some point. Survival rate isn't as high as some might think.

Well, I've personally took part in dismantling 2 of them over the years. One was a 1969, a 318 car which I stripped to get parts for my 1968. I sold the rolling shell to a friend who literally cut up the rest of it for his car, a '69 RT/SE. The other one was a 1970 that I sent to the scrap yard after stripping it to a rolling shell in the early 1980's. I needed the trans for my sister's Newport, some other parts for my 1969, & sold the rest at Englishtown back then.

I had paid $250 for the '70, drove it home, & kept it on the road for about a month smoking up the tires, lol. It had a '68 383 HP motor in it when I got it. It was originally a 440 car, plum crazy, buckets, console, but not an RT. Funny, I couldn't give away the hood at the time & ended up saving it. It was totally rust & dent free, & now in my shed with the 8-3/4 rear that was in it too. The hood will probably going on my Daytona replica. 

[Chris G.]

It was originally a 440 car, plum crazy, buckets, console, but not an RT.

Cool car, but had to be an R/T to have the 440. Dig up your old insurance records and get me that VIN young man. 

[41husk]

I have not parted out any but I have sold 3 that I suspect got parted   You never know though, they all said they were going to be projects.  The # of Chargers being parted or ruined in stupid DH stunts doesn't bother me as much as the thousands parked out in the weather rotting into the ground, and the owner simply refuses to sell to someone who will restore and appreciate it, or part it out so others may live again.  No, thousands of these cars just sit, sinking into the ground, their owners uttering the phrases, "nope not for sale" or i'm gonna fix that up some day" should be a crime!

[Old Moparz]

It was originally a 440 car, plum crazy, buckets, console, but not an RT.

Cool car, but had to be an R/T to have the 440. Dig up your old insurance records and get me that VIN young man. 

I'll take your word on it being the RT model since I was never up on numbers. All I remember is that the VIN called for a 440, but it had a 383 that I sold for $50. I guess that means I used a Charger RT as a parts car to save a 1966 Newport with 4 doors.   

I dug through some old papers once to look for a VIN for another car, but never found it. If I ever come across it I'll be sure to send it.

[Chris G.]

Bob, perhaps you were going by '69 numbers. In '69 the L code was for a 440, while in '70 the L was for a 383 2bbl. Maybe that's the case? 

[jaak]

I parted a rustbucket RT about 7 years ago, kept all the stuff I need and made a nice bit of $$$ off the rest, but seeing the outrageous prices junk is bringing now I wished I woulda held on to it now, lol.

Jason