Question.

[bigcountry]

I own an un-restored 1969 Charger S/E, 383, auto, console.  I bought this car to make a General Lee.  This is the car that got me into cars (General Lee).  I hear there is a lot of dissent toward General Lee owners from the Mopar community.  I have heard coments such as "Waste of a good Mopar.", "Waste of a good restoration.", "Waste of money." However, I feel there would be a lot less unrestored, still hidden and just plain junked Chargers(68-70) if not for the cult following of the General Lee.  Since this is a Charger forum, I would like to know how you all feel about this topic?  I have thought about it over and over and I feel like I owe it to myself and the General Lee to build it as such.  What do you think?

P.S. New to the forum.

[jb666]

I own an un-restored 1969 Charger S/E, 383, auto, console.  I bought this car to make a General Lee.  This is the car that got me into cars (General Lee).  I hear there is a lot of dissent toward General Lee owners from the Mopar community.  I have heard coments such as "Waste of a good Mopar.", "Waste of a good restoration.", "Waste of money." However, I feel there would be a lot less unrestored, still hidden and just plain junked Chargers(68-70) if not for the cult following of the General Lee.  Since this is a Charger forum, I would like to know how you all feel about this topic?  I have thought about it over and over and I feel like I owe it to myself and the General Lee to build it as such.  What do you think?

P.S. New to the forum.

Welcome! I see you came over from Big John's place 

I agree with your statement above, and to me saying a GL is a "waste of a Charger" is BS. Sure , they aren't everyone's cup of tea, but does that mean those of us that love them don't belong in the Charger community? I hope not.

At the end of the day it's YOUR car and you need to do what YOU think is right for yourself. 

[tan top]

Hello & welcome Big C     any pictures 

[captnsim]

Welcome to the site...   Start building that GL.    Post some pics lets see what your starting with  

[bigcountry]

Yeah, I found this place on a post from the Road Runner forum.  I have a few projects to do when I get home.  This one and the 69 RR.  But like I said before, the Charger was my original desire.  I'll get some pics up soon. They are stored in a barn for now, the pics are rough, but one day.....

[captnsim]

Hey we all gotta start somewhere. We'll get yeah from rough to buffed in no time...

[Mike DC]

I'm a severe GL nerd.  Here's the deal:


Most of the Mopar hobby doesn't HATE the General Lee per se, they're just really tired of the fad lately.  They're getting tired of taking their '68-70 B-body (of any kind) in public and hearing, "hey, that looks like the General Lee!" from random people.  They mostly feel that it's been overdone lately.   


(Funny how the timing of this "fad" perfectly coincides with the time when a whole generation of kids raised on the TV show all turned 30 and got some decent disposable income.  Anyone could have seen this GL popularity boom coming years ago if they'd just listened to the kids & teens in this hobby at the time.)



Now the GL fan community just isn't quite like the rest of the Mopar hobby.  There's certainly some big overlap between the two groups, but they aren't the same group. 

GL fans are still big car-guys for the most part, but they're also a group of comic/movie fanboys about an old TV show.  These GL replicas are basically huge rolling two-ton "prop replicas."  Sorta like when sci-fi/superhero fans make homemade costume parts to match the originals.


--------------------------------------------------------


There's something about the old car hobby that you've gotta learn:  No matter WHAT you build, GL-related or not, sooner or later someone will virtually always have something bad to say about it.

If you've got a real Charger R/T, there will be someone there to walk by it and say, "Oh, it's not a real Hemi car" or "that's too valuable, you shouldn't drive that thing on public roads like this!"  If you've got a cloned R/T, then someone will always be there to say "That's a fake!  You shouldn't do that!  You're trying to fool people."  (Even if you never made any attempt to hide the truth about the car's VIN plate.)  And if you've got a non-R/T just as it is, someone will be there to say "that's not valuable, it's not even a real R/T car." 

Get my drift here?  There is nothing you could build that would not get someone talking sh*t about it sooner or later.  If you make no mistakes in restoring it, someone will incorrectly insist that you did just because they invariably think they know more than you do.  There is NO AVOIDING this stuff with a decent classic car of any kind. 

(And GLs are the worst.  For some reason, EVERYONE thinks their fuzzy memories about the car are more reliable than a guy who spent $25K building his own GL.  It will drive you nuts if you let it.  You can build it out of a '69 Charger, and you will literally still get people telling you that you used the wrong car sometimes.  It's that bad.)



This is your life, your effort, your labor, and your money. 

Don't use a '69 Charger that is too rare or too-nice of an original survivor to start with, and just build what you really want out of it. 

The car provokes some reactions both good and bad.  But the vast, vast majority of the reactions are good.  Most of the bad ones are from people who are just jealous of the fact that you've got a decent '69 Charger.  (They all would rather think you just "stumbled onto it" too.  Nobody ever wants to admit that maybe you just worked hard, waited years, and earned it.)


---------------------------------------------------------------


Go see the "Confederate General Lee fan club" online.  They're a huge gathering point for GL/Dukes fans these days on the internet. 

[Mopar2Ya]

It's your car, you should do what makes you happy. If I was to buy an unrestored Charger I'd probably not make a GL, but I'd have no problem buying a GL already done. But then again I change my mind to often. lol  If it's a Mopar, & you're fixing it, that makes it all good. 

[skip68]

I'll say it like I always do.  IT'S JUST PAINT, WHEELS AND STICKERS, A PUSH BAR THAT BOLTS ON AND FAKE ROLL BAR IF YOU WANT.    Build that bad boy brother.       Oh yah, welcome to the site. 

[FlatbackFanatic]

Welcome! I agree with everyone else, its your car, do what you want to do with it. Some people will always have comments, but what the hell, who cares as long as your happy with it. Good luck

[rusty lee]

buid it    enjoy it.     post pics of it.   

[bigcountry]

I am pretty much convinced to build the General Lee.....now I just have to get a hold of another one to do in triple black.

[vancamp]

like others have said build what YOU want not what everyone thinks you should. to me a car is useless unless it can be driven rare or not, im not knocking the guys with the megadollar restorations that dont get driven but for me if I am to scared to drive it and use it for its intended purpose it kinda seems pointless and not fun anymore. if you want a general lee build it and dont let what others think stop you.

[69*F5*SE]

Build it how you want it.     Just do it some justice with a nice resto.   

[bull]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

[MoparManJim]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

FYI, there was 68 and 69's used on the show. So please define "correct" for me. 

If you watch the episodes, in some you can tell the 68's when the car hits somthings and the push bar hits the I piece and the area falls backwards to the '68 grill area. 

[dodgecharger-fan]

Mike hit it pretty well on the head..

While a GL is not what I want, I don't have any problem with them - at all. I like them. I just don't want one.

About the only thing that would get me concerned about a conversion to a GL is if the car you use is already something special - rare, survivor, interesting history, etc. I'd just hate for the hobby to lose something special.

Even then, it's still your call because it's your car.

[baullz]

Welcome aboard 

And I see no problem making a GL, it brings another Charger back from the junk heap doesn't it? 

The Dukes of Hazzard pretty much sparked the love for Chargers in me, I am not however building a GL with my current Charger (it will be orange though).  Some day I will do a GL, maybe.

But of course you will always have the haters around but you will have your haters with anything, so don't let those people sway you just do what you want.

And if you ever get those people that despise the GL because the show wrecked so many Chargers just tell them they are full of it because like you said how many people saved Chargers from the junkyard just because of the TV show.

[Ghoste]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

FYI, there was 68 and 69's used on the show. So please define "correct" for me. 

If you watch the episodes, in some you can tell the 68's when the car hits somthings and the push bar hits the I piece and the area falls backwards to the '68 grill area. 

They may have used them out of necessity but I think we would all agree that the GL was supposed to be a 69.  Unless you were trying to duplicate an episode where they were attempting to disguise that they had the wrong year, why?
For me personally, I don't care what you make into a GL but I understand where Bull is coming from.

[bull]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

FYI, there was 68 and 69's used on the show. So please define "correct" for me. 

If you watch the episodes, in some you can tell the 68's when the car hits somthings and the push bar hits the I piece and the area falls backwards to the '68 grill area. 

Correct would be '69 because it was meant to be a '69 whether they used '68s or not. That's an example what I mean by half-assed IMO. WB never left any 68 marker lights or taillights on their conversion cars. They tried to make them look like '69s because that's what the GL is supposed to be.

[RD]

restoring a charger to look like a general lee is restoring a charger still.  one more being recycled appropriately (i.e. back to being used on the streets: restoring is recycling).

good luck.

[Mike DC]

Correct would be '69 because it was meant to be a '69 whether they used '68s or not. That's an example what I mean by half-assed IMO. WB never left any 68 marker lights or taillights on their conversion cars.

Yeah, but WB also gave the car a bunch of interior tan shades that weren't the factory '69 tan.  But plenty of people would rather make their replica the way it was onscreen than use the factory '69 color now.  Same with rollbar configurations that didn't match any particular type of racing league.

Besides, if the GL was really the slammed together hickmobile racer like it was portrayed, it probably WOULD have junkyard-scrounged, wrong-year parts scattered all over it.  The Duke boys crunched the car's fenders & bumpers all the time and not just on the make-believe jumps.  I could make an argument that the stuff like smoothed over signals & missing badges are more true to the spirit of the thing than not.  Few early Charger NASCARs kept their year-correct signal lights & badges.

(And BTW, a few GLs actually did have the '68 round signals still present on the corners and just sprayed over with orange paint.)

------------------------------------------------


These fan-built GLs are basically giant "prop replicas."  It's much like a Star Wars fan who makes a copy of a SW character's prop costume, errors and all.

Or an assembly-line-accurate restoration that also duplicates the errors on the original cars. 

[MoparManJim]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

FYI, there was 68 and 69's used on the show. So please define "correct" for me. 

If you watch the episodes, in some you can tell the 68's when the car hits somthings and the push bar hits the I piece and the area falls backwards to the '68 grill area. 

Correct would be '69 because it was meant to be a '69 whether they used '68s or not. That's an example what I mean by half-assed IMO. WB never left any 68 marker lights or taillights on their conversion cars. They tried to make them look like '69s because that's what the GL is supposed to be. 

that is where you are incorrect my friend, If yo uwatch 2nd season I do belive it is that had Cale in it. You can clearly see the General Lee with a painted over 68 marker lights on the driver side. It's right on screen.   

They didn't reffer to the charger as a 69 charger, only Columbia did on the back of there vhs cases. On the show they reffered to the charger as a charger or a two coupe. I don't ever remembering hears a year mention of it   

[viper r/t]

I have no desire to build a GL but I can see why someone would. The only thing that bothers me about GL clones is when people do a half-assed job or use the wrong year (no offense to anyone here). If you're going to do it, do it right.

FYI, there was 68 and 69's used on the show. So please define "correct" for me. 

If you watch the episodes, in some you can tell the 68's when the car hits somthings and the push bar hits the I piece and the area falls backwards to the '68 grill area. 

Correct would be '69 because it was meant to be a '69 whether they used '68s or not. That's an example what I mean by half-assed IMO. WB never left any 68 marker lights or taillights on their conversion cars. They tried to make them look like '69s because that's what the GL is supposed to be. 

that is where you are incorrect my friend, If yo uwatch 2nd season I do belive it is that had Cale in it. You can clearly see the General Lee with a painted over 68 marker lights on the driver side. It's right on screen.   

They didn't reffer to the charger as a 69 charger, only Columbia did on the back of there vhs cases. On the show they reffered to the charger as a charger or a two coupe. I don't ever remembering hears a year mention of it   

Actually Jim, I believe in "Happy Birthday General Lee" it is called a '68, when they pick it up from the car lot or whatever   

[Mike DC]

Actually Jim, I believe in "Happy Birthday General Lee" it is called a '68, when they pick it up from the car lot or whatever

True dat.  I've always wondered whether that error was intentional or not.  (The character saying it was an indifferent junkyard owner who didn't want the car.)