Dukesfest

[artstar]

Hello everyone,
I have a question that I have been wrestling with for years.  I cannot understand why so many charger fans support the DOH jumps at the annual Dukesfest.  I know that many times these cars are not perfectly original however I am sure they are still drivable and certainly not worthy of destruction.  What was done twenty years ago on the DOH is bad enough but at least then the 2nd gen chargers were not quite as rare as they are today.  Today there is no excuse for destroying these cars.  Obviously as long as people are willing to go to Dukesfest and spend money someone will be willing to sacrifice another charger.  Am I missing something here or am I just pissed because I cannot afford a charger – even the ones they crash each year at Dukesfest? 

[Charger1973]

 

[Dave22443]

There are people that see it as nothing more than a way to make money and they could really care less about the cars themselves.  Hollywood is a great example of automotive waste and as far as I'm concerned, Dukefest is in the same catagory.  Unfortunately, they will never stop until we in the Charger community stop selling them our cars.

I myself do what I can by knowing that MY Charger will never meet that fate because I will never sell it.  I hope you find yours soon.  Sounds like thats another one that can be saved by someone unwilling to sell it to Hollywood.

[Mike DC]

 
This topic has tons of threads about it.  Tons already.

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To answer briefly:

--  Most of the DOH diehard fans actually DO wish they'd stop jumping Chargers at the show.  But the few hundred DOH diehards are NOT in control of "Dukesfest."  The promoters are the CMT cable network and Ben Jones.  Multi-million-dollar stuff.    Dukesfests have been drawing between 50-120,000 people in recent years. Most of them aren't huge Mopar fans who know about how hard it is to actually fix a jumped car.

--  Mopar fans & DOH diehards won't sit out the event because it's huge.   (There are plenty of things people don't like about the Mopar Nationals too, but do you think we could get the whole Mopar hobby to sit it out next year?  No way in hell.)

--  It's a whole-weekend long show, and the GL jumps for 30 seconds at the end.  There's a lot more to "Dukesfest" than just the final car jump on Sunday afternoon.

 

[pettyfan43]

I saw the car they used UP CLOSE at Dukesfest 06. Ragged, RUSTY BONDO BUGGY. not a straight panel on it, patched up and gutted of any decent parts, the grille was pieced together from pieces and the center was a piece of sheetmetal that was made to resemble the center of a 69 grille.

It wouldn't have made a parts car because all the parts were junk.

I personally don't know why the stunt team couldn't build a couple jump cars like they built for the movie. That can be jumped several times.

The video of the car from a couple years ago that made that long jump, if you watch it, the WHOLE TAIL PANEL caves in when the car lands, looks like another rusty bondo buggy to me.

I'd hate to see them use up good cars. For that matter dress up a Diplomat as a Hazzard county sherrif's car and jump that, I wouldn't care. I mean if the WHOLE car is junk, you haven't lost anything. BUT when they use up decent cars, that is a LOT different!

[Charger1973]

I rode along with Gnrl01 last year to Dukesfest.  The parade of Generals was fun, and it was cool to see that many in one place...  other than that and seeing the original cast in person, it was really boring.   I took these pics of the jump car.  It didnt look all that bad to me.    

[Charger1973]

more

[Charger1973]

and more

[artstar]

Thanks for the pics.  No, not a perfect car to start with but it looked to be in restoreable shape prior to the jump.

[Mike DC]

 
It always amazes me . . .

People complain day & night that there's no "decent cheap low-rust Chargers" left for sale.  And then the same people will be so quick to assume that a Dukesfest jumper GL is so clean & straight?  Just because the paint looks good from a distance & in photos? 

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The "Dukes" stunt crew are everyday people like the rest of us.  They don't wanna pay decent-car money for a car they're gonna wreck any more than you or I would.  And they often swap decent parts off the jumpers before they wreck them, just like you or I would.  They've got friends building Charger projects too.

Haven't you guys ever seen an Ebay ad for a rusty car with deceptive pics before?  That's exactly what Hollywood prop-builders do for a living.  That "looks much better in pictures" deception work.  I'm not trying to tell anyone not to be annoyed about the jumps, but you have to realize that those Chargers getting whacked are pretty bad.

 

[JimShine]

I hate seeing the cars wrecked too.

I can't help but notice the common theme of "I can't afford one and these guys are trashing them". Well, that solution is simple. Work overtime, get a better job, and or sacrifice and buy that Charger. The Dukesfest guys are not interfering with that.

[terrible one]

That car did look pretty rough, but I would still love to have it and drive it! It's still a driveable, somewhat decent Charger. Man that was a rough landing though! Looks like they straight flatlanded it!

[artstar]

I don't mean to be whiner but a minimum of $30K for a solid 2nd gen charger is not something that the average person can get into as a hobby.  Certainly not by working a second job or whatever.  I agree that DOH/Dukesfest is something that is mostly out of our control.  I also think that the average DOH fan is not necessarily at charger fan.  However the resurgence of interest in DOH and other pop culture films has contributed to the elevated values these cars presently bring.  I don't think they would be as valuable if they did not have the place they do in American pop culture.  That coupled with the fact that every year they have to sacrifice one for DOH fans is just frustrating for someone who would love to own one.  OK, I'll stop complaining now and go get that second job at Dairy Queen.   

[JimShine]

The cars killed are never $30K cars. They are sub $10K cars. The stuff done to them makes them look okay from more than 10 feet. They are not something that would be a driver as is.

Dukes only drives a little of the market. Dukes doesn't drive up the rest of the muscle car market. Your average Lee owner bought a car on the verge of being crushed and brought them back. Rarely does a Lee owner buy a $30K car and make it into a Lee.

[Mike DC]

 

Dukes only drives a little of the market. Dukes doesn't drive up the rest of the muscle car market. Your average Lee owner bought a car on the verge of being crushed and brought them back. Rarely does a Lee owner buy a $30K car and make it into a Lee.

I agree.

Look back 15 years ago.  Chargers have always been the top-priced 68-70 B-body Mopar even before the DOH resurgence had anything to do with it.  All the '68-70 B-bodies have gone way up in the last 15 years, and the '69 Charger had never left the top position on that list.

The TV show is not what put nice '69 Chargers out of working-class reach.  It's a minor contributing factor at best.  The new DOH movie temporarily spiked the Charger values for about a month in the summer of 2005, but that was not any real lasting change. 

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I love DOH but it's not what is making Chargers expensive.  Even at $30K, a nice 440-powered '69 Charger STILL isn't even worth any more than what it costs to build.  And when something sells for no more than the price of building a clone of it, then it's pretty hard to view it as "overpriced."

The unfortunate fact is that CARS in general cost money. 
No car can survive from 1969 until 2007 in any kind of decent shape just by sitting behind some redneck's barn.  If you want a nice '69 Charger in 2007, then you're either gonna pay for someone who stored the Charger indoors for several decades (not very common), or else you're gonna pay for someone to have rebuilt the whole car by hand (not very cheap).

It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. 
Rednecks being able to find cheap workable '69 Charger stuff in the local junkyard was the basis for "Dukes of Hazzard," and that was 1979.

 

[pettyfan43]

The cars killed are never $30K cars. They are sub $10K cars. The stuff done to them makes them look okay from more than 10 feet. They are not something that would be a driver as is.

Dukes only drives a little of the market. Dukes doesn't drive up the rest of the muscle car market. Your average Lee owner bought a car on the verge of being crushed and brought them back. Rarely does a Lee owner buy a $30K car and make it into a Lee.

I have been saying for years, people can damn the Dukes for wrecking cars during that show and movie, but the bottom line is that it has saved more than they ever destroyed.

[justin1987]

I have talked to Tom Sarmento about the cars he builds for Dukesfest. The cars are literally held together with duct tape and welded strips metal. They put a strip of tape of over the rust holes and paint it. It costs about $10,000 to build it (car, labor, materials, etc.) and Corey Eubanks charges $3000 to jump it. They sold the car last year for $16,000 so he made a little profit on it.

[Mike DC]

The drivetrain is often supplied by Tom's crew, so are the wheels/tires, the dashboards/seats/door panels/consoles are gone, the chrome trim is mostly aluminum foil tape, the body panels (and even floors) are full of patches & holes, the grilles are usually cracked-up 68's with a homemade divider riveted into the center, the taillights are usually cracked-up 70's . . .

Literally the only thing solid on most of those cars is the subframe rails.  And some of those have been patched up in a few places. 
At least two of the jumper GLs had (visibly) accident-bent unibodies to start with.