Mystery Lee 01

[Brock Samson]

  ran into this guy today,...
well not literally

  he on this site?.. anyone know him?..
Ain't seen him at any of the local shows...

'69s are so damn rare,.. i tend to git excited...
are most of them G.L.s at this point?.. 


'n how many Jenny Lees do ya' think there are?.

[Brock Samson]

kinda high on it's haunches... 

[Ghoste]

You didn't try to chat him up while you were snapping the pics?

[Brock Samson]

he took off like a bat out of hell... 

[Khyron]

maybe he had to let some of the air out of those rear shocks 

[Chris 69]

I've seen that guy around. I think he is based in Chico. I used to see his car around town when I was going to college. He's always up here in Redding for the Kool April Nites cruise. I talked to the owner last year, apparently (and I don't know if it's true):

1. He used to be a stunt man for the original Dukes.

2. He has many second generation Chargers he parts out.

3. The GL is a 440, however the VIN is covered and he wouldn't show me the engine.

He did not want to talk much but this is the information I could get out of him.

Chris

[pettyfan43]

You'd think if he were a stuntman in the series, his car would have correct graphics and a correct grille guard instead of bad copies 

[bmoparmofo]

maybe he had to let some of the air out of those rear shocks 

[Mike DC]

There's several hundred GLs out there on the planet.  Probably at least 400-500 in total.  We're getting way over 100 GLs at the big yearly "Dukesfest" these days. 


But overall, it's still a pretty small number of the total 1969 Chargers that still exist.  Maybe 1/10th or 1/12th of all the '69 Chargers is a GL at the absolute most. 

Many of the GL replicas have been constructed by enthusiastic young owners within the last 5-8 years, so you really see them out & about a lot.  Car-for-car, the average GL replica probably has a higher public visibility than the average '69 Charger.

 

[JimShine]

I wouldn't be surprised if we were over 500 now. I can think of a state like Maine that had none 3 years ago that now have around 5. I can think of many states with more than a dozen. Then think about the clones and originals in other countries.

[Rolling_Thunder]

But overall, it's still a pretty small number of the total 1969 Chargers that still exist.  Maybe 1/10th or 1/12th of all the '69 Chargers is a GL at the absolute most. 

Keep in mind that only about 6/10 69 chargers are still around   

[Ghoste]

I wonder what the survival rate really is?  No matter, any GL's on the road still count towards the total. 

[deputycrawford]

Chris 69. I met and talked to Tom Sermento of the original series. He showed us the engine, VIN, and told us all the secrets we wanted to know. He spent hours with many of us at the 20th Anniversary of the National Charger Registry Meet. I tend to believe if he was for real then the engine would be open for all to admire and the VIN would tell the world about a serious car. I think he was pulling your leg. Just my two cents.

[Mike DC]

   
96,000 Chargers produced in 1968.
85,000 Chargers produced in 1969.

Even if 75% of the Chargers ever produced have ended up dead by now, and there are 1,000 replica GLs out there now, that's still a pretty small percentage of the total.

[Chris 69]

Chris 69. I met and talked to Tom Sermento of the original series. He showed us the engine, VIN, and told us all the secrets we wanted to know. He spent hours with many of us at the 20th Anniversary of the National Charger Registry Meet. I tend to believe if he was for real then the engine would be open for all to admire and the VIN would tell the world about a serious car. I think he was pulling your leg. Just my two cents.

I had my doubts when I talked to him.

[Mike DC]

 
It's definitely not a real LEE in these pics. 

Owner was BS'ing you.

 

[Ghoste]

How do you tell from the pics?  (just curious)

[Lostsheep]

The graphics and the pushbar are the first dead give away. Plus the flag + GL lettering + 01's are all different eras, not any from the same one. It could have had a repaint, but the 01's are more what was seen on the reunion movie. And I dont think anyone is even making those.

[Brock Samson]

  how about a side by side picture graphics Comparo. for us "newbies"?..
they all look the same to me 'cept the extreme lee..   

[Lostsheep]

Well here is one era of GL, this is a Cali picture. Small barred flag, lighter colored GL lettering larger 01's...little hard to see those.


Heres a better view of a fatter 01

[Brock Samson]

  o.k. thanks,.. pretty subtle,.. but i get it... 

[Charger1973]

I like how the movie "clapper" on his dash says Universal Studios.  You would think if he was a Dukes stuntman it would say Warner Bros?   

[Mike DC]

I like how the movie "clapper" on his dash says Universal Studios.  You would think if he was a Dukes stuntman it would say Warner Bros?   scratchchin

Heh, heh . . . true dat.

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Another giveaway is the wide-style pushbar on that car.  The pushbar on the car in the pics is a bit too tall (The upper tube is much higher than where the grille/hood come together) and the bottom side supports don't look like the normal TV-series ones either.  The real 3-foot-wide pushbars from later in the TV series were all hand-fabricated by the crew, and they used a jig to make the wide pushbars all exactly alike.


General Lee Trivia: 

With any of the pushbars, the rollcaged big-jumper GLs typically used a trimmed down version.  After the first year or so, the side plates of the pushbar were being cut off below the lower tube for jumps.  They did this on both the narrow and the wide-style pushbars.
 
Those GLs used to hit the takeoff ramps with enough force to bottom-out the front suspension as they went up.  The stunt crew needed all the lower-front-end clearance they could get just to keep the pushbars from hitting the ramps.  They also cranked the torsion bars on the big-jump cars all the way upward for the same reason.

 

[Mike DC]

Here's another pic of some obvious differences from year-to-year on the TV show.  The rebel flag, in screen-shots from early-Season#4 versus late-Season#5:
The Valuzet brothers were a sub-contracted crew that built lots of GLs earlier in the series, and then the later car is one the TV crew built in-house.

[68chrgrwife]

all I have to say is that there are too many people with too much time on their hands to realize those little differences....LOL  But I understand and see the differences and respect that you guys can see that right off the bat and set someone staight...at least noone can bs you guys!!!