Why all the General Lees in Burbank?

[bull]

My wife went with a friend of hers to a concert in the LA area last week and while running around the Hollywood area she spotted a bunch of General Lees that she thought I might like to see. She didn't have time to check it out (I think it was closed anyway) but the place is called Rodz I think. At least that's what the sign said above the building. http://rodz.org I assume since they are near Hollywood, they're all authentic-looking GLs and they're fairly beat up that they had something to do with one of the last few DOH projects. Anyone heard of Rodz? Any idea where these cars came from and what their fate might be?

[miamivice]

ooooohh, looks like movie cars.  note the front end scuffs on the fender in the first picture (from the '05 movie).  i know that a lot of those cars have been auctioned off recently, maybe they either bought them all or are selling them

[69charger2002]

definitely movie lees. heard they went pretty cheap. only a few people knew about the auction and it was kept hush hush.. so no one hardly got in on the deals..shame

[Ghoste]

An inside job huh?  A quick check of their website doesn't turn up squat but I'm sure the cars will become more widely known soon.

[JimShine]

I had a buddy go look into the cars before the auction hoping I could get one to keep. He told me the restorable cars had the VIN tags removed. He only saw VIN tags on some of the chopped up specialty cars. I told him to forget it. Then I heard how cheap they went and I felt a ton of regret. I really thought the 'inside tips' was going to go out to alot more people.

[Ghoste]

Why would they remove the tags and why would somebody want them now?

[bull]

So how cheap is cheap?

[JimShine]

There are plenty of people that would take a VIN-less GL for display.

Why they removed the tags? I am not sure. Possibly to thwart rebuilding the cars. In the old days they did this by cutting the roof skins off the cars. Today they know that wouldn't stop people as the cars are worth so much.

[69charger2002]

many of those cars sold under $1k     yeah i also wish some more of us had been let in on it.. instead look what happened. couple dudes got them all

[Big Lebowski]

  I heard all of the quote "real" General Lees were in Burbank junkyards twenty years ago.

[69bronzeT5]

Even if you cant drive it or register it due to the VIN thing...hell, for under 1k, Id buy it just to keep as a collectable!!

[Ghoste]

I can understand that if they were that cheap and you had space.  Still, I can't help but wonder how many of those cars will mysteriously find tags?

[69bronzeT5]

I wonder why GeneralLeeTESH's '05 GL was over 10k but those other '05 GL's sold for under 1k?

[BigBlackDodge]

They should be busted for removing the VIN's................illegal!


BBD

[kikgas01]

If there was more BONDO it would look like HLBAGS lot.

[Mike DC]

It's all about the liability & "official" issues. 
If you yank the VINs and don't sell the cars as "real WB LEEs," then you eliminate a lot of the liabilities that the cars might have. 

 
Suppose some dork buys a real GL from WB that has been pieced together out of several Charger hulks and was never meant to be roadworthy again.  Then it breaks down or just breaks in half.  Then the dork sues WB for selling him an illegally "chopped" car that he claims was misrepresented to him as a whole decent car.  (After all, it was bondo'd together and SEEMED to be in nice condition at the time of the sale, didn't it?)  Some judge might mis-interpret shoddy prop work to fool the movie cameras, and think it was HLPAG-style deceptive work to fool the car's buyer later on.

Or suppose the dork buys a real GL and starts giving rides in it as an "real" WB General Lee.  Then he tries to grab some 15-year-old girl's tit while giving a ride.  Then the 15-year-old's parents sue WB for the guy's actions, since they thought he was officially representing WB at the time.  Then the dork tells the judge that he paid money for the car because he wanted an "official" GL and he has the right to call it what it is.  And WB is getting a big black eye in the local newspaper the whole time.

Or suppose the dork jumps the GL over his house & kills himself.  Then the dork's wife sues WB for misrepresenting the car as being capable of doing those jumps safely.  Then a judge rules that since the car was sold as a real WB item and WB profited from the way that the car was portrayed onscreen, then they should be held liable for the buyer misunderstanding its capabilities.

Get my drift?  There's a lot of dorks out there.

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

WB could also have just destroyed the cars, like what has been done with a lot of other Hollywood cars after they're done with them. 
Personally, I'll settle for the Lees getting sold with yanked VINs.

   

[Ghoste]

Okay, that I understand.  Only I somewhat disagree with the "lot of dorks" part.  There are a lot of dorks, but the difference here as I see it, is that lawyers will happily take on WB to sue the bejeebers out of them but HLPAG can do the very same and worse and because there isn't enough profit incentive for the law sharks, Hans goes free.
Other than a garage ornament, I still don't know why anyone would want one.  Unless you had another motive in mind for the vin-less hulk.

[Old Moparz]

I'm sure a state issued VIN would solve the legality issue, & if they all have salvage titles, there are methods to correct it to get it back on the road. I know it wouldn't bother me, but never in a million years would a seller be able to convince me the car would be worth much. Even if they were real General Lee movie cars, or rare Hemi cars, one without an original VIN, or with a state issued VIN, is a "parts car" or a "salvage car" that's equivalent to a 318 car to me.

[gordo1968charger]

i d heard from somewhere that hlpag supplied the cars for the movie!!
maybe the flintstones  movie with bo duke yelling wilma,while running with his feet out the bottom of one of hans "father and son projects",
yeah sam and chip foose!!!!!!!!!!

[69charger2002]

i got one of the movie cars after filming. it looked much like what you see in the above pics, except that it had been jumped 3 times.. only general lee to have ever been jumped 3 times. i sold it for nearly $20k right when the movie came out back in '05. it still had it's vin, title etc. i heard it later sold for $60k! lol anyway, my car that i got came from HLPAG. they had stamped the rad support with their logo.. from what i remember they either supplied 5 or 6 of the 28 general lee's for the movie. i sold them 2 myself..

[warriorbass05]

i got one of the movie cars after filming. it looked much like what you see in the above pics, except that it had been jumped 3 times.. only general lee to have ever been jumped 3 times. i sold it for nearly $20k right when the movie came out back in '05. it still had it's vin, title etc. i heard it later sold for $60k! lol anyway, my car that i got came from HLPAG. they had stamped the rad support with their logo.. from what i remember they either supplied 5 or 6 of the 28 general lee's for the movie. i sold them 2 myself..

so how many of those cars in your signature are still hanging around for you to play with?

[bull]

i got one of the movie cars after filming. it looked much like what you see in the above pics, except that it had been jumped 3 times.. only general lee to have ever been jumped 3 times. i sold it for nearly $20k right when the movie came out back in '05. it still had it's vin, title etc. i heard it later sold for $60k! lol anyway, my car that i got came from HLPAG. they had stamped the rad support with their logo.. from what i remember they either supplied 5 or 6 of the 28 general lee's for the movie. i sold them 2 myself..

so how many of those cars in your signature are still hanging around for you to play with?

It's written in small text right above his picture: "I live in CHARGERLAND.. visitors welcome. 116 total, 14 still around."

[warriorbass05]

i got one of the movie cars after filming. it looked much like what you see in the above pics, except that it had been jumped 3 times.. only general lee to have ever been jumped 3 times. i sold it for nearly $20k right when the movie came out back in '05. it still had it's vin, title etc. i heard it later sold for $60k! lol anyway, my car that i got came from HLPAG. they had stamped the rad support with their logo.. from what i remember they either supplied 5 or 6 of the 28 general lee's for the movie. i sold them 2 myself..

so how many of those cars in your signature are still hanging around for you to play with?

It's written in small text right above his picture: "I live in CHARGERLAND.. visitors welcome. 116 total, 14 still around."

I read that but was not sure if that was still true...plus I thought Trav used to have a website and I can't get there either?

[Mike DC]

   
The HLPAG/movie GL issue is deceptive.


HLPAG would have you believe that they were official suppliers of WB's real GLs.

The real story is that WB's movie crew did buy half a dozen GLs from HLPAG, but you never saw a HLPAG paintjob on the movie screen.
Every single GL in that movie was redone just for that movie.  Including the GLs that WB had left from the old TV series & Reunion specials, the fresh Dodge Chargers they bought off Ebay, the HLPAG cars . . . in the fall of 2004 all of them got fresh orange paint, decals, rollcages, wheels, etc to match each other.  (Even the pre-overhauled ratty GL in the movie was really several matching cars sprayed with dull orange paint.)

The crew just bought the HLPAG cars as raw-material cars.  They simply needed a pile of '68-69 Chargers on short notice, and HLPAG had Chargers for sale.  The crew never intended to use them as "finished" GLs.

[70charger_boy]