Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Crash
- Thread starter ALLEY
- Start date
SciFiMuseum
Sr Member
They never actually say if it was a screen-used car or a replica involved in the incident but the story I read this morning on the crash told the history of how many cars were made for the series (309) and how many for the 2005 film (26).
I'm a General Lee nut. That's not a real studio car, it's a replica.
It looks like it got wrecked when they slid laterally into a tree/pole.
The good news is that most of the major sheetmetal parts for a '69 Dodge Charger are being reproduced now. Not only the outer skin but even the subframe rails and inner panels. It will cost a ton of money but that car is repairable.
It looks like it got wrecked when they slid laterally into a tree/pole.
The good news is that most of the major sheetmetal parts for a '69 Dodge Charger are being reproduced now. Not only the outer skin but even the subframe rails and inner panels. It will cost a ton of money but that car is repairable.
Sluis Van Shipyards
Legendary Member
To be fair, with the amount of Chargers they destroyed on this show, it's kind of supposed to happen. 
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
When "good old boys" go bad...Footage of the event has apparently been located.
Evidently there was a chase involving a county sheriff, two moonshiners named either Bo and Luke or Coy and Vance, and background music and omniscient commentary provided by Waylon Jennings…
bwayne64
Sr Member
As a car guy who loves every 69 muscle car, even including the Ford mustang, I'm disgusted by what they did to all those Chargers. It only made them even more out of reach,of mere mortals, with mortal bank accounts. 69 was a magic year for cars. I don't know what it was about that particular year. I was only 5 yrs old, so didn't get any of those cars for my birthday. At least not full scale versions. Wish someone in the family would have been clairvoyant enough to by one of each, lol. Camaro, Charger, Challenger, Mustang, and so on. Oh well, can't lose sleep over what could've been.
You have to go back 2 years to 67 to get the best Corvette version IMHO. This one is worth close to 4 million.
Wowsers !
www.themanual.com
You have to go back 2 years to 67 to get the best Corvette version IMHO. This one is worth close to 4 million.
Wowsers !
This $4 Million 1967 L88 Corvette Could Be the Rarest 'Vette in the World - The Manual
It might just be "The Holy Grail," the one-of-a-kind classic for the collector who has (almost) everything.
www.themanual.com
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Might not be a Mercedes', but it sure did Benz!
'Dukes' destroyed around 120 Chargers. (There are higher official numbers but those are exaggerations. One of the show's car suppliers had a habit of over-billing for extra wrecks, fixing wrecked cars and re-selling them back as fresh cars, etc.)
A couple hundred Chargers is about 00.1% of what the factory built in 1968-70. Seriously. 'Dukes' is not the reason why they are rare & expensive today. A lot more have been lost to drunk drivers, road salt, and plain old neglect.
(BTW the wrecked Generals were low-optioned. Never 426 Hemis. Mostly 318 & 383s automatics. If the car wasn't fast enough to do the jump then they hit it with nitrous oxide.)
'Dukes' destroyed way more police cars than Chargers but people rarely even think about those.
'Knight Rider' made heavy use of minatures and they still wrecked about 40 real Trans Ams. And a few hundred other cars.
The 2004 Lindsay Lohan 'Herbie' movie used 30+ classic Beetles.
The 'Fast & Furious' movies are averaging 200+ vehicles per movie lately.
Hollywood goes through a lot of cars, period.
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Is it? The damage from 'Dukes' gets less severe the longer you think about it.
How many of those Chargers would have survived if it wasn't for the TV show? Half of them? A quarter? America was full of cheap muscle cars in the early 1980s. Most of them were scrapped by the 1990s. Those 120 Chargers would have been no different.
On the other hand, how many classic Chargers have been saved by 'Dukes' fans restoring them? Today there are hundreds of GL replicas around the world. A lot of those cars were on their last legs until a 'Dukes' fan restored it.
There are many more guys who have a non-GL Charger but they cite 'Dukes' as a contributing factor. Today the chief design director at Chrysler has a personal '68 Charger with General Lee wheels. He cites the show as an influence. He's not alone in that.
A modern 'Dukes' fan convention. You're looking at millions of dollars spent on restoring Chargers. The orange paintjobs are a small fraction of the work that went into them.
Did the TV show reduce the number of classic Dodge Chargers on earth?
During the 1980s, yes. In the long run, I doubt it.
Sorry if I'm sounding all bent out of shape about it. Nothing personal.
I'm just a big 'Dukes' fan & Dodge Charger buff and I've spent way too much time thinking about this stuff.
Some people hear my set of arguments and it kind of diffuses their hard feelings against the TV show.
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bwayne64
Sr Member
Naw man, totally my fault. I should be asleep, lol. I grew up watching the show as well. And whenever they would jump the car, and bend the frame into a V shape, I would get ticked off. I would say to whoever was there, There goes another one !
I apologize, I'm old and grouchy, ; )
Maybe this will help a little.
They still do General Lee jumps & stunts occasionally at car shows. But they don't tear up '69 Chargers anymore.
This is a modern Ford Crown Vic chassis + outer skin of a '69 Charger.
It's a pretty slick trick. They can build one of these things without using any 50yo Charger parts. Just reproduction body panels from catalogs. The drivetrain & interior is all Crown Vic.
They still do General Lee jumps & stunts occasionally at car shows. But they don't tear up '69 Chargers anymore.
This is a modern Ford Crown Vic chassis + outer skin of a '69 Charger.
It's a pretty slick trick. They can build one of these things without using any 50yo Charger parts. Just reproduction body panels from catalogs. The drivetrain & interior is all Crown Vic.
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Sluis Van Shipyards
Legendary Member
As a car guy who loves every 69 muscle car, even including the Ford mustang, I'm disgusted by what they did to all those Chargers. It only made them even more out of reach,of mere mortals, with mortal bank accounts. 69 was a magic year for cars. I don't know what it was about that particular year. I was only 5 yrs old, so didn't get any of those cars for my birthday. At least not full scale versions. Wish someone in the family would have been clairvoyant enough to by one of each, lol. Camaro, Charger, Challenger, Mustang, and so on. Oh well, can't lose sleep over what could've been.
You have to go back 2 years to 67 to get the best Corvette version IMHO. This one is worth close to 4 million.
Wowsers !
This $4 Million 1967 L88 Corvette Could Be the Rarest 'Vette in the World - The Manual
It might just be "The Holy Grail," the one-of-a-kind classic for the collector who has (almost) everything.
Maybe I will post some of the cars my dad had (mostly Vettes) before I was born in the next couple days. We'd watch Barrett Jackson or Mecum auctions and he would say that if he had kept all his Vettes, which were all loaded (with biggest engine available) he would be a millionaire. Guess who ruined that? *waves*
Well technically they only had one at a time so they sold the last shortly after I was born in 77.
bwayne64
Sr Member
Yea I had a chance to buy a 67 Camaro and a 67 Corvette. Both I turned down. I regret not buying them both. I could have got them for just over 12 grand for both of them. Stupid stupid stupid, : (Maybe I will post some of the cars my dad had (mostly Vettes) before I was born in the next couple days. We'd watch Barrett Jackson or Mecum auctions and he would say that if he had kept all his Vettes, which were all loaded (with biggest engine available) he would be a millionaire. Guess who ruined that? *waves*