I had a request a while back in the comments section, where one of us (who shall remain nameless, except to say that his name bears the prefix Mopar-) asked me for a feature on Mopar B-bodies, and specifically Dodge Chargers. He’d noticed there were some in the background of some photos I’d run that day, and wanted to see more.
More Chargers? Can’t say that I blame him. They’re cool cars. Suppose, I mused, I were to do a story on Chargers. What sort of resources did I have?
Half an hour wading through my photo files turned up four first-gen Chargers, which often seem to be the ‘poor relation’ of the Charger pack, being basically a mid-sixties Coronet with a fastback. We’ll leave those aside for now; anyway, they were already covered in 1967 and in Muscle cars.
There were seven second-gen, the ones that had inspired his request, plus two Daytonas, and as I noted at the time, one ’68 unbuilt. We’ll leave that last one aside for now.
But the third-gen cars! I know I’d always liked that style, but it seems I have nine of them! Hmm – seven plus two plus nine equals too many – sounds like a couple of Charger features coming up! And if I write these up, it might give me an idea of what colour to paint that spare ’68.
“Now hang on a minute!”, you might be thinking (I trust you don’t talk to your computer; I get in trouble for telling off the washing machine and the microwave). “What about 1970? The second-gen Chargers went from 1968 to ’70. You’re missing a year there.”
And you’d be right. The problem is that I don’t have a 1970; a kit of a stock ’70 was only briefly available before being turned into a Last of the Spurious movie tie-in. And while I could fill a hole in the hood and find the Rallye wheels and other bits and pieces for a stock ’70, I’m prepared to wait until a stock ’70 comes my way; I have so many of the other years. And it wouldn’t seem right to, you know, buy a ’70 while I still have that unbuilt 1968. Meanwhile the original ’70 kit’s available you-know-where for three or four times the original price. Which says something.
So, let’s begin this with the Dukes of Hazzard, that TV series that destroyed so many cool cars in the name of ‘entertainment’. For many years, the only second-gen Charger kit was the old MPC annual turned into the Dukes’ car. It was simple, easy to build, but the tooling was past its prime, with details like rain gutters being worn away, and panel lines barely visible. But the biggest problem was the rear window.
MPC had based this on the semi-aero Charger 500, precursor to the Daytona which had a flush rear window but without the huge nose extension and spoiler. Movie cars weren’t Charger 500s, but kids lapped them up anyway. And more serious, older modellers like me bought one because, back then, what else was there?
Then Revell came to the rescue, with a fantastic kit of the ’69. Initially released as a Monogram ProModeler kit (a short-lived range of kits with extra detail such as working steering, lots of reference material for detailing, sometimes photoetched parts), but this initial release had a big mistake in the roofline, which (I’m told) looked as though it had been chopped. Production was stopped, the fault corrected, and good new bodies sent out to folk who had the ‘bad’ one and complained. Near enough to a model recall. I never bought this one, having been alerted to the problem through the online modelling community.
I made up for lost time when the kit became available with the corrected body. I don’t remember which one of these I built first, whether it was the gold one (hardware store enamel) or the purple one (Aussie Ford Wild Violet, a deeper shade than Plum Crazy). These bodies came with the engraved texture for a vinyl roof – but as often is the case, care had to be taken not to lose the texture under paint. The purple car would have looked too dark with a black interior, so I went with white, reinforced by the white stripe.
I saw an episode of Top Gear where Richard Hammond bought a ’69 Charger; unusually for the show it seemed to be kept in immaculate condition. I made a note of all the details, and built a model of his car – but lost the licence plate number before I could add it. Never mind. I didn’t build it because of the celebrity connection, I built it because the colour scheme looked nice.
Meanwhile Revell revised the tool back to a 1968 – primarily a difference in grille, taillight panel and side markers. Fortunately, the ’69 had been designed to allow for these changes. Or did they? The ’68 didn’t have the vinyl roof texture, which continued on the ’69. Two building versions were possible, either a stock ’68 with a 440, or a drag car with a Hemi. Me? I played mix-and-match, using the Hemi and scooped hood of the drag car with a stock red paint job.
A second ’68 was a more streetable R/T with the 440. Dark brown metallic seemed to call for a fawn interior. Like the red car above, this doesn’t have the tail stripes – that’s purely a personal choice.
More ‘69s. The yellow was such a strong contrast with the black vinyl roof and interior that I felt the black tail stripe was called for here.
Revell brought out another variation, the Charger Daytona. Here painted in Ford Australia’s Tropicana Green with an off-white interior, the kit included the decals for the tail stripe, but I left them off and just painted the spoiler white.
Meanwhile AMT revised the old Dukes Charger to turn it into a Daytona. The new nose piece wasn’t a good fit, nor were the filler pieces to blend it into the existing fenders. I gave up on this one several times, finally finishing it last year. Blue interior to go with the blue paint. Red stripe for shock value – one guy online almost begged me not to do the stripe in red!
So that’s it. Second-gen Chargers in quite a range of colours from all over the spectrum. And one spare kit. Hmm, what colour should it be…..?
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Peter! What a perfect way to start a morning…so many tasty, delectable items to peruse. Drooling onto a keyboard does not help it in the least, LOL!! Since the original 1970 one year only model kit was not easily available, I’ve provided a picture of my ’70 Charger 500, (naturally, I’m biased) but all the BEAUTIFUL 68’s and 69’s!!! You’ve really outdone yourself today!! 🙂
BTW: The lead photo is just stunning!
I kind of got the feeling you’d like these. 🙂
As I was reading back through the article, it seems I didn’t put in much of a photo of the purple ’69. So here’s another shot of it.
So you have a ’70 500? No wonder you wanted a Charger feature!
At the risk of another movie tie-in, the obvious choice for a ’68 Charger is BLACK… Boring yes, but a famous car from one of the best chase scenes ever… The Steve McQueen movie “Bullitt”.
Do you have an unbuilt kit of a ’68 390 GT Mustang? – Go with Highland Green for that one. ;o)
Love the ’69 Charger. Always have. Got to drive a girl friend’s back in the day… an R/T with what I thought was a 383 under the hood, as that is what she told us, as her dad built it to race it. But when we opened the hood, it had a six-pack of carbs on top of the engine, which I now know is a 440 thing. Maybe her dad built some sort of custom set-up there.
The irony was that she drove it like an old lady, and not the one from Pasadena.
It was the fastest car I had ever driven until recent years when I got to drive my nephew’s Tesla Model Y with the Dual Motor set-up.
Your green and white model is my favorite of this lot! Nice work as usual, Peter.
Thaks Rick. Black would work for the ’68, but I try and avoid the obvious.
I don’t have an unbuilt ’68 390GT, just a couple of Shelbys. I do have a ’67 that’s close to Highland Green, just a bit lighter (I tend to paint a lot of bodies while the weather’s good).
Fancy having a 440 Six-pack and babying it to that extent. It’s a wonder her dad put such a powerful engine in there – it sounds like a 318 would have done just fine for her. Of course if you need to accelerate to get out of danger…..
I do rather like the lines of these, despite the rather excessive front overhang (perhaps only in my opinion, but there you are). The turquoise and white do go together well but with this design a single colour works just as well. Having said that, my favourite colour combination is actually the gold with black vinyl roof, perhaps because it reminds me of a FD Victor 2000SL I used to walk past on the way to work in the 1990s, by which time they were rarely seen outside of shows.
Great work, Peter!
Thanks Bernard. I think those of us from countries where smaller cars are the norm tend to look askance at American cars of this era, and yes, especially the overhang! I mean, I look at these and think they look great, but when I saw a ’70 Sport Satellite (same basic platform), I was amazed at how large it was. I imagine if I was to see one of these Chargers in the metal, I’d be similarly surprised.
Then you think that back in the day these were only intermediates!
These are all super-cool, Peter, and this post is timely for me as I have semi-recently watched / rewatched vintage Dodge Charger commercials from the late ’60s. (“You could be Dodge Material!’). These spots are quite different than your “Hey, Charger!” commercials, but they’re all entertaining to me!
MPC’s error with the flat, Charger 500 rear glass is actually a bit shocking. The flying buttress-style C-pillars look so much better to me.
I did like the ’70 models just fine, but the looped front bumper always seemed at odds with the rear, which kept the same ’69 styling. The front and rear should rhyme, IMO.
Anyway, these are my thoughts on the actual cars and not your beautiful models. The seafoam green example with the white top is my pic. And for the record, I do like the ’66 and ’67 fastbacks – especially the interiors.
Thanks Joseph. That one’s my favourite too. And this was a fun story to write.
I don’t know it was so much an error on MPC’s part, more a matter of using the tool that was available to them. If the only second-gen Charger tool in usable condition had the race car’s rear window, then I imagine it would involve a major tear-up of the tool to correct it – for a model that, as it happened, turned out to one of (if not still) the best selling kits ever. Yeah, for the money it made them, it would’ve been well worthwhile correcting the tool – but they weren’t to know that beforehand. After all, some TV-show merchandise bombs.
I really like the front of the ’70, but I can’t say it bothers me that the rear doesn’t match. What does bug me, and it’s only a small bug, is that the ’70 seems to use the same taillights as the ’69. Moparman will probably chime in and say there’s a different pattern on the lens, or the Charger badge is 5/16″ to the right of where it was the previous year, or some such thing, but as a general car nut I’m not seeing it. Yet. 🙂
Your collection is amazing in depth and in breadth, and the quality as a topper. Thanks for sharing your work with us.
Thank you, I’m glad to share.
I’m always reading these posts from a 1:18 perspective in envy, because not only the variety of models is great but the lines are so often better than the bigger diecasts. My only second gen Charger is this late 90s Ertl, I love the red/black combo, and made a several changes(wheels, removed side windows, undercarriage detail, etc), but there’s a few dimensional/detail issues in the casting that drive me nuts about it.
Love the Cragars on this one. Beautiful.
Thanks! I had those Cragars from another model I changed wheels on and bought that charger on EBay specifically to use them on, it originally had red steel wheels with dog dish’s, but I wanted to recreate Snake’s Charger from early seasons of the Simpsons
Don’t be too envious there, Matt; I often look at some of the 1:18 diecasts and wish the subject was available as a kit!
But I totally get what you mean about accuracy. While I have no doubt there are high-dollar diecasts that are accurate (along with ones that probably aren’t), I too would be wanting to disassemble and detail things that ought to be highlighted. And there would be times I’d be sorely tempted to take a file to them! In fact for a while back around ’80 I was doing some of that with some BBurago diecasts – or are they more like Italian kids’ toys? I just couldn’t stand opening the hood and looking at an engine-shaped lump of chrome.
I cut my teeth detailing diecasts with BBuragos, they’re really cheap inside like you said with all chrome engines but some actually have great details that some paint and nip/tucking can rival vastly more expensive models. Although I ruined quite a few getting too carried away haha
Don’t we all – haha! Not every kit that crosses my bench turns out so well. But sometimes they can be saved with a little more experience.
What an impressive lineup of Dodge Chargers!
BUT…what also caught my eye was the 1964 Ford Galaxie 500XL in the background of a couple of photos. My father-in-law had one in a very similar if not identical color scheme, gold with white vinyl roof. He no longer had the car (“sold” to a “friend” who never paid for it, is the story I was told) when I became engaged to his daughter and the only reason I know about it is that he built a 1/25 scale model of it. When he passed away, I got the model and still have it.
Ah, the background strikes again!
You can all breathe a sign of relief to learn that I don’t have enough ’64 Fords for a story in their own right. I only have two. However I figure the least that I can do is show you a better view of that Galaxie. Glad you enjoyed finding a familiar face in the background.
My first thought is Turbine Bronze, but you already have the metallic brown and the gold, so maybe not?
Whatever you choose, it’s going to be tough to beat the turquoise and white one.
Dan, I had seriously considered Turbine Bronze, but there’s that ’67 at the start of this story. I agree, that turquoise/white will take some beating. I think that may be what’s put me off building the spare ’68 for so long.
Ah the 2nd generation Charger, my 2 favourite cars when I was a kid were these and the Lamborghini Miura.
I saw a picture of a 68 Charger and was just amazed, a car without headlights, why not.
I still think the 68 is best, the simple inset grille without the centre divider was perfection.
It has often been said the Charger is one car that looks good with a vinyl roof, and even though I loathe vinyl tops with a passion, I get the logic behind that opinion, the way the roof seems to sit on top of the lower body helps make the case.
However, if I were to build a model of one, I would be able to fulfill a dream of building one with the A pillars free of vinyl.
It’s those vinyl clad pillars that really offend me.
Oh and beautiful models of course, and now having said all of that, my favourite of these is the yellow 69, with the, yep, the black vinyl roof…
Thanks Jonco. I always loved these too, but I can’t say that they’d ever have passed the bedroom-poster test for me. The Miura most certainly yes; although I like these Chargers (to have built so many!), I wouldn’t have put one up on the wall.
(Actually, that’d make for an interesting QOTD: what posters of cars did you have up on your wall as a teen?)
Here’s another view of the yellow one for you.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/205741571689?_skw=1970+charger+model+revell&itmmeta=01KM1AQY6XVHJWXA03DZ3XB8MJ&hash=item2fe7273e69%3Ag%3AzlYAAeSwGqxpE5Nw&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA4GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xA79Jam%2Fpp4S5byxT%2B04s504RA77ogV%2BAuiXYYM6uPJYj1RyT9U8EU%2FOv7q3U2BPl9khBhRb%2FbOMvn0lnqWS4IiaKieKPrgQxhMko4ssBE7iqr5W5WJ0oVbUhJbDXlXbYeCrj6EO2pLV%2FcVNM4hCsBceeihtUtrLD5mya9Xt3Ckln11NpgNxNw0Lh3a7L5vFjCP6RdveOXzq3x%2BNeztVhY%2BQXqXU4gIKocbG84xsb5y%2FSa0T4NebWdcc1RVdZIjgKIAnI8olaM8Qray68G2QYVw%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9rj36qgZw&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=3
Here is the 1970 Dodge Charger kit by Revell.
Thanks for the link, Colin. Nice find, and a decent price too. 🙂
Unfortunately postage to my country from the US would rule it out. Some countries’ international postage rates seem designed to encourage trade; others not so much. (My country’s guilty of this too) Might spend some time today looking for one closer to home.
My bad, man, I just am an avid car nerd, diecast collector and former brochure junkie so I am always on eBay looking at car stuff.
No worries, mate. I’m glad for the thought!