The Dodge Chargers of 1971–1974, Recreated in Scale

A few months ago, I did a story on second-generation Chargers, in response to a request from Moparman. I mentioned at the time that what I really had a lot of was the third-generation cars. I’ve always liked these big, curvy, fuselage-shaped Chargers, with their distinctive Gremlin-like quarter windows. For a while, this I really felt was the future of car styling. For a short time it seemed like it might be – clean sides that tucked under at the bottom, a minimum of extraneous decoration, roof pillars brought out to the full width of the body, maybe even with the wheels pushed out to the body edges – to give an organic shape a more planted stance.

But, alas, along came the rise of full-formal Broughamhood, sending North America back to sixties squarishness coupled (sometimes uneasily) with neoclassical details. Or Broughamoid grilles with stacked rectangular headlights blacksmithed onto a shape never meant for them. Ugh. Aesthetic nausea as well as technical malaise. Add the mandated bouncy bumpers and early emissions era engine technology, and it’s a wonder anybody bought new cars at all. I wouldn’t have. Fortunately, the Brougham style didn’t play in my country; we went for a more European simplicity.

I can’t think why I like these ones so much. I think it must go back to a photo in a car magazine featuring the new American cars for 1971. This was something of an annual tradition in automotive publishing here, often along the lines of “What on earth are those Americans up to now?” It might give us an insight into what future Holdens might look like, and there were often technological developments of interest. For me, the attraction was the looks!

While I can’t remember the details on the car in the photo, I know it made an impression on me. I think it was the curves in the shape, allied with the definite fuselage body-to-roof integration, which made me think this was the next big thing in car styling. Just enough straight lines to give tension to what could have been a bloated shape.

For a short while, it was.

I was not blind to the car’s faults. No childlike adoration here. In my early teens I was turning Dad’s Falcon in the yard for him to go off to work – a four-point turn from the garage to the driveway if you got it right, a six-pointer if you had to go back an extra time and realign yourself. I had to miss the stairs, so rear three-quarter vision mattered a lot. Turning anything larger in there would have been an absolute nightmare!

I could see the C-pillar would be a huge impediment to rear vision. Shame; I really liked the look of that upswept quarter window. It would have been impossible to see the rear of the car for parking. That nose looked awfully long, too. A whole lot of practical issues – but then a coupe 5232mm/206” long by 1953mm/77” wide would be fairly impractical in my country anyway. And at around a ton and a half, with early emission-era economy and drivability – no, it wasn’t going to happen.

MPC ’71 Charger annual, moulded in Butterscotch.

For times like this, there are models. MPC made a kit of the Charger as part of their annual range for 1971. For the first year only, it was moulded in colour, either Butterscotch with an orange interior (mine) or the reverse, with accent paint along the body upper and lower edges.

They revised it each year through 1974, by which time it had gained an unusual custom station wagon version. There was also a drag version (Pro Stock seemed to be flavour of the month) as well. In 1974 form it made a reappearance in 1980 as something of a street machine, incorporating parts from several issues along with some rather garish graphics. We’ll look at the ‘74s later.

Then out of the blue, in 1999 AMT released a totally new model of the Charger. Much better detailed that the 28-year-old MPC kit, the AMT one represented an R/T with the 440 engine – and a bench seat interior. Now AMT has a history of finding strangely-optioned cars to base their models on. Hobbyists complained, they wanted the cool buckets-and-console – but it was an easy matter to swap the seat for buckets and a console from another kit. Or to cut down the centre portion of the seat to make it folded down for an armrest. A particularly skilful builder could make this movable between the two positions. Good luck getting your fingers inside to move it though!

I really appreciated the positive location points for the chassis within the ends of the body – like the Japanese companies do. Not so appreciated was the location of the rear axle on the rear leaf springs; it needed to be shifted back a few mm to centre the rear wheel in the wheel arch. I always kept forgetting to do that! And the decal R/T stripes were tricky to apply, being so thin they were prone to tangle.

Another version of the kit followed, a Hemi-powered Super Bee. Unfortunately, this came with oddly-styled alloy wheels which now look terribly dated, being a swirly-spoke design which was popular for, what, two years? I bought a few Super Bee kits, but didn’t use these wheels, swapping them out for something else, like the usual Mopar rally wheels.

Also, unfortunately for those wishing to build a stock Super Bee, the body shell is the same as the R/T – meaning the Super Bee model has the door ‘gills’ which were an R/T exclusive. Oh well, they’re not too hard to fill. The orange one was built before I realised this error. A bonus in the Super Bee version was optional heads from an experimental DOHC Hemi developed to clobber Ford’s SOHC427. A technical dead end, but cool to have in model form.

Currently AMT has the Charger R/T kit available with the Hemi originally in the Super Bee.

So much for history. Now for some more models.

Here’s a stock R/T in a decidedly non-stock metallic pink. (Testors’ Electric Pink)

And here’s that 440 Magnum. No 6-pack, alas.

Slightly modified, this Hemi Super Bee wears the R/Ts door gills, but a simple tail stripe.

And larger diameter wheels (somewhere there’s a Prius up on bricks).

I mentioned the ’74 kits before. Here is the 1974 annual kit built as the custom wagon version,

And here is the reissued street machine version from the eighties. I simplified the graphics and applied them over black for a more subtle appearance.

Interestingly, several online reviews I turned up tore strips off this kit for quality, but I don’t recall it being notably worse than other kits of the time. Guess the reviewers were young guys. Viewed as a holdover from fifty years ago, it’s not too bad. I wonder whether there’s enough interest for AMT to bring this back, or do a ’74 body for their excellent ’71 kit?

I’m outta here. See you next time!