Let’s see two legendary names as they looked back in the day; the Dodge Charger and Challenger. Curious to think that despite their often star-crossed fates, both nameplates became rather legendary. Not that the ’68-’70 Charger was a misfire, quite the contrary. But the rest of its career is checkered, and more so with the Challenger.
Sales numbers aside, the reasons behind their eventual fame are clear in these shots, when many became accessible wheels to fix up for thrills (plus, they looked good). These images provide glimpses of that transition; with a few stock rides against many souped-up ones. Part of the fun is seeing these fixed up, but not as the trailer queens we know nowadays. Instead, some are works in progress, and others not even that.
Mind you, even the family rides look fixed up to a degree. But I guess that just feels natural in these. As for the images, most come from the ’70s with an exception or two. Also, look for the usual interesting photobombing rides. (Update: Picture #7 is a Barracuda)
Great photos! Of course, the obvious question would be: ‘I wonder how many still exist’. The Challenger in the second last pic, could have been shot in the late ’70s, or early ’80s. Appears to have a Mopar Direct Connection licence plate.
Maroon Challenger (4th photo):
Looks like he’s ready for the drag strip.
Note the rear tire is slightly deflated for extra traction when the light turns green.
Actually it’s the curb that’s cutting off the bottom of his tire in the shot.
Has 426 Hemi badging on the hood too, if it’s to be believed
I had a 1970 Challenger with a slant 6, from 1973 to 1977. I installed a custom formed fixed Lexan moonroof in it with side dome lights from a 1958 Impala, as well as 1966 Thunderbird seats and changed the interior from all black to white and black. I sold it in Dallas Texas – who knows what happened to it!
I wish I had taken more and better pictures of the installation, but I only took two and misplaced one of those.
These are all just terrific. I would sit down for an hour with a(nother) photo book full of images like this.
The red one with the mismatched wheels is a Barracuda, but was there ever a real difference? 🙂
That top photo is the ultimate Charger from that period, right down to the green paint. Or is it black? I can’t tell on my monitor. Black makes it even better!
I was noticing that about twenty minutes ago… “Wait… That’s a Barracuda?” The kind of thing that happens when putting this post together late at night.
Regarding the first photo, hard to tell. I think it’s a dark green.
The top photo is of little Bo and Luke Duke and their friend Cooter and his mother Thelma Jean Bob taken just before she ran off with that Charger and a fertilizer salesman named Everett.
IMO, the Challengers and ‘Cudas of the day were styling and performance triumphs. No other way to say it.
Love the Superbird next to the Charger at the track.
Also I see the Duster in the background of the final photo.
Thanks for sharing these.
The Panther Pink T/A looks wicked. Too bad that car would be $100K plus today.
Here is my 70 Dodge Challenger SE 440 SixPack, Shaker hood, Hurst 4 speed,Plum Crazy.
I love the gold 71, what a perfect stance, also the blue convertible, always thought Challengers made great looking convertibles.
My current 1970 Charger 500, which replaced my first Charger lost to an accident. 🙂
Back when normal people could have nice things.
There are over 40,000 (!) brand new 2023 Chargers and Challengers currently offered when I search on CarGurus starting at well under $30k (in my area at least), which is at least 20% off MSRP.
Nationwide there are many discounted into the lower to mid $20k’s, so even less money. While they are V6 models they still have around 300hp, include AC and a plethora of other “essentials”, return around 30mpg on the highway, and are quite comfortable. Seems plenty nice for that (low) normal people price, yet people don’t seem to be biting, hence they are being discontinued.
A ’68 Charger apparently started at $3014 which is about $26,000 today BEFORE any (necessary to most) options were added. Likely with a 6, no AC, no safety, lower fuel economy, lower speed, worse handling higher service requirements, and likely not much else and of pretty much low value until at least the mid-1980s when they were all repainted orange and crashed on TV… Today’s cars seem quite well priced. 35 years from now Rich Baron’s grandchild will be posting pictures of early 2024-era Dodge dealers bursting with unsold Chargers and Challengers at 20-30% off MSRP and it’ll become the biggest post of the year…
Nice pics, Rich, it took my a moment to realize that wasn’t a topless girl next to the white with black top Challenger on the beach, and the dude in the sweatpants, hat, flip-flips and no shirt leaning on the ‘Cuda looks like he’s waiting for the liquor store to open….
The more I look at these pictures, the more I think Linklater absolutely nailed the ’76 Texas vibe in Dazed and Confused and that McConaughey probably stared at these same pictures before morphing into Wooderson…who basically is the ‘Cuda guy here as well.
It could be spun into a commentary on the literal cars pictured, not their modern day equivalents however. Normal people today certainly cannot afford a 70 Challenger TA, Hemi Challenger R/T, or even a mundane version of a 68-70 Charger(without stage 5 terminal rust issues anyway), a driver condition 318 Charger today is untouchable under $30,000. The R/Ts and TAs? They make modern college tuition look like a good value. That 71 Convertible with the shaker may well be worth a single family home in middle America today.
Many of these pictures weren’t taken in the 68-71 period they were new but clearly later in the 70s and possibly early 80s when even the high end variants of cars were dirt cheap. The picture of the Hemi Challenger with side pipes had to be taken after 1978 based on background vehicles. On the modern comparison front though I’d still wager that that (lets say) 8 year old top dog, beat nearly everything on the road, 70 Challenger was depreciated a lot more than a top dog 2016 Hellcat has(cursory search shows them trending around a hefty $50,000).
A modern 300 horse Challenger is indeed a good fair value, and yes it would run circles around its predecessors in its technical quality’s, but the bar of progress has been risen across the board. A V6 Challenger isn’t much of a challenge to best at a stoplight in many modest to moderately powered new cars, trucks and SUVs, you’re not king of the road in one like you potentially would be even if you just picked a middle of the road mill like the 340 or 383 Magnum. And unlike the classics power improvements to the standard engine don’t come cheap or even legally, carb tuning, headers and grippier tires had the potential of turning an average 15 second 383 Challenger or Charger into a giant killing 13 second street machine, by today’s contrast headers and a flash tune might knock off a few tenths but that’s pretty much maxed out without digging deeper, and as I mentioned a potential emissions testing headache. It’s all relative.
“It could be spun into a commentary on the literal cars pictured”
The first two words of the comment “Back when” negates that possibility for me.
However in any case “Normal people” nowadays apparently have zero problem affording $75k-100k trucks or SUVs judging by what runs around outside or what the average landscaper for that matter seems to drive, there is nothing special about the average owner/driver of those. A $50k used Hellcat is no stretch, that’s about the average new vehicle price. Why buy the average new car when you can have the 2016 top dog for the same price? As is clear as day, people don’t/didn’t want the under $20k new cars that were available until a few years ago, so they were discontinued. They also apparently don’t want the heavily discounted Chargers and Challengers of today that are still available everywhere in the tens of thousands, so what does that leave? Just the expensive stuff….that apparently IS actually moving off the lots, there aren’t enough “rich” people to account for all of those purchases, so by definition it IS the new normal.
A Hellcat has 700 or so HP, it’s an outlier, I’m guessing (too lazy to look it up) that a normal SRT or Scatpack with a Hemi has depreciated a lot more and would still provide FAR more “thrills” than most cars. Having driven (and thoroughly enjoyed) a Hellcat for a few days, it’s frankly not a car that most people with their normal driver’s education and license should be driving, one of the reasons why most seem to have been crashed…
The attraction of pure 1/4-mile speed lost a LOT of (all?) appeal for me when EVs became common. Power has never been as cheap as it is now. What you are paying for now is noise, the better the noise the more it costs. But SoccerMom in her Model Y will likely still smoke the modified noise-machine across the intersection while sipping her DoubleFrap. Actually never mind her Model Y, at Denver’s elevation a Chevy Bolt will likely do that, albeit it’s probably traction limited just like the 383 Charger of yore. Days of smoke…And without worrying about the emissions man.
Having driven (and thoroughly enjoyed) a Hellcat for a few days, it’s frankly not a car that most people with their normal driver’s education and license should be driving, one of the reasons why most seem to have been crashed…
Same thing could (and has) been said of all of the classic muscle cars in their day. They were performance(relative to the average) cars purchased largely by a youth market, especially as they depreciated, and many got wrecked from reckless driving, street racing and joy riding. The difference between then and now is then it was mostly teen to twenty-somethings vs now middle aged men trying to relive their teens with a overpowered car their upper middle class salary/savings allows.
Pure 1/4 mile speed for a gearhead is relevant to what you own/aspire to or are interested in. If you sought out a Challenger you probably have fantasy’s of loud Hellcat burnouts going through your mind even if you settled for a 5.7. Your drag racing goalposts are other muscle cars. A Tesla being faster doesn’t much matter because its other traits beyond acceleration doesn’t pique many gearheads traditional interests, losing against one in a gas car doesn’t create an existential crisis in motivation any more than a top fuel dragster being beaten by a rocket dragster, it’s just apples and oranges. As EVs continue to grow in popularity and become more common in drag racing I have no doubt they’ll be seeking the next greater number just like the ICE faithful had been for generations, using one guy’s ludicrous speed Tesla plaid as your bolt’s benchmark.
In terms of a statistical measure for buff books(media) to pitch new cars I agree it’s just another statistic your average consumer will rarely utilize, I remember merits of 0-60 were being questioned by many even before EVs became commonplace as performance of the overall fleet pretty much met or exceeded the iconic cars of the nostalgic pre-malaise era. Just as how I don’t believe any of todays muscle car buyer particularly cares about what a Tesla can do in the quarter I doubt most Tesla/EV buyers really care much about it compared to the other aspects of the segment that attracted them to it, the acceleration is just icing on the cake
l guess every young guy from 15 to 40 had long hair back in the 1970s! My parents made me keep my hair short.
Great pics! Those black vinyl tops (on a couple of the cars), and the black vinyl interior (on the one convertible) remind me of how those cars could really make you ‘sizzle’!
I owned this beast a few years ago before I bought my ’66 Mustang. It’s a ’73 that was originally a 318. Someone before me dropped in a .60 over 440 with lots of speed equipment, Torqueflite transmission and Sure Grip rear end. It was the fastest car I have ever owned and was fun to drive. However it really was more drag car than street car. I used to back it into the driveway and just let it idle because it sounded so good. After a while we decided to sell it and get something more streetable and with AC. I sold it on Ebay to a guy from the Chicago suburbs who said he was a street racer. No, I did not put the RT stripe on it. I liked it but wish they had left off the RT part. I am not into posers.
Hey all. That guy leaning against the barracuda is me. Lol. Not sure how the picture ended up in this article but was a surprise.. Yes it was a barracuda not a cuda and I had a 318 in it. I bought it from my aunt and 1982 for $1,000 and it was green. This was probably back in 1983 or 84. Unfortunately the car is not around anymore but I do know where the doors are and I have the trunk lid. I also have the fender tag a buddy got a long time ago and gave it to me. Anyways it was quite a shocker to see this in here. Awesome Mopars in here.
Eye candy
The copper Superbird and the Panther Pink T/A Challenger. Yummy
My dad bought our 1st new car back then, a 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger. So right around the same time as these awesome photos. Mopars were selling well in the early 70s.
Nice to see some vintage Kodachromes.
My first Challenger contact was a family friend “Dave” had a yellow ’70 340. I loved that car, but it had issues. Door panel fit was hilariously bad, and it rattled from someplace in the back that was never fixed, and when it was new, it had water getting onto the driver’s side carpet everytime it rained. The dealer fixed that, but the door panels had to be left out in the sun to get hot, then a hair dryer was used to soften them up even more, and they were reinstalled, and finally, they actually fit pretty well. When Dave got married, his wife got pregnant with their daughter on their honeymoon, and the Challenger had to go, replaced for a short time with a ’72 Charger 318. Hard to believe that it was about 54 years ago when he got the Challenger, and the daughter that made it go away is nearly 50 now.