Car of the Day: 1969 Dodge Charger R/T

Submitted by Kirk Pedersen on Thu, 2009-11-26 08:49

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m actually here. My favorite car is the Dodge Charger – I’m partial to a 1966 440 in candy apple red – and here I am writing about the most recognizable Mopar, the 1969 Charger, which is featured in the Team Racing Pack for Need for Speed SHIFT.

1969 was the penultimate year for muscle cars, with soaring fuel prices, insurance costs and safety concerns effectively killing them by the mid-1970s. After 1974, only the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird and Ford Mustang were still on the road, de-tuned from their former glory.

Now that the doom and gloom is out of the way, the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T was perhaps the finest muscle car Chrysler ever built. It cost more than a Camaro or Mustang, but the extra price was worth it if you wanted the ultimate in muscle car performance, the 426 HEMI engine.

With many buyers opting for the 440 Six Pack, only 468 HEMI R/T Chargers were built in the 1969 model year, but those who bought them got more than their money’s worth from the additional $1000 it cost to drop the snarling big block into the Charger’s engine bay.

HEMI roared to life with 425 horsepower and 490 lb/ft of torque at only 4,000 RPM. It pulled the Charger from 0-60 in only 5.5 seconds - despite its zaftig 3,800 pound curb weight - and routinely ran ¼ miles in less than 14 seconds.

The 1969 Charger is the most famous Chrysler muscle car, due in no small part to its starring role on 1980s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. Painted in classic Hemi Orange, the General Lee Charger featured on the show is the most recognizable car in small screen history, its roof adorned with the Confederate flag and distinctive ‘01’ numbers on each door.

More than 300 different Chargers were used during production of the show, with fewer than 30 still in existence. In 2009, a replica of the original General Lee owned by Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider sold at auction for $450,000.

Frustrated with the 1968 Charger 500’s lack of success on the track, Chrysler built the Daytona, a Charger with a new front clip, garish spoiler and 440 mill stock - HEMI was a factory option - for the ’69 season. A new rule in NASCAR mandated cars must be built as a production model for eligibility on the circuit, so Chrysler hurriedly pushed 503 Daytonas off the line.

Priced at $300 more than the R/T and hampered by extra weight and a bloated appearance, most Daytonas were unsold and sat on dealer lots, eventually unloaded at hefty discounts. Surviving Daytonas command six figures on the auction market today, with HEMI examples fetching more than $300,000 or more.

Very few Chargers – or other Mopars for that matter - from the muscle car era survived. Many were destroyed by careless drivers, parked and left to rot because of gas prices, or, most commonly, eaten up by rust.

Surviving HEMI Chargers – particularly those with ‘matching numbers’, in other words, an original HEMI, not a 318 car with a HEMI engine crammed under the hood - have commanded astonishing prices at auction, mainly from baby boomers looking to recapture their youth.

At the 2008 Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, a ’69 HEMI Charger R/T clone that started life as a 383 car sold for $79,000.

You may not have the coin in real life to procure yourself a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, but if you get the Team Racing Pack for SHIFT, you don’t need to.