It's funny how when people find out that I'm a "Car Guy", one of the first things they ask me is, "what's your favorite car?" I'd like to say that I have a smart, witty retort like, "it's a tossup between a 1929 Delage dB120 and a 1957 BMW Isetta," but I don't. Rather, I run through the same old boring litany of "1970 Chevelle, 1969 Camaro...Hemi 'Cuda blah blah blah". To make myself sound somewhat sophisticated I might throw in a '64 Riviera. And while that cliched list is in fact the truth, I find it interesting that I always forget about how much I love 1968 and 1969 Dodge Charger's. I'll throw in a 1970 too but in my opinion they're just not as jaw dropping\earth movingly "gotta-have-it" as the '68 and '69's are. Our stunning subject is a freshly restored 1969.
I think the reason for my absent mindedness about these cars is simple - I'm a GM girl by default and you just don't see that many 1968-1970 Charger's out there. Even at car shows, you see more AMC AMX'. Just as well as the smattering of Chargers there are get a tractor trailer load of attention. I mean, look at this thing. Even in silver, which is far from my favorite color for a car, it's The Balls.
Now, rather than go into the pretentiousness of dissecting the design line-by-line, which I find all but perfect, again, even in silver, let me say that the only flaw I find with these cars is they're just too damn big. Although technically a mid-size car, at 208-inches long on a whopping 117-inch-long wheelbase, these cars were more like "smaller" full-sizers than intermediates. And they make a '68 GTO appear all but diminutive. Mustangs of the vintage are golf cart sized in comparison.
They're so much bigger than an also new for '68 GM intermediate like a Chevelle, LeMans\GTO, Cutlass or even a Ford Fairlane Torino, because they're built on Chrysler's infamous "B-body" chassis that underpinned the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth (full-size) reboot. When Dodge (and Plymouth) "upsized" with a new full-size chassis (C-body) for 1965, they kept the old "B-body" around as a defacto intermediate. Thing is, while it was too small to be really "full-size", it was actually way too big to be a mid-sizer. Then again, we are talking about the 1960's when (automotive) dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Dodge's first Charger based on the "B-body" came out in 1966 and not only was it, in my most humble of opinions, homely as sin, it was a sales dud. This Charger was a quasi-update of the new-for-1965 (B-body) Dodge Coronet and was positioned to compete simultaneously with the Ford Mustang and Pontiac GTO. I know. As if. In fairness, these cars may have aged better than anyone may have thought back then.
In addition to questionable styling, the '66 and '67 Charger offered no performance benefit to similarly powered Coronet's because, thanks to this crazy big fastback that I swear you could ski off of, it was significantly heavier. Dodge sold just over 53,000 Chargers in two model years meanwhile Ford moved more than a million Mustangs and Pontiac peddled some 180,000 GTO's. As they say, back to the drawing board.
With more than just a little General Motors pixie dust backed into it, a former GM stylist had a heavy hand in it, the updated Charger for '68 with its flying-buttress rear windshield (or backlight) is a bonafide legend. But don't take my word for it. Dodge sold nearly 100,000 Chargers for 1968 and in 1969. Yes, a mere drop in the bucket compared to Ford Mustang sales, but they at least put a dent in the Endura bumper of GTO's. And their relative scarcity (perhaps) spurs the asking price of our silver fox here which is pegged at an absurd, you sitting down? $73,500. Say that slowly and it sounds like even more. Seventy-three-thousand, five-hundred-dollars.
I know the used and classic car market is crazy wonky these days but that's just ridiculous. NADA guidelines do peg this at around $66,000(!!). NADA prices don't steer the market, they reflect it so while this is technically overpriced, it's not unreasonable based on the market. Although, that spread between the book value and asking price is enough to buy something "classic" and fairly interesting if you dig deep enough. Hey, if you're hell bent on blowing your nest egg, by all means. Have at it.
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