Just as it did a year ago, the glorious 1968 Dodge HEMI Dart muscled its way to the championship round of Muscle Car Match-Ups and found itself squaring off against another Mopar heavyweight.
Down goes Frazier.
Last year, the HEMI Dart came runner-up to the 1970 Plymouth Superbird.
This year, the HEMI Dart finished in second again. This time, to the beloved 1969 Dodge Charger R/T.
Facebook Championship-Round Voting:
The wrinkle thrown into the 2020 Muscle Car Match-Ups was to pair eight old-school classics against eight new-school performance machines.
We feared a certain outcome given the nature of this competition. (Voting on social media.) Those fears were realized.
The choice while organizing this competition came down to whether we’d have all of the new-school rides face off on one side of the bracket while the old-school cars battled on the other, thereby ensuring an old-school vs. new-school final; OR to have one of these new machines face off in the first round with a classic muscle car and let the chips fall where they may.
It was a clean sweep for the old school rides.
In your world, old-school American muscle remains king.
The Dodge Charger R/T was the baddest and sportiest ’69 Charger available, but it took some time for it to enter the scene. When Dodge launched the 1969 Charger, it released a 225 cubic-inch Slant Six version, and the meatier 318 cubic-inch V8 (a much more popular option).
Then Dodge unleashed a couple of midyear Scat Pack offerings to the delight of performance enthusiasts for the rest of time: the Coronet Super Bee and the now-legendary Dodge Charger R/T. The R/T was powered by the Magnum 440 cubic-inch, four-barrel carbureted V8, and made 375 horsepower. The car featured a TorqueFlite automatic transmission, a heavy-duty braking system, and dual exhaust with chrome tips.
Of course, much of the reverence muscle car enthusiasts pay the ’69 Charger can be traced to its time as the General Lee driven by Bo and Luke Duke in the wildly popular “Dukes of Hazzard” television series.
According to The Illustrated Directory of Muscle Cars, the TV show’s producers wrecked more than 1,500 Chargers filming stunts for that show, which is probably a world record for doing something so simultaneously horrible AND awesome that many times.
You can check out diecast models of the ’69 Dodge Charger R/T here and here.
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The Charger is a musclecar, the Hemi Dart was a specialty-built DRAG car; there was a tag on the vehicle stating so, and you didn’t get a title with it.
NO CAR LIKE MOPAR!
Nothing can beat Dodge Charger! This is my favorite car in the whole wide world.