(first posted 11/8/2013) What are the odds of stumbling into an original 1968 Dodge Charger these days, never mind a red one? Take if from me: not good, as I’ve been on the lookout for one (in any color) ever since starting on this endless treasure hunt. Between the hundreds that were destroyed on the Dukes of Hazard and all those turned into pristine, fire-breathing hemi-clones, unmolested, rusty, red ’68 Chargers are about as rare as an original daily-driver ’69 Camaro six. Oh wait; I did find one of those. So let’s narrow those odds a whole lot further: a six cylinder version. There were exactly 906 made, and you’re looking at one of them. Maybe we should change our name to Curbside Musclecar Sixes.
Before we pop the hood on this one of maybe a handful of six cylinder survivors, let’s put the 1968 Charger in context. As if that was necessary. Is it not the most iconic muscle car of the era along with the 1969 Camaro, and maybe the GTO? Oops; I guess muscle car doesn’t quite apply, in the case of a six cylinder version, or even the base 318 V8. So what exactly was the Charger?
What originally appeared in 1966 was intended to compete in a new class of cars that turned out to be a dead end: the sporty-upscale-mid-sized-based fastback. The 1966-1967 Charger (bottom) and the Marlin (top) both chased that mirage; the Marlin just petered out, but the Charger was given a second chance in 1968.
The ’66 Charger carried a stiff 15% premium of the top-line Coronet 500 on which it was based. To justify that, it had a mostly unique high-quality interior with four bucket seats with a console between all of them, and a tasty instrument panel with backlit electroluminescent gauges. And the Charger was strictly V8 only.
But already in 1967, de-contenting started, which would erode that premium price (and feel). When the dramatically restyled 1968 Charger appeared, it was still V8 only, but its price premium was now down to 6%. The poor sales of the ’66 made it clear that folks were not very interested in that genre.
The 68’s bulging hips and tunnel-back roof were heavily cribbed from the madly successful 1966-1967 GM A-Bodies, none more than the GTO. Ironically, the 1968 GM mid-sizers abandoned that look, for a sleeker, more compact semi-fastback body. But it would appear that buyers weren’t really ready to leave that ’66-’67 GM look behind, because they snapped up the new Charger with a vengeance. Sales exploded; from a measly 16k in 1967 to a bang-up 93k in 1968. Thank you GM!
The Charger’s lower price undoubtedly helped, as that extra 6% over a Coronet 500 (above) really just bought some cosmetic changes to the exterior, like the recessed grille and hidden headlights, and the C-Pillar sails. Most everything else was the same.
The Charger’s one semi-original aspect was it gaping blank maw. The ’66-’67 already had a blank face with retractable headlights, but now it was deeply recessed. This semi-featureless face was quite influential too: one soon saw variations of the theme all over the world. And of course, it was a look that Chrysler would adopt extensively in their fuselage large cars that appeared in 1969. It became quite a trademark look, actually.
It’s a face that doesn’t really like close scrutiny, though. Of course that goes for Chrysler products in general during this era: quality was not their calling card, at least in terms of body assembly and such. Admittedly, this one has seen better days.
The rear end styling was also also unique to the Charger, and it merited its unique bumper too. Not surprisingly, the ’69 Charger trounced its Coronet 500 stablemate in sales. For $165, the Charger’s distinctive styling that clearly set it apart from the plebeian Coronet was money obviously well spent.
Those extra bucks also scored a unique instrument panel, although it obviously wasn’t nearly as expensive as the Chrysler-esque ’66-’67. And at least for 1968, the Charger still came with a console standard; it was a carry-over, minus the nice armrests. And the seat upholstery quality also showed some cost-cutting. It’s a sign of the times...By 1969, the console was optional, and a split-back bench seat standard.
The instrumentation is complete, though. But that steering wheel give me the willies, as it’s the same one that my father’s ’68 Dart had, minus the horn ring. In 1968, Chrysler went to some new plastic formulation, which made it feel greasy. And never looked quite clean, with a perpetual haze. Yuck. Enough suspense already; let’s get out and pop the hood.
There it is! And it’s even called “Charger 225”. Now that’s a bit ironic, as the 225 slant six had been called that already before it first found its way under a Charger’s hood. It hadn’t been available in the original Charger. In fact it wasn’t in 1968 either, at the beginning of the model year. But for some rather odd reason, in the spring of 1968 it was also listed as being available. And a grand total of 906 folks took advantage of it.
For those not familiar with this engine, the darling of the taxi-cab crowd, the 225 slant six had a one-barrel carburetor, and was rated at 145 (gross) hp, or about 120 of today’s net horsepower. One often forgotten fact: the slant six had mechanical valve lifters until 1980, giving it a distinctly metallic overtone at idle and low throttle, before induction and other sounds drowned that out. And it shared that distinction with the 426 hemi, the only other engine in Chrysler’s stable with mechanical lifters.
If my father had been seduced by the Charger’s seductive lines due to a mid-life crisis instead of his stripper Dart in 1968, this would have been the one he would have gotten. I almost made up a fictional story about how that would have happened, but given how rare these are, I decided to write it straight, instead of with a slant.
So why did Dodge decide that the Charger needed a Charger slant six under the hood? Beats me. What makes it a bit odder is that the Coronet 500 was strictly V8 only, according to my Encyclopedia. Now, according to some forums I visited, supposedly two of those 906 ’68 Charger sixes came with the three-speed manual with column shift. Which begs the question of what happened to the console in those cars?
It also begs the question of just exactly was the standard transmission on the ’68 Charger. Sadly, there’s no brochure available online. Given that the ’68 came standard with buckets and the console, presumably it was a floor shift three-speed. Or? Because these accounts of the those two three-speed manual slant six Chargers are adamant that they were column-shifted. Such important mysteries of life still to be unraveled, most likely by one of you out there.
Needless to say, there weren’t any ads for the Charger six, at least not what I could find. The base V8 was the 230 hp LA 318. Optional were 290 hp (two barrel) and 330 hp (four barrel) versions of the 383. I’ve read at least one claim that the under-rated 335 hp 383 that was specifically developed for the Plymouth Road Runner and Coronet Super Bee was available too, but the Encyclopedia doesn’t confirm that.
Of course the real performance version was the R/T, which came standard with the Magnum 440 (375 hp), and optionally with the mighty 426 Hemi (425 hp).
Here’s what the Hemi looked like installed in the Charger. It rather fills up the engine compartment a bit better than the little six, eh?
images courtesy motor trend
And just for good measure, lets pull off the air cleaner. Good for about 13.5 in the quarter mile, at 105 mph, bone stock on skinny little bias-ply tires. Not so good as a daily driver, as the hemi’s torque curve peaks rather late. The 1968 version of the hemi had an even more aggressive cam than the ’66-’67 street hemi, so there was a good reason the 440 was recommended for real folks. The result was that only 475 1968 Hemi Chargers were built, split roughly 50/50 between four speed sticks and the Torqueflite.
If you’ve been an astute reader, you might have picked up on a theoretical discrepancy regarding the headline of this post. Yes, about twice as many Charger sixes were made than hemis, but I don’t think I’m taking much risk in asserting that undoubtedly many more of the hemis survived than the handful of sixes still out there. And don’t even ask how many hemis found their way into Chargers after the fact. Probably into a few of the sixes, if I had to guess.
The 1968 Charger’s propensity for taking to the air started early. Its appearance in the 1968 movie Bullitt immortalized the chase scene with Steve McQueen’s ’67 Mustang.
The 440 R/T Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman. One of the stunt drivers involved in the movie later was quoted as saying that the stock 440 Charger was so much faster than the specially prepared and heavily modified 390 Mustang, and that the Charger drivers had to keep backing off the throttle so as to not got ahead of the Mustang.
The Charger was a pretty good sized car; with its 117″ wheelbase, it was rather closer to a full-sized car than GM’s 112″ wb intermediate coupes. But the shipping weight of a Charger six is listed at 3100 lbs. And even the 440 R/T was listed at 3575 lbs. No wonder they take to the air so readily.
Technically General Lee, star of the Dukes of hazard, was a 1969 Charger, but making ’68s look like a ’69 was easy enough. In total, either 256 or 321 ’68 and ’69 Chargers gave up their lives for the sake of tv audiences, depending on which source you chose to believe. I do wonder whether they would have used a six cylinder version? Maybe that’s why this CC survived the great Charger Genocide of the seventies.
Well, a few others obviously survived too; no less than 100 showed up for this Dukefest held in 2006 in Nashville. The truth is, in the last season or two of that show (true confessions: I’ve never watched it), they resorted to using models for their ever-more unbelievable stunts, like the high-flier one picture up. Time to close that brilliant chapter.
The Charger’s explosive popularity in 1968 was very short-lived, like so many other fads of the moment. In 1969, sales were still good, but down almost 20%. In 1970, sales shrunk to under 40k. Comparisons with the new 1971 Charger are irrelevant, since it now encompassed all two-door versions of what had been the Coronet, which became a strictly four-door/wagon nameplate.
Plenty of 1971 six-cylinder stripper Chargers would now be sold to little old ladies looking for something to replace their ’65 Coronet six sedan. The high-flying Charger was firmly back to earth. Even with a full model-range, total sales of all Chargers in 1971 was well below the ’68’s stellar year.
The muscle-car phenomena had quickly run out of gas. The ’68 Charger found a sweet-spot right in the final peak years of of that phenomena, and its somewhat unusual approach to offering a wide range of engines may well have fueled that meteoric success. Given how hot the Charger was in 1969, it’s still a bit hard to fathom why a six cylinder version was added late in that model year. Were folks begging their Dodge dealers for a slant six Charger? Or did it just seem wrong not to offer the Charger 225 in its namesake?
Maybe you’re wondering why I would happen to find a rusty original Charger with Pennsylvania antique plates on Main Street in Springfield, Eugene’s sister city across the river. It turns out that the shop it was sitting in front specializes in Mopar B-Body restorations. This car was shipped out, and is going to get a full body and interior re-do. But the shop foreman assured me the engine and drive train was not getting swapped out, nor getting rebuilt because it was still rock solid. Of course not; that slant six is probably just barely broken in.
This really is a reflection of the changing times; ten or fifteen years ago, I can assure you the odds of this Charger surviving a restoration without a new crate hemi would have been almost zilch. Who says the world isn’t getting better?
That Duke car jumping int the shot above is from the movie, and isn’t a model. the Mitsubishi should be a dead giveaway.
I believe that very car is the one being restored on the show “Graveyard Cars” this season.
I watch graveyard cars sometimes, I’ll have to keep a lookout for this one.
I wouldn’t have one of these in any configuration, but I would like to own the Camaro 250/Powerglide!
Just my style (and speed).
A ’68 Charger with the Leaning Tower of Power™??? Be still my heart!
3100 lbs! Hardly seems plausible, it looks to the eye more like ~3800 range. I think my Dart Sport was 3200 lbs but I could be wrong.
Probably shipping weight sans fluid, I’d bet 3300ish all filled up
In 1995 I was travelling round England and stopped in at my friend’s Americana shop called The American Store in Cambridgeshire. Telephones shaped like 1957 Chevrolets and that sort of thing. The shop window had the header panel from a taxi-yellow ’78 Chev Caprice with lit-up headlamps. There was a tea shop attached to The American Store and I was having a cuppa when my friend came over and said he had a customer who had some queries about American television, and might I be able to answer them. Okeh, sure.
So this guy comes round and he wants to know if any UK TV shows are on in the States. I told him “Oh yeah, we do get them—I like ‘Are You Being Served'”. He goes off: “Oh, it’s bloody awful! It’s total rubbish! They’re showing that in the States? What a bunch of wankers!”.
And then in the next breath, eagerly: “Is ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ still on?”.
Eeyeah.
Should have followed up with ‘we watch Benny Hill and Monty Python, too. And sometimes that Abbey show’.
The brochure *doesn’t* say the console is standard, so I’ll guess it was optional. Also says 3-speed standard for Charger, but the auto for the R/T?
AMA specifications page (eBay): six available for Coronet but not Charger (am I reading that right?)?
When I bought my 68 Charger , it was from the original owner who used to own ”Langley Chrysler” in B.C. CND . It was a slant six,radio delete and 3spd on floor no console. The guy I sold it to called me up years later to tell me that he had it looked at . It was one of one! It is fully restored and has been in Mopar mags. I have yet to see it myself.
Very interesting. I would note that the form is dated May of 1967, so before the beginning of the model year. From what I have read, after a banner year in 1966, monthly sales targets were getting harder and harder to meet all through 1967, a year in which sales were off fairly sharply. The metric that seemed to be top priority at Lynn Townsend’s Chrysler Corporation was units shipped. It would not surprise me at all that as 1968 got underway a Charger with a six became one more (short-sighted) way to get a few more units out the door. Although Charger sold quite well in 1968 (as did the company as a whole), I believe that a bad 1967 sort of set the trajectory for the years that followed, which began years of cost cutting, the emphasis of low priced loss leader models and marked reductions in quality.
JP’s post makes sense. The slant 6 models were probably for ‘bait and switch’ ads. “New Charger for $XX99!” Then shoppers told “Oh you want a V8, well….”
^^^^I was at first skeptical of the Bait/Switch possibility, but then found this ad, which sure smells like a dealer dangling an enticing price. It doesn’t even say “318” or “V-8,” and “all standard equipment” does sound a bit intentionally vague. Who knows…….?
Interesting. Most info on the web says the 68 Charger’s base price was $3014, so this ad represents a $426 price drop from base sticker. Inflation was becoming a factor, so prices in general were slowly rising then. Also Chrysler’s zone sales people were known to run monthly “boiler room operations” to cram cars down dealers’ throats with kickbacks and prizes from luggage sets to cruises, thus having the roundabout effect of fattening the dealer’s margin on each unit sold. Dealers would thus wait till the end of the month to make their orders, when the company was dealing incentives to take cars. And those sixes might very well have been quietly introduced to have a loss leader to advertise just like this. Fascinating stuff.
My car-mentor Howard had a brother who sold to the Detroit auto manufacturers for the Sun Oil Company. Howard was showing him his new 77 Newport, but the brother said that he refused to ever buy a Chrysler product due to their business practices. He maintained that the Chrysler purchasing people had all the ethics of pirates, trying to chisel him out of every nickel and dime they could. True this was about 9 years after we are talking about, but after about 1965-66 the quality of the entire operation started to slowly unravel from top to bottom, so nothing that they might have done in this period of time in terms of product changes or pricing would surprise me much.
Here’s some straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth info (Sept. ’67) as the new models debuted. The 225 = available for Coronet, but not for Charger. Console optional, so you could get four-on-the-floor with or without it.
Crazy, Crazy Thought: would any hot-rodder of the day have gone to the trouble to order up a 225 Charger–with heavy-duty underpinnings in place if possible–just to get the VIN that meant “cheap insurance,” and then have spent the money to drop in a 426 or 440? (You’re all welcome to shoot the idea down.)
I have no doubt you are right that the V8 was standard when the 68s were introduced. But my experience with Mopars of that era tells me that quiet running changes were not unheard of, with a long history of “spring specials” of all kinds that came along fairly late in the model year. I don’t think adding a six would have received much (if any) fanfare, other than maybe a quiet dealer bulletin. It’s not like they had to do any engineering to make it fit, pretty much every other B body was set up for the six, so it would have just been a matter of using parts already on the shelf.
The insurance angle is interesting. As collectible as these cars have become and as famous as “Mr. Norms” dealership was for performance cars, I suspect that this would be fairly well known lore by now if that really happened with any regularity. The other problem is that if you crack up your Charger and the adjuster sees the 440 under the hood when you declared it as a six when you got the coverage, that might have led to a whole bunch of other issues. Like insurance fraud and no coverage.
George, my article states that the six was not available until sometime in the spring of 1968. As to why, Jim’s guess sounds about as good as any to me.
As to your guess about buyers ordering a six to get lower insurance and then dropping in a big block V8, that’s probably fairly unlikely, as the cost of doing so would have been mighty onerous. It would have required a new transmission, and other drive line components. That would be years of insurance. Not likely; certainly not as a reason for Dodge to offer it.
Paul and JPC, you two are again the voices of knowing reason. I just couldn’t resist an impulsive leap from “you’d have to be *crazy* to do that!” to “I wonder if anyone *was* crazy enough to do that?” (in the pre-clone era, of course).
It’s an interesting question. Back in the day, while it wasn’t done to circumvent insurance surcharges, there were high-performance car dealerships that did routinely offer engine swaps and you have to wonder about the VIN numbers which would surely no longer indicate what the car actually got sold with. A good example would be Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge of Chicago’s 1968 440 Dart GSS, which came from the factory as a 383 GTS.
I am not too sure about the Dealers changing out a 6 cyl for a V8 due to the fact that a V8 will not fit the K-member without some modifications and the front drum brakes are small, the transmission mount has to change, the engine wiring harness has to change plus the rearend is too small.
The references on the 3 speed saying 2 made are incorrect, as Galen’s book shows 2 *known* at the time of publishing. That certainly doesn’t mean it’s total production.
I owned a 69 Charger with a slant 6 back in the 70’s. Red of course, nice white interior and 3 on the column. In 1974 I was 16 years old, was not a car guy and knew nothing about engines sizes when I walked onto a used car lot and of course the lines and bright red caught my eye. The salesman told me at the time that nobody would believe what’s under the hood… mentioned something about slant six. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad thing. I don’t recall how much I paid for it. I sacked groceries at the Quantico commissary in the winters and worked as a lifeguard in summers so it couldn’t have been much. I paid cash and drove it home. All I did to it was put gas in it and change the oil occasionally. I did add gray shag carpet that went nice with the white interior. Of course an 8 track player and box speakers in the back window and back seat floorboards to play my Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith tapes. Chicks dug it. I remember strapping the muffler back in place with coat hanger wire once… maybe twice. After two years I gave it to my brother-in-law when I joined the army. What I tell people… is that I was dating this girl from Hazard County at the time and I sold it to her cousins. A couple of good ol’ boys. I usually don’t mention the slant six.
Cool article. My 69 Charger I have today was built in 1985 when I was a teenager with a donor body from a slant six three on the tree green 1969 no options car. I paid $100 Dollars for it. Back then, you couldn’t get any parts to repair a wrecked car. I bought a wrecked 1969 383 SE charger for $180 bucks and swapped everything but the motor over to donor. I originally built my own mounts for the 440 I put in the car but then learned the 383 cars K member would work and swapped the K member, brakes and power steering into my car. I still own and drive this car quite often. Its not original at all and is really beat up nowadays but I have lots of memories in this car and its priceless to me!
I love it! It reminds me of the 69 in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.
We have a 68 6 cylinder, manual transmission green charger.
I found the other slant 6, 3 on the tree charger. https://eauclaire.craigslist.org/cto/d/chippewa-falls-1968-charger/6827712623.html
First car was a 71 charger w 225 and 3 speed auto . Total stripper,vinyl floor,bench seats,dog dish hubcaps,black with blue int. was indestructible.
Once tried to “speed shift “ from first to second missed horribly and hit reverse with accelerater floored. Both back wheels locked up and the engine died. Put it back in park fired up and drove off like nothing happened.
It was purchased from a local utilities co auction for less than 400$. The wimpy stock suspension had seen better days and the car was a low rider before that was popular. Even with mud tires on the back the car actually looked pretty bad ass and received lots of compliments. The black with blue int. was different never saw another like it. Would love to have it back traded for a 71 dodge polara 383 which I promptly wrapped around a tree. That one was also one of a kind and a very good looking ride. Nice to see all the info here on those cars.
I Just found and purchased a 1970 Special Order H Code /6 Charger Matching Numbers but Im gonna GEN III Hemi it and store the /6
Found this in a local yard recently. Had the engine still in it, but the roof had been cut off decades ago and its returning to the earth.
I was reading the comments about the “Tic Toc Tac”. I seem to recall Oldsmobile offered a rally pack gauge package in their ’67 A body cars. That also included what they called the “Tic Toc Tac” as well. As the name a patent of the supplier?
Talk about rare .
Chargers were to me, too BIG .
I know they’re a halo car everyone wants one but dang ~ drive one in traffic, you won’t be amused .
-Nate
2nd to last pic. To the right of the Charger badge. Is that a forward look emblem I see? (Also noticed the dodge triangular logo above the cluster.)
No, that isn’t a Flookerang (Forward-Look logo), it’s just an arrow-type Logo Chrysler put on Chargers at that time. The ‘Dodge triangular logo’ has a name, too; it’s called the Fratzog.
Frankly, I like this Charger the most.
Did you buy this car? Does anyone have a driver for sale 68-70? Obviously prefer the 68, but I’ll take any of the 3. I found a 69’ locally for $78,000, but it’s more of a show car. I do not car what motor is in it, hell it can be a roller. I just want the car.