Sui Generis is an old Latin legal term that means one-of-a-kind, or that there is nothing else like it. In other words, something that is unique. It is the term I think of when I remember a certain 1974 Charger from my youth.
Most of my TOTGA (The Ones That Got Away) cars were those I briefly test drove, really wanted, but did not buy. This one was a little different. I could have bought it if I had wanted to, but never thought about it until it was too late. And the jury is still out on whether I would have actually wanted to buy it or not.
This car came into my life in the summer of 1978. I had just graduated high school and my best friend Dan and I were planning to head off to college together, where we would be roommates. Our college allowed freshmen to have a car, but parking was inconvenient. And besides, both of our parents thought it was stupid for either of us to have a car on campus.
Dan’s father was Howard, the second of my two main car-mentors. Howard was a Mopar guy and typically bought new cars fairly frequently. Dan and I had been close friends for about six years by then, and there had been probably seven different cars in and out of the family driveway in that time. But this one was, well, unique.
The car was a bright red 1974 Dodge Charger. That, in itself, sounds pretty normal – after all, you can find bright red ’74 Chargers online all day long. Like this one.
Or this one.
An identical example. If you remove the whitewalls, the wheel covers, the fender-tip turn signals, the stripe, the moldings for the vinyl roof, and the high-trim interior.
This subject of this story, however, was quite abnormal in both what it was and how it got to Dan’s family. The car itself was a complete and total stripper. As in not one. single. option. This Charger was built as a “Coupe”, which meant that it was the “value leader” – think of the 1970’s version of a Studebaker Scotsman. The “Coupe” was different from the “Hardtop” in that the hardtop’s rear quarter windows rolled down and had significantly more standard equipment. The Coupe needed no such luxuries. But that was just the start.
This car came with a slant six, a three-speed manual on the column, heat, and rubber floor covering. It had a bench seat in trim “B2”.
A “B2” in black was an all-vinyl bench seat with heavy-duty silver-gray vinyl in the seating areas that gave a distinct taxi vibe. There were black tires, tiny hubcaps and pretty much nothing else.
The double-ball-joint rear view mirror sounds impressive until you notice that lacks a “day/night” adjustment. And not even a cigarette lighter.
If it was standard equipment the car had it, and if it cost a nickel extra, the car did not. Almost every other Charger may have gotten the good instrument cluster with the round gauges, but this one got the one straight out of every Coronet taxi ever built, right down to the blank space where the A.M. radio should have gone.
This ad depicts an identical Charger Coupe in back – if you eliminate the whitewalls, wheel covers and the partial vinyl roof.
When Howard found it, the car had 10,000 miles on the odometer. The story was that the original owner had owned a big Buick but when the combination of high gas prices and a recession hit, he went looking for an economical new car. The dealer must have been out of Darts. The first owner must have realized his mistake right away, because he only put 2,500 miles a year on the car. Howard said that the car had never even been washed – there were still traces of yellow grease pencil marks on the tires and under the hood, and the red paint had become quite oxidized. There must have been a little fender bender too, because part of the car had been resprayed (and was therefore a slightly different color of dull, faded red).
By the summer of 1979 the Charger (as it was called) had become the boys’ car in that family, and Dan, his brother and I went several places in it – including a trip to Toledo, Ohio for Dan’s quest to get a tattoo (when tattoo parlors, as they were then called, were still illegal in Indiana). The Charger also came to school the next year for Dan and his brother to share.
An identical Charger “B2” interior in blue – if you remove the “Tuff” steering wheel, the extra gauges, the floor shift and all of the carpet.
First, the car suffered the failings of every one of those 1971-74 Mopar B body coupes. The bodies felt flimsy (although structurally tight, a combination that still causes me to scratch my head). The long hood was not really straight, but kind of undulated out from the windshield to the bumper in a series of small waves. The hollow “tha-lumph” of the slamming door caused the steering column/steering wheel to judder. The cranking of the slant six made the car sway side to side ever so slightly in time with the cranking of the engine. But then the engine fired and the fun started.
The Charger must have had the 2.94 gears because it was always a challenge to get away from a stop without at least one stall (until one got some practice time in). Actually a check of the Charger’s dealer book says that 3:21 gears were the only set available on the 6/3-speed combo. The gearing seemed taller to me at the time, but maybe that was just the Charger’s 3,570 pounds talking.
The shift linkage was always a bit clanky and was not at all willing to go along with fast shifts (at least without getting jammed into some place that was not a gear). When it came time to park, some work was involved. The front overhang was long, the car was wide, and so was the turning circle. The manual steering was a real muscle builder, made more so when I invariably couldn’t quite turn tight enough to get into the parking space without hitting the car next to us. Which required reverse and lots more steering before getting it moored on the second try.
An identical interior – if you remove the automatic, the air conditioning, any trace of woodgrain, the carpet, and the high(er) trim upholstery.
Part of the problem was the new-for-1974 steering wheel that was of a fairly small diameter and had a fat-spoke design that took up way too many places your hands needed for getting the right grip to muscle the heavy car into submission.
Howard went to a junkyard and replaced it with a 3-spoke wheel from an older low-trim Mopar – it was a little larger in diameter and kept its spokes out of the way for maximum wrestling room.
An identical back seat of the “B2” interior in blue – if you eliminate the rear window louvers and the carpet.
The Charger was a good highway car, though. Other than the minimal sound insulation and the lack of air conditioning, it still had good fresh air vents and cruised with ease (at least with the era’s 55 mph speed limits). The long wheelbase smoothed things out and the fairly fast manual steering showed its positive side in sure-footed highway travel. There was plenty of room for stretching out in the wide back seat, unbothered by things like window cranks getting in the way.
An identical Charger Coupe in gray – if you remove the Rallye stripes, the upgraded wheels and tires, the sport mirrors, the rear spoiler and the hood with the bulge (and put the fat rubber bumper guards back on).
The Charger stayed with Dan’s brother after he graduated, then Dan got it back some time after. I went to visit him once after I started law school, and wondered why nobody answered the door of his apartment when the Charger was out front. I later learned that Dan had sold the Charger to a neighbor. By that time, it had started to rust in the rear quarters (as they all did) and the paint had reverted to its faded state, improved only by a coating of rain to give it some shine.
It was only after I realized that the car had been sold that I got a little wistful, wondering if I should have tried to put in a request to call me if the thought of selling came to mind. Then again, I remembered how much I had groused every time I tried driving it in traffic and parking in public parking lots that required some maneuvering. I guess maybe I liked the idea of the Charger more than I liked the car itself. I will admit that it had been fun when other Charger owners would give this bright red one a little nod of respect, making me chuckle at how they had not a clue of what was (or was not) under the hood.
The only actual, unmolested/unmodded Charger Coupe photo I could find.
The car was probably not sui generis when Chrysler built it. 1974 was an awful year for America’s No. 3 auto manufacturer so the company was probably churning any and every combination it could think to make out into the infamous sales bank, and a low, low priced mid-sized coupe probably showed up at dealers on quite a few trucks. But now? Try to find one. I couldn’t even find a picture of a decent looking one, thus the lead photo of a ’73 with upgraded wheels and a hood bump.
I found a couple of examples of the B2 interior, but only in blue or green – not the black I knew. Except for this one that is barely recognizable.
The B2 interior in black (1973 version), although with an apparent dash and steering wheel upgrade and the addition of carpet.
Update: I found a 1973 version, although one that has had multiple upgrades in the dash and other trim.
An identical Charger in black – if you remove the belt moldings (that formerly mated with the half vinyl roof), the raked suspension and the upgraded wheels/tires.
Also, try to find a picture of a 74 Charger with 1) no version of the multiple vinyl roof treatments offered that year and 2) no big stripes. Really, the stripper red Charger may have been the best looking of these I ever saw, with nothing to detract from the car’s unusually clean (though, by 1974, dated) lines.
In the end, I decided that this car had to be among my collection of TOTGA because I never saw another like it, and with the passage of time, am pretty sure I will never see one like it again. This one well and truly got away, and there will never be another.
I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of being able to buy a car with just about every option served up à la carte. By the time I came of age, it seemed like manufacturers had migrated to making you purchase options in packages… so you might have to take power seats, power mirrors, and power antenna if you just wanted power windows and locks. I’ve only considered purchasing a new vehicle once, which I was going to special order, but ultimately got cold feet due to the forced grouping of options and a fairly crummy color palette.
A big part of my intrigue is driven by finding vehicles that are equipped oddly enough to make you wonder why… I wouldn’t be super surprised to find a Dart that was bereft of anything beyond an engine and a steering wheel, or even a fleet special Coronet with rubber mats, but a bottom scraper Charger seems strange.
A few more middle of the night musings: I forgot how much front overhang these have. I’ve wondered why Mopar’s full instrumentation was almost always missing an oil pressure gauge. I’ve always liked those fender top turn signal indicators, and I remember this exact style being around for quite a few years… I think they first showed up in 1969?, but what was the last year they were available?
Yes, this car was kind of an “ah-ha” moment, when I realized that it could be configured for those who still wanted a 2 door Coronet.
Those fender-tip turn signals went back to the mid 60s – I think maybe 1965, and I know that they made it into the early 80s on a few models.
“Rubber floor covering”. Excellent. At first I thought that “color-keyed rubber floor mats” would be just that, mats. Then I came to realize that there were only the mats, and no carpet under them. Well, I suppose that if that Charger were still around, those mats may be in better shape than any 1974 carpeting might be.
Dan’s Charger was likely turned into a refrigerator long ago due to the rust…then again, the number of rusty hulks of these that I see advertised online indicates that just about any of these could be rebuilt into any Charger variation one wants nowadays. That’s probably why you can’t find many pictures of the low level trim ones.
The rubber floor coverings didn’t surprise me that much, as another friend’s family had an early 1970 Falcon that was equipped about the same way as this Charger, only with an AM radio. Also, my experience with Mopars then was that they built a higher percentage of strippers than Ford or GM did. But in the years since I have come to appreciate how unusual this Charger really was.
My ’72 Nova came with the rubber floor covering and it still has it.
For a brief time around 1980 we had a green 1970 Falcon with rubber floor interior. It did have 302 and automatic. Can’t remember if it had pwr strg and brakes but it had no radio.
I was always a little bummed at how the relatively clean lines of the ’73-’74 Charger coupe were so easily disturbed, typically by those goofy quarter window louvers and vinyl roof of the SE version. But, for some reason, those were the ones most popular back in the day.
Sadly, that popularity almost certainly made it very easy for Chrysler to morph the 1975 Charger into a full-blown, Cordoba PLC clone, something that simply didn’t go over too well. Gone was any semblence of performance, despite two-tone versions with ‘Daytona’ emblems slathered in all their 3M, stick-on glory.
OTOH, finding a decent ’73-’74 Charger coupe (or Road Runner, for that matter) would actually be a relatively cost-effective way to get a typically overlooked classic car. Nowhere near as photogenic as the fabulous (and, now, way-overpriced) ’68-’70 car, they’re still quite good-looking, especially a lower-trim car without all the bulges or vinyl roof.
I don’t know if it was possible to get one with a 360 that wasn’t festooned with all the ‘rallye’ stripes and other stuff but, if so, it would be a very nice ride for sunny days.
In poring over online photos of these, it hits me that the 73-74 Charger may have had more personalities than almost everything else built then. I, too, hated that SE roof, but those so-equipped had an entirely different look from the basic hardtops.
Also, I lost track of the number of roof/trim styles on these. The hardtops had a belt molding and a big, thick piece of trim behind the rear quarter windows. There was the halo vinyl roof, the vinyl roof over just the front part of the roof, and the whole SE thing. Then you got into the Rallye stripe packages.
As an aside, I tried finding production figures. There were around 74k Chargers of all kinds made in 1974, and about 31k of them were SEs, and about 25k were hardtops. The rest were probably coupes, but I suspect that almost all of those were V8/auto or 6/auto cars.
This is one of those designs I could never understand the appeal of.. Dodge nailed the body of the ’68-’70 model dead nuts on, and then for the ’71, they left it under a heat lamp and let the body melt and droop and get lumpy and misshapen.
That one’s easy and can be answered in two letters: GM. Chrysler was still in their “let’s do what GM did in the last model cycle” mode. But in this case, there were a couple of things that held up the new ’71 Mopar intermediate GM clones by one year.
First, there was the rush to get Dodge a ponycar. So, the new E-body (which was actually based on the 1971 B-body platform) took precedence over a 1970 introduction of the new B-body coupes.
Then there was the whole NASCAR thing. Chrysler’s wing-cars were both based on existing bodies (1969 Daytona used an upcoming 1970 Charger, while the Superbird used ’70 Coronet fenders). Making NASCAR specials from the new 1971 bodies turned out to be a complete non-starter, although I have no doubt the continued use of a ‘loop’ style front bumper definitely played a part.
This all conspired to hold off the new, GM-clone Mopar intermediates until 1971.
I have decided that when you strip all of the crap and gingerbread from the car (which most of them were covered with, to varying degrees) it is a really clean and fluid design that we didn’t see much of after maybe 1969-70 among the US manufacturers. It is not a home run like the 1968-70 Charger, but it is hard to do something like that twice in a row.
These ’71 B-Body coupes were one of the most stylistically ambitious designs to come out of Detroit. It was of course an attempt to outdo the ’68 GM B-bodies, and they did that, pretty effectively. They were the last hurrah of the mid-late ’60s styling extravagance that took a lot of influence from Italian cars along with some new-found home-grown chutzpah.
The Plymouth Satellite/Sebring coupe works better for me than the Charger. I did a pretty thorough styling analysis of they various influences of these cars here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1971-plymouth-satellite-sebring-plus-with-a-tip-of-the-hat-to-virgil-exner-and-marcello-gandini/
From a NASCAR perspective these were better designs than the 68-70 cars that needed the wings window plugs and bullet noses to dominate, the 71-74 body was slippery from the getgo, so much so teams lobbied to campaign them well after they were succeeded by the Cordoba Chargers
The 68-70 (mostly 68-69) was excellent looking car, possibly the definitive “muscle car” bodystyle where even without any muscle under the hood it looked like it would win races anyway, but the 71-74s I think elaborated on many of the details that made the 68-70s stand out as a Charger and shed much of the GM influenced points the 68-70s also had, there’s very little in this design that looks nearly as blatantly cribbed from the 68-72 GM A bodies, they follow some trends like the taillights in the rear bumper but unlike the predecessor the profiles are much different, and uncharacteristicly original.
I think the worst part of these is that the ingredients were never mixed right – the 73-74s had the better looking roofline, but the 71-72s had hideaway optional headlights, which is a Charger hallmark. Coupes looked better than SEs but SEs were more fashionable in this part of the 70s. Plus smog motors, etc. that doesn’t effect looks but I think it influences our reverence for cars regardless
I imagine it’s a bit hard for younger folks to imagine such a thing. And what a unicorn it would be today. Can you imagine the looks it would get at car shows?
I can pretty well imagine what the driving experience was like, not too unlike a bigger, heavier stripper ’68 Dart my father bought. That one was utterly devoid of any option too, although its back seat was from a higher trim version. That looked so odd; I remember the day he brought it home, noticing that high-trim rear seat upholstery. They must have been out of the stripper seats that day.
Hi Paul !
Whenever I show my unrestored/original paint ’72 Charger Rallye on cruise nights or shows alongside my unrestored/original paint ’68 Charger R/T. younger enthusiasts are amazed that the ’72 is even really is a Charger….that is actually several inches shorter that my ’68 Charger. Then the adult know-it-alls, come by with their stupid comments to chastise my cars…how sad for them they are so jealous & knowledgeable……….well EXXCCCUUUUUSE ME !!
Ray ;
It depends on where you live I think .
I’m in the L.A. Metro area and my raggedy old VW gets so mich love and respect -because- it’s a rusty and dented up survivor .
Go figure .
I’m like you and prefer tidy originals but these days any nice old vehicle co$t$ too much to buy for the average person .
-Nate
Except for the back seat, this almost seems like a Seventies version of a 1940’s or ‘50’s business coupe. When two door cars were basic and not considered sporty.
God awful American Excess without any of the Excess.
Luckily I’m Australian and we had our very own Charger of the A-body Valiant varity. The basic Charger had 215 ci ‘Hemi’ 6, with 140HP and 199 lb⋅ft and weighing much less with our Chargers 105 inch wheelbase than the American Charger obviously made our basic Charger quite brisk. While I was only very young when these came out and my father working for Chrysler Australia at the time I vaguely remember travelling in a few basic Chargers like our featured car (no carpets, no radio, drum brakes all round) and the balls to the walls R/T optioned versions with the 263 ci motor and 3 webber carbs.
When I and friends got our drivers licenses, most of us opted to buy economical 4 cyl (but not economical when driven flat out, my 2.6 Mitsubishi Sigma used about 14 miles a gallon when hooning with mates) but the smarter guys brought 250 ci Ford Falcons which hosed me and used less fuel doing so. One friend brought a basic low mile Charger with the big 263 inch motor and 3 speed manual, was a Ferrari compared to our shitboxes. I’d saved up and brought ex police VL Commodore with the 3 ltr Turbo and smoked them all. It tried to main me often.
Sold the Sigma to my sister at a huge loss, and she promptly rolled it at 55 mph on a dirt road. She only suffered a few cuts and bruises.
Your opening paragraphs reminded me of my three criteria for choosing a college. 1) Must allow freshmen to have cars on campus, 2) Must be a small college and 3) Must be far away from home.
It was tough to find a college that met criteria #1, and I recall calling quite a few college to find out a definitive answer to that question. Everything else was (you know, like academics) was far less important.
But around that time – in my late teens and early 20s – it seemed that I knew quite a few people who had oddball stripped-down cars (like Buick LeSabres without power windows, or cars without rear defoggers). I guess these cars all tumbled down the rungs of ownership to young drivers pretty quickly.
The interesting part about this generation Charger is they’ve mostly remained in the domain of regular middle class hobbyists, save for the 71 R/T and SuperBee anyway. You can mix and match power dome hoods, grilles/hideaway headlights, taillights, Rallye clusters and truly build your own without worrying about the originality police deducting points from your “investment” like it would on a 68-70. Remarkably this generation Charger has in effect remained a sort of “late model” for the better part of 50 years, even today akin to buying a 10-15 year old Mustang to make your own, the trouble is they’ve cycled through generations of owners who’ve done just that, so you don’t know what’s what! Blessing and a curse really.
These Chargers had the unfortunate timing of actually getting better with a midcycle restyle, but worse with a mechanical update. Not just in the detuned engine department but the in 73 the B bodys had rubber isolators fitted between the leaf spring mounts, torsion bar anchor, and K member to emphasize a softer ride at the expense of handling. They also got more diametrically opposed in their submodel executions, the SE went from mostly just a badge and a standard vinyl top/hideaway cosmetically to the outrageous louvered landau top complete with hood ornament, while the Rallye went from a fairly restrained stripe package in 72(actually toned down from the 71 R/T) to those big stem to stern side stripes. The best looking Chargers in 73-74 were the plain ones, but they didn’t seem to sell as well, nor survive as well, sadly
That first picture shows a cleanly styled car. I like it, although it has comical long wheel overhangs front and rear.
These cars were not in the Netherlands back then. Oh, they might have sold a couple maybe, but I cannot remember ever seeing these kind of cars. We had a fair amount of 4 door sedans but not these. It is one reason why I like CC. You all talk about these cars as if they were normal… wow. USA really was a different (car) world then.
I always thought the Chargers were too long, too heavy , I can imagine wrestling that steering wheel….
-Nate
I think about watching “Car and Track” with Bud Lindemann on Speedvision back in the late ’90s when I think of these Chargers.
Reminds me of the `73 Duster I looked at at my local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. Army green with the el stripo interior and rubber floor mats. But at least it had the 318, auto and air.I passed on it.
Freed of all the early 1970s excess, the basic shape is quite attractive. Shorten the front overhang, lower it and voila.
Car and Driver magazine road test, March 1971. Tongue in cheek, described the Charger as a successful “piece of sculpture.” The opening photo is of the car, with a guy standing next to it wearing a possum fur coat. The ’70’s were weird, I know. I lived through them!