- BODY: Johnny Lightning
- WHEELS: Vincent
- TIRES: Road Race Replicas
IMHO the 1968 Dodge Charger is one of the most beautiful muscle cars ever made. Sorry MoPar fans, but I have no use for the ’69 and ’70 model. Yeah, yeah, I know: its essentially the same car except for a few little details, right? Well, those details matter; the decision to replace the 4 small round tail lights with the long bars and to put a divider in the grill for ’69 did the same thing to the Charger that Bill Mitchell, father of the 1963 Corvette Stingray, famously said removing the split rear window for ’64 did to his design: “it ruined the whole car!”
And this is more than just my opinion; what Gen-X’er doesn’t have one particular ’68 Charger burned into their mind forever, the infamous mobster chase car from “Bullitt?” When I saw that movie for the first time when I was 7 or 8 years old I was an instant Charger fan; I liked the Mustang too, but there was no question in my mind-even at that age-which of those two cars was the more powerful and more impressive. And again: yeah, I know, there’s a very famous ’69 Charger in our past as well that no one my age has ever forgotten, so I’ll admit that there’s an important place in history for both years.
A discussion of those details is highly relevant to our profiled slot car, the Johnny Lightning copy of the original Aurora Model Motoring design. A cursory look at this car and you will find yourself scratching your head: is this a ’68 Charger, or a ’69? In fact, it appears to be either a little of both or a little of neither, since a couple of the details are wrong; this model has been rendered with not 4 but 6 round tail lights-incorrect for any year-while up front the grille has the divider in the center, making it look like a ’69, so…which is it?
Well, my thought is that this is a custom job, and that’s A-OK with me, because although some of the details are wrong it still looks mighty good! This is the only body I’ve ever bought with this colored chrome finish; generally I don’t care for this look because it seems not only unrealistic but makes it obvious the car’s body is plastic, but for some reason, on this car, this blue chrome with the matte black roof and tail stripes just looks bitchin’ to me! It wears a set of Vincent wheels they call “Crager Sports” and which I still call Torque Thrusts, shod with full-size Road Race Replica tires. Though not shown in these pictures, she got an upgrade to raised white letter Firestone Wide Ovals just a few days ago.
This car’s performance is about average for the muscle fleet; she wins a few, loses a few. She’s been raced pretty hard, too; you may notice that ding on the front edge of the hood, the result of a shunt on the track at some point. In my mind that just makes it even cooler; it’s a brawler with battle scars ready to rumble any time…just like a big block MoPar should!
Those Crager wheels look great and have always been my favorite style and you are right about the color, that works for this car and looks awesome. Sometimes they can look plastic but not here in that color! As far as the year, with an end result that looks that good, I’d say it’s the best of both worlds!