ALT-4 Guide to the Fastest Production Cars
This article appeared in the November, 2005 issue of CAR COLLECTOR magazine under the heading Behind The Scenes with THE GENERAL LEE On The Dukes of Hazzard' Movie Set.'
DODGE CHARGERS: AT LEAST 26 LOOK-ALIKES HAD 15 MINUTES OF MOVIE FAME AS THE GENERAL LEE'
If your car's radiator is boiling because you somehow missed the Dukes of Hazzard movie released in August, don't fret. You'll have a chance to catch it on video or DVD in a few months. And seeing it at home, on you television set, will be a lot like watching the original TV show which ran from 1979-85.But perhaps the similarity will end there, inasmuch as different actors than those in the original TV series, or the 1997 and 1999 reunion' movies, are in the leading roles, and true-blue Dukes fans will notice some differences in the fabled and beloved General Lee as well.
For instance though the aforesaid 26 different 1969 Dodge Chargers were used as The General Lee in making the movie, more than 321 of these well-known, legendary orange-colored Muscle Cars were seen as the screwball Dukes' fabled "01" in the television series. However, in the interest of automotive movie nostalgia, The General Lee seen in the last close-up shot in the movie is the best condition existing original from the TV show. This vehicle was designated the "Hero Car #1" and was used in nearly all of the close shots with actors in it. The name "Hero Car" simply identifies a close up car. Any time you see the actors with a car, that is a Hero Car. Everything else is a second unit car (stunt car). The lower the number, the nicer the car. For example... Hero #1 will be in nicer than Hero #5. Hero Cars are usually taken better care of and are not used for hard driving scenes.
Another one of the three original General Lees from the TV series and reunion movies was a Hero Car #2, mostly used in publicity photos. This car made its TV debut in 1981 but had a brand new crate motor 528 CI Hemi installed in Jan 2005.
"Hero Car #1 is the best of the bunch of the cars left from the TV series," notes Travis Bell, a former Indianapolis radio disc jockey and automobile enthusiast who is such an authority about all things concerning The General Lee that Warner Brothers hired him as part of the team that sent out to collect a sufficient quantity of cars, wheels, and replacement parts so there would be enough surviving General Lees' to complete the flick. Bell, a true aficionado when it comes to The General Lee, has a website dedicated to his interest: www.GeneralLeeFanClub.com.
An obvious cosmetic difference which loyal fans of the TV series will no doubt notice is the color of the car. During the show's six season run on the small screen the color of The General Lee was 1975 Corvette Flame Orange. For some reason the cars in the new movie are painted AMC Big Bad Orange.
Another point Dukes of Hazzard TV fans will pick up is The General Lee in the movie has white lettering on its tires, while in the television show the tires on the car were always black. There is also a different, more modern steering wheel in the movie cars and these second generation General Lees include a full roll cage while the TV cars only had a roll bar. Finally, the letters G' and R' on the vinyl decals for the car's name are slightly different than they appeared on television (but moviegoers who notice THAT are really splitting hairs).
"It takes a lot of people to collect, transport, organize and prepare vehicles for a movie," noted, Justin Cornette of Jackson, Mississippi, who didn't work on the movie set but was involved in the hunt for vehicles. He is in the bodyshop business.
"I estimate there were 80-100 people involved in all the various aspects of The General Lee cars. The man in charge as Picture Car Locator' was John Wiser. John Feinblatt was' Picture Car Coordinator' while Transportation Coordinator' was John Orlebeck and Shop Foreman' was Tim Woods. Once the search began hunting down 1969 Dodge Chargers it only took two weeks to get all the required vehicles. It almost seemed as if they were all over the place in every condition and not as difficult to round up as originally thought."
Actually Wiser and his team had a bit of a head start, counting the three General Lees from the TV series and two reunion movies. Two cars were provided as loaners by an owner whose only stipulation was that the cars be returned to him, in any condition, when the film was done.
Bell took issue with reports that some of the acquired vehicles for the movie were actually 1970 Chargers. "Not true, we never used a 1970 car as The General Lee in the movie or, for that matter in the TV show." But Cornette disagrees, "Three 1970 Chargers were indeed used as General Lees and appear on the screen used vehicle list. One of the two loaner cars was originally a '70 Charger."
And somebody in the Warner Brothers publicity department also proffers contradictory information in the studio's press releases and on websites. For one thing they say 32 Dodge Chargers were used in the movie, six more than Travis Bell counts. They also say that in the TV series they not only cosmetically doctored 1970 Chargers, but bogus 1968 Chargers as well were passed off as the real McCoy.
It's not surprising that people remember things differently. Any police detective will tell you eyewitnesses' are notorious for providing different versions of the same story. When this writer interviewed the six eyewitnesses to the discovery of the List family corpses for my true crime book Righteous Carnage I ended up with three distinct and very different versions.
Some other General Lee rumors' and contradictory information that refuses to die, and which can be found on the Internet:
1) Thirty Chargers were acquired for the movie. Of them 23 were wrecked. 2) only 127 '68 and '69 Dodge Chargers were destroyed during the making of the TV series; 3) an early color poster for the TV show featured a 1970 Coronet as The General Lee;4) miniatures and models were used for some stunt work in later episodes;5) an AMC Matador was once used as a stand-in for The General Lee in the TV series. 6) In 1991 Warner Brothers sold 17 General Lees from the TV series. Buyers signed Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA) preventing them from ever revealing the prices they paid.
Though every so often an "original" General Lee used in the TV series or the three movies is offered for sale, often at an exorbitant price, we'd recommend the buyer beware as some 280 replicas have been created over the years.
"About 80% of the cars were in really bad condition and needed extensive work," Cornette noted, "All, except the two loaners, were purchased outright and are still owned by Warner Brothers. I think ten of them still run.
"Some cost as little as $2,000 and a few were in the $6,000 range," Bell added. "I guess averaging it out, the General Lees cost the studio in the neighborhood of $100,000." Others put the cost at more than double that.
Nonetheless, either figure is pretty good considering the car is one of the main stars in the film. Jessica Simpson probably cost the studio more.
All stunts seen in the movie are real stunts. Not a single scene featuring the General Lee was computer generated. While all the car stunts in the TV show were actually driven by professional stunt men, the high jumps seen in the movie were augmented by an aircraft carrier catapult and dummies, not real people, took the rides.
Two of the vehicles had the capability of being remotely driven by a stuntman in a roll cage on the roof. And on the TV show if the General Lee got smashed, a ping or a dent, the offensive body work was miraculously gone in the next scene! In the movie, a dent was a dent and it could be seen scene after scene.
Actually the General Lee Dodge Chargers survived better, percentage wise, than most of the other prop cars used in the TV series or the movie. On the TV show Uncle Jesse went through four pickup trucks. Daisy had four different Jeeps, and the survivors were eventually destroyed in a Chuck Norris movie. Cooter's Tow Truck? There were two of them. The red, white and blue one met its end by being blown up on the "X Files".
From the 1979 through 1981 television seasons, two brothers, Andre and Renaud Veuzat built all the General Lee vehicles used. The Dukes of Hazzard TV show had, at the time, the largest budget in television history and the cost of vehicles was a large part of that. In addition to the many General Lees that went to the scrap heap, the show purchased and destroyed some 600 police cars, plus an assortment of other vehicles. From 1982 through the series end in 1985 Warner Brothers had the vehicles built themselves.
