First published in the April 2008 issue of Street Machine

If you’ve ever had a hankering to go tearing around the countryside in a bright orange Yank tank then it’s a fair bet you were a fan of the cult TV show The Dukes of Hazzard.

Every week the good ol’ Duke boys used to get themselves in and out of trouble with the help of their ’69 Dodge Charger, known as the General Lee. Most episodes saw the boys pulling high-speed stunts and huge jumps in the souped-up Charger.

Every kid in the early 80s dreamed of owning a car like the General Lee. The show ran for 147 episodes over seven seasons and prompted a few straight-to-TV movies and more recently a feature film.

Vlad bought his General Lee during a trip to the USA, though he wasn’t looking for a Charger.

“I went to America on business,” Vlad says. “I was looking for a Hummer when I saw a guy in Illinois advertising genuine and replica General Lees.

“I’d always been a fan of the show and the kids love it too, so I suggested to my business partner that we check it out. When we went to visit him he showed us a few pretty ordinary cars. I asked him if he had anything better and he told me he had a genuine General Lee from the original series. The car had been owned by Warner Bros and is one of only 17 left.

“At that stage he was only able to show me photos of the vehicle because the shed was snowed under!”

According to Vlad the guy had two original cars, an auto and a manual. Of course he had to go for the more correct four-speed car with the Hurst shifter.

After dropping a deposit on it, he flew back to Oz and the seller readied the car for shipping. When it was right to go, Vlad and mechanic James Galea flew to the US to give the car a final inspection.

“They’re not good at finishing cars,” Vlad reckons. James identified some issues but Vlad decided they’d be better off fixing it Down Under.

While in the US the guys checked out Dukesfest 2007, a celebration of everything to do with the show, run by Ben Jones who played Cooter.

“I got to see them jump a replica General Lee — it was awesome!” Vlad says.

Back in Australia, the car went straight to James and Manny at Weltune Motors. “It was leaking oil everywhere,” Vlad says. The supposedly rebuilt 440-cube engine was a shot duck. The Yanks had dropped brand new pistons into old bores and they were well and truly stuffed, prompting a full engine rebuild.

Being a tough powerplant, the big-block Mopar didn’t need a lot of fancy gear. The stock rods and crank were retained but a set of forged Probe pistons were slipped into new bores. The factory cast-iron heads got a tickle and a medium-lift Mopar Performance ‘purple-shaft’ hydraulic cam was given the nod.

Vlad says the guys in the States had trouble with the headers but he had no problem, ordering a set from a local supplier that dropped right in. Australian-made ICE ignition was the final change to keep the General Lee firing on all cylinders, delivering more than 380hp to the treads. That’s enough power to keep the General jumping over any washed out bridges that Vlad might find around Melbourne.

“When I told my wife that I was buying the car she didn’t say much,” he reckons. “But when I got home she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. She watched the show as a girl and had a crush on Bo. I think getting called Daisy while she’s in the passenger seat has helped heaps too. She loves the car.”

Trouble is that everyone loves the car — the General Lee really does stop traffic wherever it goes.

“I’ve probably done 1000km with it since the engine rebuild,” Vlad says. “It’s very hard to drive every day. You can’t stop anywhere — everywhere you go it’s all ‘yee-har’ and people and cameras coming out from every direction.”

Let’s face it, we all build our cars for a little attention but having a car that’s famous all over the globe is starting to wear a little thin. Then there are the downright scary moments.

“I’ve had people follow me to my house and ask me to do burnouts.” That’s definitely not cool.

Then there’s the fact that Vlad can’t change anything on the car without ruining its originality. “I can’t even put a radio in it — that kind of shit annoys me.”

What makes it even worse is that the car is an original R/T Charger and anyone who knows anything about the American muscle car market will tell you that anything with R/T badging is worth some serious dollars in today’s market.

So the car is headed to Shannons Auction and by the time you read this, it’ll probably be sold. “If I don’t sell it, I’ll just enjoy it. It’s a great car — you can leave it for a month and just jump in it and start it.”

But Vlad’s not totally over the idea of a General Lee; he just doesn’t want the pressure of maintaining a piece of pop culture history.

“If it sells, I’ll buy another one,” he says. Next time it’ll be a replica and Vlad has plans for a 528-cube Hemi, auto trans, big rubber, a stereo and air conditioning: “Wouldn’t have it without that.”

DUKE FACTS:

• Bo and Luke didn’t use guns in the show because they were on probation for moonshine running, so they used hunting bows and arrows — and the occasional stick of dynamite
• Daisy Duke’s shorts made such an impact that cut-off jeans are now known as ‘Daisy Dukes’
• Around 300 Chargers were totalled for the show. To make them fly right the crews filled the rear quarters with cement so that the nose-heavy Mopars didn’t arrow straight into the ground
• The General Lee was named after American civil war General Robert E Lee who was one of the more successful southern Confederate officers
• Since the movie featuring Jessica Simpson, they’ve actually made another Dukes of Hazzard movie (The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning) but it features none of the same cast and went straight to TV and DVD
• In 1982, a contractual dispute saw Tom Wopat (Luke Duke) and John Schneider (Bo Duke) walk away from the show. The producers brought in lookalikes under the names of Coy and Vance Duke but ratings tanked and the producers were forced to renegotiate
• Because the producers had trouble coming up with ’69 Chargers to wreck in the show they occasionally mocked up ’68 models instead. It got so hard to find cars that if the producers spotted a Charger on the street, they’d approach the owner to buy it on the spot
• More than half the fan mail for the show was addressed to the General Lee

VLAD KOVACEVIC
1969 DODGE CHARGER

THANKS
My wife, Sylvia, and kids Madison and Kristian. Manny and James Galea at Weltune Motors for coming to the US and for the endless hours James spent working on the car and the amazing care he took of it. The General probably hasn’t run this well in years — James, you’re our Cooter!