The Wildest Dodge Charger Ever Created: A Look at the Third-Generation Concept Car

He Charger has always been the warrior of Dodge, and today we’re here to talk about the wildest Dodge Charger ever made. A HEMI 426 cubic inches propelled it, seven liters to change, and although the first generation, launched in 1966, had plenty of power to be more than respectable, the model was not a runaway success.

In 1968, the Charger received a complete body makeover, which worked a miracle. The suave look, instantly immortalized through the greatest car chase scene in the cinematic universe (in the movie Bullitt), became a symbol of that era. What car is in the foreground on the movie’s theatrical release poster? That’s right, the Dodge Charger, but Chrysler’s top brass thought that wasn’t enough and came up with something even more radical.

The third-generation Dodge Charger made its first public appearance at the Chicago Auto Show in 1968, as a concept car. It was Dodge’s most aerodynamic car. The term concept car It was not widely used in the verbiage of automotive enthusiasts in the late 1960s, so Chrysler referred to it as a idea car. We could easily add any superlative adjective to that name, and it still wouldn’t do it justice.

The overall shape is definitely surprisingly familiar, the profile of the C3 Corvette easy to spot in the front of the Dodge, the rest, however, is entirely different. Starting with the height, 1 meter, just two inches above the GT40 race car, and the flowing lines that were in stark contrast to the rest of the Dodge lineup at the time. The effort put into this model stands out, starting with the absence of doors and windows. A fighter-style door that lifts back on hydraulic shock absorbers provides access to the cabin.

The interior is another point of closeness to the Chevrolet, with just two seats, but the similarities end there, as while the number of occupants may match, it’s nothing like traditional GM design. First, the steering assembly is balanced on the center console to allow the driver to enter, and the seats also rise and slide back to allow more room for entry. Since the wraparound windshield has no vents, fresh air enters the passenger compartment through the grille behind the hood, just below the windshield.

The flow ventilation system continuously ventilates the cabin before evacuating stale air through specially designed ports. The elongated hood left no room for a trunk, and there is no mention of a luggage compartment in Dodge’s press release. The bullet-shaped sports car had a service cover behind the left front wheel that allowed regular checks of the water, oil and battery levels, as well as the fuses, but you couldn’t see its engine.

Without windows or side mirrors it looked great but was impractical for driving, a periscope type mirror was installed from the roof, leaving the driver only a small opening to see the traffic behind. The Charger III was never more than a show car, a concept meant to tease buyers with a glimpse of the future. Three bodies were built, one painted gold, the second red, and a third left unpainted.

The shiny gold was brought to Chicago at the annual car show, the red served as a press photo model, and the latter had a short but glorious history. Not being a non-operational car, with no engine or transmission, the experimental car did not boast any performance or mechanical specifications. Press photos revealed a five-speed automatic gearbox with the gearshift over the center console, and Dodge would only say that the engine bay was large enough to accommodate any powertrain in the Chrysler lineup. including the HEMI 426.

The pity is that this did not materialize, so the closest we got to it is that an amateur copied its fiber lines to cover a chassis and create the wildest Dodge Charger ever created, now fully functional. Good, functional on the slopes dragI don’t know what kind of crazy person would circulate with such a device on the street. It would have been curious to see a street model that could compete with the Corvette, perhaps today there would be a great rivalry like in the pony cars.