Dodge came late to the pony car party – some first years after the Ford Mustang first stirred the pot. The E-body Challenger was their entry, sharing a new body with the revamped Plymouth Barracuda (although no sheet metal was common). This 1970 Challenger is both an R/T and an SE model, which turned out to be only three percent of first-year Challenger production. They were distinctive due to a smaller back glass than employed in other Challengers. This Dodge is said to have been sitting for years and is in non-running condition. Rust may not be a problem, but the interior has seen much better days. Located in Anaheim, California, this ’70 Challenger is offered here on eBay for $30,000 but offers will be considered.
Dodge built nearly 77,000 Challengers in its first year, which would be the record for the car which continued in production through 1974. Of that number, 2,500 or so were the R/T SE model (stands for Road/Track and Special Edition) with a Hi-Perf 383 cubic inch V8. Add a TorqueFlite automatic to the equation and production numbers were barely more than 2,000. So that puts the seller’s car in some rare territory 50 years later.
An unusual feature of this car is the small rear window that came by pairing the two models together. If you were to convert to a “regular” Challenger back glass now, those in the know would likely grill you as to what the heck happened. These cars weren’t famous for rear visibility anyway, so why would they shrink the rear glass other than to make it stand out from the rest of the pack? We’re told this Challenger has been out of commission for some, although likely stored indoors to preserve it. The car looks good from 20 feet, then you start to notice things. Like the hood doesn’t fit right and may have problems with the hinges. And the gas cap is missing. But not dealer breaker kind of issues.
The least attractive parts of the car are the trunk floor and the entire interior. The front buckets will totally need recovering, while the back seat might just be okay. The carpeting is dirty and worn out and the headliner is more-or-less gone. The instrument cluster contains a factory tachometer, but we don’t know if it or the rest of the gauges are in working order from sitting. The aftermarket steering wheel doesn’t look right and probably should go.
We’re told the 383 is original and the overall car has 65,000 miles on it. We don’t know what may be wrong with the motor and was it the reason for the car being in hibernation all these years. This looks to be a solid project car for a restoration, but the price of entry isn’t cheap. It has the potential of easily becoming a mid-five figure car once restored, not leaving a lot of room to fund all the work that will go into it.
I hear the ghosts of “Super Soul” and Kowalski speaking to me, LOL! Since it’s already in California, this looks like a good project to restore and do the reverse drive back to Colorado! GLWTA!! :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOb2BqiGZGA
Thanks Howard, now I have to go and re watch that movie. Gonna get less sleep then usual tonight. Still, what a great masterpiece. Perhaps the Citizen Caine of the car movie world. I love watching him steer with that feeling less Chrysler power steering. The guy with the 35mm camera looks a little like George Lucas. Am I wrong? 1971 he might have been on set. . At least the car they blew up was a Camaro. Okay, just kidding, I like those too.
There is something that seems off about the car. I’d definitely want to see it in person before spending that kind of money.
Not sure if this has any significance, but he had no sales history prior to January 22nd of this year. Since then this is the 6th “muscle” car he’s listed. The ad states “clean title”, I’d also want to make sure it was in his name, for the asking price, it should be.
Steve R
Never liked those small windows, looks out of proportion. The white color, however, is great.
I don’t like the small back window either but the small window insert can be removed.
Is there a full sized window in hiding in there, or do you need to find another E body rear window? Never owned an E Body. At the time when they were plentiful, they didn’t fit my life. Now I wish I had picked one up in the late 70s for a song, just to say I had had one. They were a dime a dozen, and I always liked the styling. The SEs, not so much, but I did like the over head console thingie.
That would be really stupid.
My brother had one of these cars back in the early 80’s. It was lime green with a black top and interior. It was a 383, 4 speed, pistol grip with the small rear glass. I remember a over head console of some sort. He wanted a 4 wheel truck for Wisconsin and sold it for 700.00 bucks. I hate to show him the asking price for this one that’s in 1/3 of the condition, He might have another stroke like he did last June. ( He’s doing O.K.)
Yeah, GP, don’t kill the poor guy. Besides, folks our age have made peace with that. I’ve rubbed “Big Healeys” and Alfa Spiders in my brothers face from here, both $500 cars at the time. Bottom line, we had our fun for peanuts, eat your hearts out, Snowflakes,,,
Was this ordinally built with a vinyl top?
If so the top trim is missing and it has also been repainted.
“No offense, but I gotta be in San Francisco eleven o’clock tomorrow afternoon”. Anddd….were off and runnin’ in someone else’s brand new car!
“Suspect vehicle…1970 Dodge Challenger white in color” Pow, into the hard grovin instrumental by Electric Flag, hey Kowalski, you aint winning that bet!
Vanishing Point, first thing comes to mind whenever I see a white Dodge Challenger, even the newer ones.
He actually had 2 1/2 days to deliver the car. He picked it up on a Friday night and was due in San Francisco on Monday morning, though he said he’d have it there by Sunday afternoon. The problem is, it’s 18 1/2 hours of drive time between the two cities. Even in the early-70’s the entire distance was a multi lane highway in its entirety. My family made that trip nearly every summer since we lived 20 miles south of San Francisco and both sets of grand parents lived within 40 miles of Denver. It would take less than two days for my dad to tow a travel trailer with my moms station wagon and two screaming kids (at each other) in the back that distance.
Steve R
If he’d stayed on the Interstates he’d have been there like you said, but it wouldn’t have made much of a memorable feature film…unless, like me, you’re a fan of Freeway Jim’s vids on YouTube.
Yes, he had plenty of time to deliver the car,,, legally, drugs…..speed,
they’ll make people do strange things. Like full throttle runs clear across three states! Of course he needed a few more gas stations along the way with that 440 at full throttle.
The movie fit the time period.
The timeline is just a contrived plot line. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s movie logic, they all suffer from it to some extent. They could have easily fixed it by starting the trip from a different location, but chose not to.
To be honest, other than the driving clips, most of the movie is pretty bad. Take away the Challenger and the movie would have been forgotten.
Steve R
Barry Newman was upset with the final cut of the movie. It ended up being a drive in special in its day. (often a double feature with Dirty Larry Crazy Mary). The movie wasn’t so much about the car but about a man trying to run from his troubled past. Of course we all love the cars and the driving, but dig a little deeper into the plot and it will put a tear in your eye. At the time, it was a story many of us could relate to. Too bad Kowalski didn’t get past his demons and find happier times like most of us.
He would have gotten there quicker, too, if he had two screaming kids to deal with!
For anyone that believes all of that nonsense that hemi’s aren’t streetable, watch this recent video.
https://youtu.be/2607nwlKFeA
Loved how he drove it most of the time with two left fingers on the steering wheel! :-)
Fun clip, but at my age I don’t think I could take the noise and rumble for too long. Except for a few spurts of power, he just drove it on the highway. All the time he was sucking copious amounts of fuel down those 2 4bbl carbs. A more sedate engine would have sucked less fuel, ran smoother and quieter, and been cheaper to own. Sure, fun at a street light against someone else (where you would win except if your opponent owns a modern Toyota Camry), but I don’t think modern cops are too okay with that (if they ever were). Maybe I am getting to demented to understand the allure of this, or maybe I am just crotchity.
It was a 440 Six Pack, what are you talking about?
440 Four barrel!
Don, I was talking about the hemi SuperBee clip Tony posted above. The VP car was a standard 440 Magnum. I have some original VP lobby stills and it clearly shows that on the hood in one of the photos. I asked about the engine back in the mid 80s via a letter (remember those?) to 20 Century Fox. They said Cupid Productions was kaput as a company but they directed me to one of their workers who once owned a Challenger, thinking she would be of help! Poor woman, got dumped on, but she came through for me. She went down into the TCF vault and found some old theater lobby stills. (Remember in the old days they did that? Back when only one picture played in a theater, no multiplexes) She sent me four 8x10s black and white advertising stills and the one had a clear shot of the hood engine call out. Those are a prized possession, I framed them and they hang still today in my home theater room. Wonder what they would be worth on EBay. Matters not, I am not selling, though I bet my kids will cash in someday (hope thats a long time from now, but could happen sooner vs later) I think we sometimes forget what a wonderful thing having the internet invented was at the time. Today, you can Google a question about the car and engine and the answer magically appears in a nano second, but decades back, research was a lot more difficult.
I think the small rear glass looks odd on this car is because all the SE’s I’ve ever seen had a vinyl roof ; partly because it was a “special edition” high line car, but mostly to cover the filler panel that allowed them to put the small glass in . You can see it in the rear interior shot .
This car may have been white, but the hood and trunk dont line up at all and I wonder about the vinyl top – This car may have had more done it than we know .
I wouldn’t be surprised if this car has a salvage title… something about this car seems “off”…
Somebody’s been suckin’ on the bong too long!!!!!! 30K???????
Somebody’s been hittin the bong too hard!!!! 30K??????? In that condition??? Not today!!!!!!!!
All SE’s had vinyl tops to cover the crappy bodywork on the filler plug…same reason the all Superbirds had a vinyl top.
It’s also missing the SE sail panel emblems that would have been there, along with the vinyl top.
I wish you “EXPERTS” when referring
to a vehicles, powerplant would call it by its PROPER NAME. It is called an “ENGINE”, Engines are internal combustion power sources. Engines are manufactured and come from”ENGINE PLANTS” I cringe when you refer to the power plant as a “MOTOR” Motors run on ELECTRICITY.. This mistake is the same as people who say the word OFTEN as OFF’TEN when the correct pronunciation is OFF “FIN the “T” is silent. You do not say CAST-TELL for the word CASTLE,, again the “T” is silent!!!
Rarity adds value,even though many don’t like the back window, changing it would drop the value, and rare factor,this car appears to be very solid, and worth restoring, but it would not take long to sink 15k in this to “dial it in”.