White Hat Special: 1969 Dodge Charger

Here’s a 1969 Dodge Charger White Hat Special, originally powered by a 383 V-8, that has sat around since 1991 as two owners failed to follow through on their plans to get it back on the road. The White Hat Special was a seasonal promotional package available on Coronet, Charger, Dart, and Polara as part of the “Dodge Fever” campaign. It put together options at a discount. Among them were the white vinyl roof, a fake wood-grained wheel, hood-mounted signals, a light group, remote rear-view mirrors, full-wheel covers, and whitewalls. Buying a White Hat Special didn’t mean you had to order the white roof—this car clearly doesn’t have it.

There are a lot of positive things to say. The car features shiny black paint and an intact black vinyl roof. It has 54,000 miles, is originally from California, and, from what we can see in the photos (which tend to show only parts of the car), it’s rust-free. The underside still has its factory undercoating and looks quite nice. But the Charger is a major project, with many parts in boxes. The engine, transmission, and front suspension are off the car.

The owner says, “It’s going to need fuel tank and lines, brakes and brake lines, electrical, cooling, etc. I have the original 383 and 727, which I think are numbers-matching, but this isn’t a model that you would restore to the original. I have done a bunch of research on what to do with this car, [and] glad to share what I was going to do.”

The car is sitting on casters. The package includes a front bumper and driveshaft. The front buckets, doors, and hood are from a 1970 Charger but would presumably fit on the ’69.

And the owner also has, sold separately, “a built 440 that was balanced and blueprinted, ported and polished.” It puts out around 475 horsepower. A built 727 transmission with a reverse manual valve body is also available, as is the 2022 Texoma tilt-bed trailer with low miles.

This exact car was once a strong object of desire when I worked in a Dodge dealership in Connecticut during high school. The boss had this extroverted car in orange, with the same black vinyl roof. Of course, the store also sold Toyotas, and I thought they were interesting too. This is 1969, remember.

There are many watchers for this desirable model and plenty of bidders. It’s on eBay in Leander, Texas with bidding up around $22,000. It won’t go cheap. Classic.com puts the average price of these at a whopping $193,767, though the high bids are all for Hemi Daytonas and the like. This is a more basic car, but still highly charismatic.