By Bob Erickson
NTC Communications
Television's Dukes: Daisy, Luke and Bo (right).
Click their picture to hear The General Lee's horn,
then watch a video set to a Johnny Cash song through UAW-DCX IN
A FLASH on our home page. |
DETROIT – What’s orange, flies through the air and plays “Dixie”?
It’s The General Lee, a 1969 Dodge Charger known to millions
of Americans as the high-jumping hero of the television series The Dukes
of Hazzard.
The classic muscle car (lots of them, actually) was driven
in the long-running show by the Duke cousins Bo and Luke and was famous for
the chases and stunts, especially jumps, in almost every episode.
There were more than 300 Chargers used in
the series about devil-may-care good ol' boys and girls in the fictional Hazzard
County.
Each car had a Confederate flag painted on the roof and the
words “General Lee” over the doors, which were emblazoned with a large, black “01.” All
of the cars were either 1968 or 1969 models. The vehicles’ horns played the
first 12 notes from “Dixie,” the de facto Confederate States anthem.
The series was immensely popular, running second in the ratings
behind only Dallas and receiving 30,000 fan letters a month – most
requesting The General Lee’s “autograph,” a photo of the car with a tire print
on it.
A fleet of General Lees at DukeFest 2005, a celebration
of "Hazzard County culture," held at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. |
The Dukes of Hazzard still has a huge cult
following and has been made into four movies, a cartoon series, five video
games – and even a play! It still airs in re-runs and is the subject of several
Web sites.
At the height of the TV show’s popularity
in 1982, Johnny Cash wrote and performed a song about the car. You can hear
his song “The General Lee” as the background of a video that we’ve just posted
to the UAW-DCX IN A FLASH feature at top right
on our home page.
The Dukes starred John Schneider as Bo Duke and Tom
Wopat as Luke Duke (except for a brief period when replacement actors were
brought in during a contract dispute – a time when some fans referred to the
show as “The Scabs of Hazzard).”
The first General Lee, found in a junkyard in 2001,
has been restored and will be unveiled next month. |
But the real star of the show was The General
Lee and its many “stand-ins.” According to Ben Jones, who played Cooter in
the show (check out Cooter's
Place), 309 General Lees were used to film the series. Approximately 23
still exist in various states of repair. Among survivors is the very first
General Lee, known as Lee1, the car that is seen making a jump at the end of
the opening credits of every episode.
On average, more than one General Lee was used up per show.
When filming a jump, 500 to 1,000 pounds of lead or concrete
ballast was placed in the trunk to prevent the car from nosing over. Despite
the ballast, the landing attitude of the car was somewhat unpredictable, resulting
in moderate to extremely violent forces, depending on how it landed. All cars
used in high jumps were immediately retired because of frame damage.
Jumping General Lee goes airborne to cross a creek. |
By the mid-80s, just finding the cars had
become an issue. Airplanes were hired to fly over neighborhoods and search
out 1968 and 1969 Chargers, and the jumped cars were now no longer scrapped
after one jump if deemed salvageable. Toward the end of the series – which
ran from 1979 to 1985 – miniature models were used to film most of the big
stunts.
Engines in General Lees were of all sorts: 318s, 383s, and
440s (but not Hemis). Most of the workhorse stunt cars had 383s. The stunt
drivers tended to prefer 440s for the longer and higher jumps.
Lee1, the prototype, was salvaged out of a Georgia junkyard
in 2001. The car has since been fully restored to its onscreen appearance and
will be unveiled to the public Nov. 11 in Covington, Ga., where the first five Dukes
of Hazzard episodes were filmed. Schneider, a one-time stock-car racer,
will be behind the wheel.
