![]() This car started life as a 1969 Charger, the real thing. But don't be mislead by the mismatched exterior colors and the neglected appearance Hollywood's masters of illusion accomplished an amazing job of artificially aging this straight and solid California survivor. We left the war paint untouched to preserve the car's original movie look. Of course, this being Hollywood, Joe Dirt's Daytona is wearing heavy stage make-up. The gigantic, adjustable rear wing, which serves more than one purpose: it's also a handy towel rack or a shelf for cigarette packs and beer cans during pit stops.The 19-inch, aerodynamic nose cone with the flip up-style headlights.Three primary features distinguish the 69½ Charger Daytona from a "regular" Dodge Charger they were designed to help the car achieve its astonishing 200mph-plus speeds and keep it stable while flying along at low altitude: Buddy Baker became the first man to break the 200mph barrier, at Alabama International Speedway, and NASCAR champ Bobby Isaac took his Daytona to Bonneville where he set a new land speed record of 217.368mph. An immediate success on the track, the cars virtually dominated stock car racing in 1969. Of these, 70 had the feared 426 Hemi engine the rest came with the stout 440 Magnum. Sold as a 69½ model, 503 examples were produced, just enough to qualify for NASCAR racing. The ultimate Charger was created by the father of the HEMI, Bob Rodger, and his men as MoPar's answer to machines such as the Torino Talladega and Cyclone Spoiler in a bid to regain supremacy on the Nation's NASCAR superspeedways. If one changes hands (which rarely happens), prices upward of $100,000.00 are frequently realized. Unattainable for anyone but the most astute collectors, these extremely rare winged wonders feature prominently in muscle car collections around the World. This is outright hilarious since a Dodge Daytona, even a restoration project, is not something a minimum-wage-earning worker bee would ever be able to afford. One of the funniest scenes depicts Joe Dirt at the impound lot: financially unable to retrieve his mint '67 Plymouth Hemi GTX convertible, he's buying the Charger Daytona instead. This movie, produced by Adam Sandler and starring fellow SNL-Alumni David Spade, Dennis Miller, and Christopher Walken, tells the story of Joe Dirt, a hard-rock-loving janitor wearing a '70s mullet hairdo, who criss-crosses the country in search of his parents. The 1969 Daytona presented here starred in the 60 Million Dollar-grossing hit comedy "The Adventures of Joe Dirt," just released on DVD, PayPerView, and video cassette. Cars have promoted movies (just think of American Graffiti), and movies have turned cars into superstars (James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 comes to mind). Automobiles and Hollywood movies are inextricably linked.
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