Dodge Charger Ute

A few months back i built a Half-Life Muscle Car. this left me with the front half of a 68 Dodge Charger. What i came up with was to make it a ute. I wanted to make it like the commodore ute, with the tray fused with the front half. Checking my supplies, i found a 86 El Camino as a candidate. it seemed to go together, so i made the big chop and lined them up only to find the charger is quite a bit wider than the Elky.

I had a choice of widen the back or narrow the front. a narrowed charger would look funny, so i widened the tray with 9mm of styrene. I sanded down the trim on the rear half and flattened it to match the contour of the door. i also cut and bent the C pillars to match the roof of the charger. a charger rear seat was used for a bench seat. I ended up using a 77 Monaco rear bumper instead of a 69 Charger one as it just wouldn't fit in with the tailgate. I didn't have a rear charger panel to fit charger taillights. the slant six was already built. i'd had it in my spares for years and just plonked it in.

i bodged the suspension to ensure proper stance, using styrene tube for the front and hiding them with scratchbuilt A arms. I replaced the short axle in the rear with a styrene tube, but used the elcamino diff, coils and arms. exhaust is a tube, with Charger's muffler.

Awesome work

That's the best thing you could do with that horribly undersized '86 Elky.  Well done.
Did Chargers come with sixes in '68?  
I don't think i've ever seen pics of one but then maybe they have, like Mustangs, all metamorphosised into V8s?

I couldn't find production numbers, but one website suggested 900 slant six chargers were produced. i'd imagine most of them now have the 440 or hemi v8s.

slant 6 was fitted to chargers, challengers and cudas as well as most other mopars, the slant 6 is a bit like a monaro with a 161 they were available but nobody wants to know about them!

...and one day then original matching numbers 6 cylinder mopars will be worth a fortune...

Thanks for the pic & info.

I nearly bought a 4 cylinder Torana until I discovered exactly how much work was invoiced to fit a six.