General Lee (car)


The General Lee is an orange 1969 Dodge Charger driven in the television series The Dukes of Hazzard by the characters the Duke boys, Bo and Luke, along with cousins Coy and Vance. It is known for its signature horn, its police chases, stunts—especially its long jumps—and for having its doors welded shut, leaving the Dukes to climb in and out through the windows. The car appears in every episode but one. The car's name is a reference to Robert E. Lee, general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. It bears a Confederate battle flag on its roof, and also has a horn which plays the first 12 notes of the song "Dixie".
The idea for the General Lee was developed from the bootlegger Jerry Rushing's car, which was named for Lee's favorite horse, Traveller. Traveller was also the name of the car in Moonrunners, the 1975 movie precursor to The Dukes of Hazzard.
File:Robert Edward Lee.jpg|thumb|The General Lee was named after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

History

Series creator Gy Waldron first considered a Pontiac Firebird for the "part" of the General Lee, but deferred to the experience of stunt coordinator Al Wyatt, Sr. to choose a car that could withstand the rigors of the stunts required. Wyatt, having previously coordinated the stunt work for the 1974 film Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, chose the 1969 Dodge Charger, since he was intimately familiar with the driving and stunt capabilities of the three Chargers used in that film. As many of the stunts in The Dukes of Hazzard were similar in nature, he felt the car would perform well.
On average, more than one General Lee was used up per show. When filming a jump, anywhere from of sand bags or concrete ballast was placed in the trunk to prevent the car from nosing over, and landing on the front bumper. The mechanics would eventually decide to raise the front end of the car by adjusting the torsion bars to maximum height, in order to keep the front lower valence from scraping against the ramp on the jump, causing it to lose speed. Stunt drivers report enjoying the flights, some gaining over 40 feet of vertical altitude, but hating the landings. Despite the ballast, the landing attitude of the car was usually unpredictable, resulting in moderate to extremely violent landings nose-down or on all four wheels, and high g forces on the driver, depending on how it landed. On most landings, the car's unibody construction failed catastrophically, necessitating editing tricks in post production to eliminate the damage onscreen as much as possible. All cars used in large jumps therefore were immediately retired due to structural damage.
Although the estimated number of General Lees used varies from different sources, according to former cast member Ben Jones, as well as builders involved with the show, 325 General Lees were used to film the series. Others claim about 255 were used in the series. Approximately 17 originals still exist, in various states of repair. Chargers from model years 1968 and 1969 were sourced and converted to General Lee specifications. Despite popular belief, according to all builders involved over the years, obtaining cars was not a problem until later years. By that time, the car was the star of the show and Warner Bros. moved building of the cars in-house to keep the cars consistent in appearance. Later in the show's run, when it got too hard and/or expensive to continue procuring more Chargers in Southern California, the producers started using more "jump footage" from previous episodes. In the final season, radio-controlled miniatures were occasionally used, to the chagrin of several cast members.
Episodes 1 through 5 were filmed in the Georgia towns of Covington and Conyers in November and December 1978. Georgia episode cars consisted of five Dodge Chargers. The first General Lees were built by Warner Bros. and shipped to Georgia, where John Marendi labeled the first three cars as "LEE 1", "LEE 2", and "LEE 3" for film editing purposes.
LEE 1 was a second unit car with a full roll cage. It is a 383 V8-powered 1969 Charger equipped with air conditioning, an AM/FM stereo, power steering, and power drum brakes. It was originally painted in code T3 "Light Bronze Metallic" with a tan interior, a black vinyl top and chrome rocker trim which was left on due to previously poor body work on the left quarter panel. In addition, the gas cap trim and wheel well trim were missing, so the corresponding trims were removed on LEE 2 and 3 to match. The chrome vinyl top trim was supposed to be removed, but since the left quarter panel had been replaced and was very poorly installed the trim had to be left on to hide the body work. As a result, most General Lees throughout the series had vinyl top trim. After the now-famous jump over Rosco P. Coltrane's police cruiser by stuntman Craig Baxley, it was stripped of its front seats and 1969-specific grill and taillight panel. LEE 1 was used once more as the "Richard Petty" tire test car in the fourth episode "Repo Men".
LEE 2, like LEE 1, was a second unit car with a full roll cage, a 383 V-8, a floor shifted automatic transmission and A/C. Originally painted B5 Blue with a black interior, the interior was repainted tan to match LEE 1 and 3 though its steering wheel remained black. It was used for the opening scene in "One Armed Bandits". In this scene, Bo and Luke were chasing Rosco's police cruiser with the General after Cooter stole it.
LEE 3 was the first unit 1 close-up car and the first General Lee built by Warner Brothers and is seen in the first publicity photos. It was originally an F5 Medium Green Metallic R/T SE model with a tan vinyl top. It was powered by a 440 Magnum engine with 375 HP and weighed. LEE 3 was equipped with A/C, power windows, a wood grain dash, and an AM radio. It also had a factory tachometer. This car had a tan leather interior and a removable roll bar that allowed installation of a camera for in-car shots. LEE 3 was painted 1975 Corvette Flame Red with a special base coat; the base coat was used after they found LEE 1's paint appeared to be blotchy due to the direct application over factory paint. Eventually, the first three General Lees showed visible damage, so the crew had to start making more. The first General Lee built in Georgia was a 1968 Charger converted to look like a 1969 with the tail light panel, front grill, and front seats borrowed from LEE 1. Interiors not originally tan were sprayed with SEM brand "Saddle tan" vinyl dye. The first three Georgia Lees had a set of crossed flags on the panel between the rear window and trunk lid. Although four sets were created, only three were used. They were discontinued due to the continuity of the General Lee graphics, making it one less thing to be used. The three surviving cars went back to California and had the crossed flags removed upon reconditioning. The wheels were generally American Racing brand "Vectors" throughout the show and were mainly mounted on P235/70R14 B. F. Goodrich Radial T/A tires with the blackwall side facing out.
LEE 1 was sold to professional golfer Bubba Watson at the 2012 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction for US$110,000. After he won the 2012 Masters tournament, there was controversy about his using the General in his Twitter header image. In 2015, in the midst of the Confederate flag controversial ban, he declared his intention of repainting the car and removing the flag. In 2020 Watson confirmed he had removed the flag.

The Veluzat era

Andre and Renaud Veluzat built General Lees for WB from the second season into the fourth season. Viewers can also see two "Georgia" cars used often up into the early second season. LEE 3 and a specially caged car never appearing in Georgia were used heavily in early California episodes. The Veluzats were somewhat inconsistent in how they built the cars, so this is when the most variations from specification are found. The paint was any color orange they had on hand at the time, but there does appear to be some variance here: interiors were mostly dyed brown and occasionally SEM Saddle Tan. According to some sources, the Veluzats charged WB $250 a week per car for rental and a lump sum of $2000 to $3000 upon destruction of the vehicles; this included police cars. WB mechanics had to maintain the cars at company expense.
The money generated by building General Lees financed the Veluzat family project of restoring Gene Autry's Melody Ranch; it had burned in the 1960s. This ranch is where many classic Western films were shot, as well as the television series Gunsmoke. Today, it is a fully functional movie ranch where shows such as HBO's Deadwood are filmed.

The Warner Brothers era

By 1983, Warner Brothers turned total control of building General Lees to Ken Fritz. Fritz didn't have the job long before he too was fired, and at this point Warner Brothers moved full production in-house. The General Lee was now the highlight of the series, and WB received enormous amounts of Lee-specific fan mail that nit-picked the inconsistencies of the cars. Because of the fame of General Lee, WB had their staff mechanics build the cars to a specific appearance, even underneath, since the dual exhausts and undercarriage of all stunt cars would be seen during jumps. All graphics had to meet specifications, all side markers were removed for consistency, allowing '68-bodied Chargers to be used; and roll bars and push bars had to meet an exact specification. However, some changes were made before the specifications were laid out: The push bar became wider, the interior became a light beige color, and the roll bars were covered in black foam padding. During this period, the only way to distinguish the 1968 conversions from the 1969 originals is by the shape of the dashboard padding.
As the WB era rolled on, finding the cars became difficult: Piper Cubs were hired to perform aerial searches for 1968 and 1969 Chargers amongst the populace; the jumped cars were now no longer scrapped after one jump if deemed salvageable, and were repaired and used until they could no longer function; and, as last resort, miniature radio-controlled models were also brought in toward the end of the series to replace most of the big jump stunts, thereby saving more cars—something that proved unpopular with many episode directors, who felt that the models did not look realistic. By this time, there was also a rivalry for "TV's greatest car" with the Knight Rider series, leading to the models being used more and more for greater jumps to try to outdo that series. Taking full control also saved some money, as now WB had the ability to buy cars, recondition them, and use them without paying daily rental fees.