Rarely, a vehicle can become the focus of a movie or television series, and share as much or more time than any of the protagonists. With its garish orange body, the Confederate flag on the roof and the number "01" on the doors, the "General Lee" a large part of the screen.
Production of the series required more different vehicles to bring the General Lee to life. In some cases, this was the Charger model properly designed to look like the real thing and in recent seasons they had to use everything, lots of the necessary vehicles arrived on the set, both the Charger and the patrol vehicles that participated in the vast majority of
The exact number is unknown, but at least 1969 Charger cars ended up being scrapped almost entirely. In 2001, one of them was found and it turned out that it was General Lee and that he had participated in the 1st episode. It was restored and auctioned for $ 110,000.
During the making of the series, Lee's fame was such that he received 35,000 letters each month.
Throughout the filming of the series, there were several companies responsible for the manufacture and maintenance of the General Lee.
And it was only then that the design specs, both exterior and interior, were established for the General Lees, which in some episodes even sported different interior colors.
The General Lees, had V8 318, or V8 383 and even V8 440 Magnum, with powers of 233 CV, 294 CV and 380 CV.
The units used for the two-wheel stages, the smallest of them, the 318-liter V8 due to its lower weight, and those where the engine compartment appeared in the foreground mounted 6.3-liter 383 V8s.
Currently only 17 surviving copies of the General Lee remain.
The General Lee, possibly the most famous television car of all television series in history, seen today as an American heritage and is in the Smithsonian Museum.