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Vanguard Motor Sales has listed a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE with a 440, a Dana 60 rear end, and the factory Track Pack option — plus a decoding letter from Mopar historian Galen Glover to back it all up. One commenter remembers buying an almost identical car for $2,500 back in 1973, when muscle cars like this one were, in his words, “everywhere cheap.”
Dodge built the Challenger’s E-body platform to accept virtually any engine in Chrysler’s catalog, from a base slant-six all the way to the 426 Hemi, a range few rivals matched. This particular car splits the difference with a 440 big block and four-speed manual, delivering real muscle car performance without Hemi-level pricing. Here’s where that engine fits in the Challenger’s performance hierarchy.
Tom Derych spent the mid-1970s racing a 440-powered Dart at New York National Speedway, but it wasn’t until 1989 that he found the Mopar he’d really been chasing. A Sublime Green 1970 Charger with a troubled blown 440 became the starting point for a hand-built 472-cubic-inch Hemi-headed engine. Here’s how he turned a non-running show car into the muscle car he always wanted.
Muscle cars are the crown jewels of American automotive history, fetching jaw-dropping prices at auctions. The 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88, sans radio and heater for serious buyers only, revved up to a whopping $3.85 million. Meanwhile, a 1966 Shelby Cobra Roadster strutted its stuff to a cool $1 million. And let’s not forget the $3.5 million 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible, the Hemi-powered showstopper that leaves other cars in the dust. Who knew inflation hedges could be so fast?
A slipping automatic transmission usually starts subtly, a delay between throttle and acceleration, or an RPM flare before the next gear catches. Mechanic Scotty Kilmer, with fifty years of hands-on experience, walks through why old or contaminated transmission fluid is often the real culprit, and how a DIY fluid change can resolve it before it becomes a full rebuild. Watch to see the fix in action.
The second-generation Buick Riviera changed so little between 1968 and 1969 that even longtime owners argue over which model year a given car actually is. The differences come down to grille patterns, marker lights, and where the reverse lights sit — small details that are easy to mix and match over fifty years. Here’s how to actually tell the two model years apart.