The General Lee



My all time favorite tv show growing up was the Dukes of Hazzard.  I loved to watch the Duke boys tear up the road of Hazzard County in their General Lee.  It was the coolest car on tv back then & still to this day.  And now, we own a General Lee of our own.  Pretty cool!

The Dukes of Hazzard debuted on CBS-Tv in January 1979 & ran for seven seasons.  During the seven seasons, the real star of the show continued to be the General Lee.  The General Lee was the Duke boys race car, a 1969 Dodge Charger.  It was hemi orange with a Confederate flag on the roof & the number 01 on the side.  The license plate was CNH 320. The original General Lee on the show had a 440-cubic inch big block engine along with the famous Dixie horn.



As they were writing the script for the Dukes of Hazzard, they were going to call the Duke boys race car Traveller, which is the name of General Robert E. Lee’s horse.  “Do you realized how few people in America would know that?” Madleker asked.  “Let’s just name it General Lee.”  And that is how the General Lee got its name.

But can you imagine the General Lee as a Pontiac Firebird or a Ford Mustang?  The first choose considered for the General Lee was the Pontiac Firebird.  But since the Firebird had been used before in the movie, Smokey and the Bandit, along with other tv shows, they vetoed that.  Then the Ford Mustang was considered.  The Mustang was cool enough, but not very big & wouldn’t work as a stock car.  So the Dodge Charger was chosen.  Back in 1969 the Dodge Charger entered 54 NASCAR races & won 22 of them so it was the perfect stock car.  And in my opinion, I just can’t picture another car being the General Lee.  It was the perfect choice.

And how about that horn?  The Dixie horn.  Did you know that the horn was added by accident.  The folks of the Dukes of Hazzard heard the horn as they drove down a Georgia highway from a car going the opposite way.  So they turned around & followed the car.  They offered the driver $300 for the horn & that horn was placed into the General Lee.



How did the General Lee become part of the Duke family?  In episode #129 Happy Birthday General Lee, they explained how the General Lee was born.  The Duke boys wanted to race in the Hazzard Road Race Championship & they needed a race car.  So they went to the Chickasaw County junkyard & found a black 1969 beat up Dodge Charger, that had just been used in a bank robbery.  They bought it & took it to Cooter’s garage.  With help from Cooter, Uncle Jesse, & Daisy they made the beat up Charger into the General Lee.  They welded the doors shut like all race cars & painted it orange with a Confederate Flag & the number 01 on the side.  Any idea why the color orange?  It was the only color of paint that Cooter had in his garage.  And who named the General Lee?  Uncle Jesse was the one who suggested General Lee. 

In episode #2, Daisy’s song, the first hood slide across the General Lee took place.  That hood slide was a mistake & was not in the original script.  Tom Wopat, Luke Duke, tripped, hit the fender & his foot slipped out from under him & across the hood he went.  And as he slid across the hood, he opened a four-inch gash on his arm.  But the hood slide was born & became part of the show.

 

The General Lee was able to jump anything.  But it required some modifications.  They had a steel box that would carry a varying amount of weight depending on the length of the jump that was welded into the back of the General Lee to help balance it during the jumps.

The General Lee that was driven by the Duke boys was a “first unit” car.  But the “second unit” cars were the ones used for the jumps and other stunts.  The “second unit” cars required extensive modification to keep the stunt drivers safe. 

The highest jump that the General Lee ever did was on the episode #85 The New Dukes & the car was equipped with nitrous oxide.  The longest jump was over a large gully that was used in several episodes, including “Happy Birthday General Lee”.

While none of the cast of the Dukes of Hazzard ever jumped the General Lee,  but they did perform some of the other stunts like the take-offs, spins & stops.

Owning a General Lee is a childhood dream come true.  Everyone wants a picture with the General Lee.  And it brings smiles to everyone who sees it & remembers the tv show The Dukes of Hazzard.  So in the words of the Dukes, “Keep it between the ditches!”

 

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