Charger 500 conversion

[vintageiron]

Are there any resin conversions kits to turn a Revell Daytona Charger into a Charger 500? I think this would make a much nicer Charger 500 then the AMT kit.

[Ken]

Get yourself a Coronet grill... BAM!! 1969/70 Charger 500. 1968 is the only year that had the filled rear window. After that, it was pretty much a trim level. Mopar purist now chime in and kick my butt

If you want to do a 68 500, get the Special Issue 1968 Charger to start with. Using sheet styrene, build a rear window plug. Modify the interior bucket to match. Slap on a Coronet grill. Paint and put on shelf. Stand back and admire your scratchbuilding skills

Edited May 5, 2010 by Ken

[whale392]

1969 had the filled rear window...............can you say Daytona.

(Now, I might be wrong on this, but I am quite sure I am not)

Edited May 5, 2010 by whale392

[vintageiron]

No no, you're very right. The 69 Daytona has the same flush-mounted rear window as the 69 Charger 500. The cars are VERY close. According to my Mopar Muscle and Muscle Cars, Kings of the Street from the Golden Era books, the 69 Charger 500 & Daytona are the same cars. The 500 wasn't successful against Ford for superspeedway supremacy so they added an 18" aerodynamic nose and tall stabilizer to increase down-force.

The Revell Daytona is a very nice kit so this is why I thought I'd use it as a nice 69 Charger 500 starting point. I just need the correct grille. The book says it was a Coronet grille, but what year, because 69 Coronets do not look like the Charger 500's grille.

-brent

[Ken]

Yes, on the Daytona, but not on the Charger 500 model. The Charger 500 was the first shot Chrysler fired in the Aero wars of the late 60s. In 1968, Dodge engineers realized that the deep grill of the Charger was limiting top speeds in racing. In an effort to streamline the Charger, Dodge engineers came up with a two pronged attack. First was the fitting of a Coronet grill, bringing the grill pretty much flush with the edge of the fenders, which ellimnated the deep scoop of the Charger grill. The next 'prong' was the filling of the rear window, which helped the air flow smoothly over the back of the car. The flying buttress window, while great looking on the car, created a ton of turbulence on the track. By moving the glass flush with the rear of the C pillar, the turbulence was lessen greatly. In 1969, the Dodge boys created the Charger Daytona and the 500 was made a trim option more than a copy of the race car.

There are other small differences between the Revell 1969 Charger/Daytona and the 1968 Charger, but they are simple to do. Mainly, the marker lights in 1968 were round dots on the fenders and rear quarters. In 1969 the marker lights were returned to the rectangular shape common on most cars.

I have owned a real 1968 Charger 500, but there was way more work needed on it than my skills and my then, college student, budget could afford. Unfortunately, I had to sell it.

To make the 1969 Charger Daytona into a 1968 Charger, you just need a Coronet grill and change the marker lights. Oh yeah, the taillights need to be of the round variety. Thus, it would be easier to start with the Revell 1968 Charger and just fill in the window. If I remember my real car, the package shelf in the interior just needs to be extended to complete the conversion.

Like I said, the Mopar purists can now jump in and correct me

Forgive the above, I didn't realize you were starting with the Daytona kit. I believe you need to find a 68 coronet grill. Check with the modelhouse, I think those are the guys I am thinking of. They repop a bunch of stuff for promos and such. They should have a 68 Coronet grill in stock.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Ken

[Ken]

Sorry again, too little sleep and too much work. 1969 was the first year for the Charger 500. I keep getting that mixed up. Never mind on everything I said. I will now go back into the corner and start checking my facts before I post

[Guest]

If you have a Dukes General Lee around, it ashould have the 500 grille in it. The car was originally a MPC 69 Charger 500 kit anyway.

Edited May 6, 2010 by midnightprowler

[george 53]

Just use the AMT Charger 500 body with all the rest of the parts from the 69 Charger by Revell! You CAN'T make a 500 from a Daytona due to the change of front end sheetmetal! It IS different by design.

[Guest]

I used the body and interior and grille from the 2001 issue of the Dukes kit, with the afore mentioned chassis, and will use Fred Cady stripes. Man, I gott get mine finished!

[jeffb]

there were 3 68 500 prototypes done. jerry's service in saline mich had one back in the late 70.s. it was a hemi car and someone had chrome plated just about everything that could be. dont know if he still has it, but back then he had a bunch of winged cars and hemi cars.

[george 53]

Badda Boom!!! Even easier! Good note, Dave. How many of us HASN'T done this same Chassis/Body swap on most of our old MPC kits? Duhhhhhhh........

[vintageiron]

Yeah, that's right. Dodge come out with the Charger 500 in 69 and it still hasn't what they wanted with 18 victories versus Ford's 30 at the time. So back to the engineering shop and out rolled the Daytona Charger. I don't believe there was a 68 Charger 500 other then maybe prototypes.

Well, I will pick up an AMT Charger 500 if I can find on. I have a 69 charger by AMT and the mold is as back as the 67 GTO kit.

And to answer my own question, Decon makes a resin kit that works with the Daytona kit

Decon

[Ken]

Yeah, I eventually corrected myself. The 500/Daytona always trips me up. Since the Daytona is listed as a 69, I always think the 500 is a 68. Strange, that the Daytona is a 69 and the Superbird is a 70. Another tidbit, I thought that the front fenders on the Daytona were lifted from a coronet and hence the difference in the sheet metal. Glad to see you found a transkit.

[vintageiron]

Bluesman Mark,

Interesting Richard Petty facts! Did you see my topic on making a Petty #43 Superbird race car? I can't wait to start working on that one! I'm normally not really a NASCAR fan, but I love muscle cars and hotrods. In the December issue of Scale Auto, Clay Kemp made a really nice build of a 1980s Monte Carlo Aerocoupe. After reading the article, I became excited and wanted to do a 70 Petty Superbird using a lot of the same level of detail.

There are only a handful of muscle cars I'd like to add to my collection.

The 1969 Charger 500 is one of my must haves, but after buying a 69 Charger kit by AMT, I was discouraged. It's at bad at their 67 GTO kit. I plan on extensively modifying the 67 GTO to get it to look right.

Back to the Charger 500.

Do you think the resin kit will work on the Revell 69 Daytona kit?

[Darin Bastedo]

If you want to build a 1968 Charger 500, go ahead. Dodge built one too.

[vintageiron]

My plan is to build a 1969 Dodge Charger 500, not a 68. I might try building the AMT kit first to see how bad it is. I know some of their other Charger kits aren't the best tooling...

[vintageiron]

Fascinating. I have the "Fast & Furious" Charger kit. Wasn't a fan of the movie, but I loved the car. The kit is horrible. I decided I would just get the Revell Charger and all the blower, cage myself, and other mods myself.

[The Phenom]

HI

THIS IS MY VERSION OF THE CHARGER 500., I use a Revell CHARGER DAYTONA AS A BASE .

I REMOVED THE FRONT AND INNER FENDERS OF THE DAYTONA AND I USED THE FRONT FENDERS AND INNER ENGINE COMPARTMENT OF THE RT.YOU JUST NEED THE FRONT GRILLE FROM THE MPC CHARGER AND THE REAR DECK DECAL TO COMPLETE IT.

THE STEEL WHEELS COME IN THE LIMITED EDITION 68 CHARGER FROM REVELL AND MIISING LINK RESIN HAS THE DOGDISH HUBCAPS .

TAKE A LOOK!

I HOPE THIS PICS WILL HELP YOU ON YOUR BUILD

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

With a little work, the MPC kit builds into a nice car. I built this one back in 2002 from the MPC kit.

Not only presentable, but won several show trophies and was pictured in Scale Auto's Contest Cars 2004.

Enjoy!!!

[The Phenom]

With a little work, the MPC kit builds into a nice car. I built this one back in 2002 from the MPC kit.

Not only presentable, but won several show trophies and was pictured in Scale Auto's Contest Cars 2004.

Enjoy!!!

Hi MPC., Looks good., the paint color that you used is Testors gloss black?

thanks!!

[imatt88]

Killer paint job!

So let me get this straight....the MPC General Lee is actually a 1969 Charger 500 with the wrong grill....

So if I wanted to build a factory STOCK 1969 Charger, what would I need?

Also, what do you guys mean by "filling in the rear window" for the Charger Daytona? Did they use just a smaller rear window, or was it eliminating the tunnelback on the '68?

I'm a little confused on that one....

Cheers, Ian

[Casey]

So let me get this straight....the MPC General Lee is actually a 1969 Charger 500 with the wrong grill....

It was both a '69 Charger and Charger 500 at various times, and various parts were and weren't changed, so it's really a mish-mash of both. I thought Round2 finally corrected the body within the last three years or so, and the tunnelback window has again returned to the body shell?

So if I wanted to build a factory STOCK 1969 Charger, what would I need?

A Revell '69 Dodge Charger R/T kit.

Also, what do you guys mean by "filling in the rear window" for the Charger Daytona? Did they use just a smaller rear window, or was it eliminating the tunnelback on the '68?

The Charger 500 and Daytona both featured a flush ("filled in", if you like) rear window which eliminated the tunnelback window cove.

[imatt88]

Casey and Jacen,

Thanks for the info guys. sometimes the '68, '69 Charger thing can get confusing

Next question, where can I get a Charger 500 grill

Cheers, Ian

[gtx6970]

there were 3 68 500 prototypes done. jerry's service in saline mich had one back in the late 70.s. it was a hemi car and someone had chrome plated just about everything that could be. dont know if he still has it, but back then he had a bunch of winged cars and hemi cars.

Actually, there was only 1 prototype Charger 500, it's actually a 68 charger modified with the flush mounted rear glass and a sometime during the build of the car and testing, it received a modified rear tail panel to a 1969 tail lights , yet the car retained the round side markers unique to 1968, it is and always has been a 1968 Hemi Charger R/T

Jerry Service in Mi still owns the car and has owned it since the late 70's or early 80's(that I know of ) . It spent some time on the ISCA show circuit thus why all the chrome work . I believe it has now been restored back to stock.

I do not have one of the revell Daytonas so I can't say what the body is desinged to be.

The AMT Daytona is a standard charger 500 kit and requires some pretty extensive work to convert to a Daytona .. IMO, It's best left to be a Charger 500 right out of the box.

As for the Charger 500 , it uses ALL standard 1969 Charger sheetmetal with nothing but a 1968 Coronet 500 grille installed in place of the stock charger grille. and the for mentioned flush rear glass treatment that requires a shortened decklid ( decklid is the same between Daytona + 1969 Charger 500 )

A 1969 Daytona uses said same charger 500 body , 1969 Daytona only front fenders and hood ( 1970 Charger hood and fenders are EXTREMELY similar )

1970 Superbird uses all 1970 Roadrunner external sheetmetal with SuperBird only rear glass and trim, 1970 Coronet ft fenders ( modified ) and a modifed 1970 Coronet hood that has a Bird only hood extension fitted to it

The charger 500 name continued thru 1970 and 1971 but it was a trim level pkg only and had no body modifications of any kind

Edited May 17, 2012 by gtx6970

[gtx6970]

1969 Charger 500 and Daytona rear glass

Normal 1968 up thru and including 1970 Charger rear glass