10-Sec Blown 440 General Lee

Joe La Spina’s 1969 Dodge Charger General Lee tribute is a 10-second machine with a supercharged 440 Magnum V8.

Cue the TV show’s theme tune by Waylon Jennings in the clip below. If there’s one non-human TV character more famous for its stunts, specifically its jumps, than anything else then it’d have to be the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard. The show ran from 1979 through to 1985 and a feature film with a new cast was released in 2005.

Queenslander, and definite Mopar enthusiast, Joe La Spina bought this General Lee tribute in 2010. Already painted it may have been, but running this fast it wasn’t. Since buying it he has had a lot of mechanical work done, replacing or rebuilding the entire driveline.

Glenn’s Diffs rebuilt the Dana 60 with 4:11s, Glenn’s Autos rebuilt the Torqueflite 727 3-speed transmission (which is appropriate, since almost all Generals had one), and most importantly, Kevin Kent Race Engines rebuilt a supercharged 440 Magnum big block V8 which Joe tells us has output figures of around 800hp and 900lb.ft.

As for the body, whilst the TV stunt cars doing the biggest jumps had sand bags put in the boot to minimise how much they nose-dived in the air, Joe’s Charger has taken the opposite approach, lightening the front with a fibreglass bonnet and front bumper, as well as removing more metal with the aid of a hole-saw. Joe’s car also has a cage and racing seats, as well as a ladder-bar rear end with coilovers.

Joe is a regular at the annual Mopar Sunday event and the amateur clip above shows him running a 10.8 in 2012, whilst his personal best with this car is a 10.6 at 134mph.

You can read all the details on Joe’s General Lee tribute, blown 440 Magnum Dodge Charger, plus more trivia on the TV show and movie as well as full features on several other awesome cars from the Chrysler family, in Extreme Charger High-Performance Mopars number 2, available now.