Charger 500 Found After Two Decades Of Rotting

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What happened to this once legendary Mopar muscle car?


The internet has done a lot of great things for the classic car enthusiast community from providing great insight and do it yourself information to showcasing some of the world’s coolest vintage sports cars. However, one of the main things that makes the internet such a wonderful tool for car people like you and me is the discovery of once forgotten automobiles. It seems like everyday a new classic car pokes its head up from the bushes to greet us which wouldn't even be possible if not for the dedicated content creators who make it all happen. This particular vehicle is an incredible example of what you might expect when going through the reminiscence of a long-abandoned collection of America’s greatest automobiles.

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In the late 1960s, Dodge was on top of the NASCAR game with their incredible lineup of extremely fast muscle and pony cars. The Charger was a model particularly coveted by the fanbase and as such Mopar began capitalizing on that hype. Eventually, this gave birth to a vehicle called the Charger 500 which was a nod at NASCAR’s rule about models made in abundance of 500 units being considered homologation. Essentially, this was Dodge’s way of saying “you’re basically driving around a race car” in a subtler way than most Mopar people were used to at the time. Nowadays, this vehicle has long since past its prime where it might have seen a few racing events.

Apparently, the videographer filming this incredibly large collection of seemingly forgotten classics actually saw all of these vehicles about 20 years prior to his most recent visit. Back then, the cars didn't seem like they were in such bad shape at all, well some of them did but not the Charger. As shown on the pictures featured towards the end of the video, the owner of this collection has just been letting the cars rot for decades. Some of the cars featured pretty big V8 engines while others utilized small-block powertrains. In the case of the Charger 500, it was powered by a 383 cubic inch V8 which would have been perfect for racing in its time. Hopefully, these cars will eventually be cared for and even restored but for now we're glad that they still exist because of their potential for greatness.

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