Famed YouTuber WhistlinDiesel has just revealed his latest vehicle, and it’s breathtaking. This muscle car is immediately recognizable as General Lee, the 1969 orange Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard. However, it’s been ruined in a good way by having a twin-turbo LS in place of a classic Mopar motor.
This car personality is known for treating all his vehicles like cheap rental cars. We felt bad for the twin-turbo Huracan that got hammered and especially the abused AMG G-Wagon. Hopefully, nothing terrible happens to this nice-looking muscle car, but 1600 horsepower in a 50-year-old Dodge is asking for trouble.
WD loves controversy and getting as many angry comments as possible. There’s no better car for that than a General Lee, especially if you don’t leave out the confederate flag. Sure, that’s how it was in the show, but it’s an immediate… red flag for some people. And to make sure the South hates him too, the Charger gets knocked around and damaged.
Cody is leaning hard into the Southern theme by adopting the accent and the dress code, complete with jean overalls. He also puts on a show by delivering a rusty old Dodge Charger shell to the shop and asking it to be ready by the next day. Just to make things clear, that beat-up old body couldn’t possibly be turned into this beauty. It’s just too far gone with rotted-out floors and sills.
Most likely, this started off as a great General Lee reproduction/clone because swapping in that motor is already a lot of (expensive) work. There are only 17 “hero” Chargers that survived Dukes of Hazzard filming and only one has the real 440 R/T motor. The show ran from 1979 until 1985 and wrecked a whole lot of these Dodges, about 320 of them.
The specific engine used isn’t mentioned; all we know for sure is that it’s running on Holley EFI. That looks like a Holley Mid-Rise intake manifold, cutting its way out through the middle of the hood, and those are Precision Turbo 76mm turbos. Most likely, we’re dealing with a nice 427 cubic-inch (7.0-liter) crate that’s built to handle this kind of power.
Thankfully, the rear suspension of this old muscle car has also been completely overhauled. You can see Cody’s eyes light up when the mechanic tells him the rear end can handle all the abuse you can through at it without breaking down. Yeah, sounds like some durability testing is about to happen.
Already, Cody is treating this not like it’s worth $200,000 but like Bo and Luke Duke might: burnouts, powerslides on gravel and completely shredding the tires. One of the rear tires completely comes off the wheel, and the YouTuber just drives the Charger back to his garage on the rim. Worst of all, right at the end of the video, he smashes the windshield (and hood) with a gym weight plate. Ouch!
