General Lee vs. the Bandit.

[Ishmael]

Forgive me if this is a repost. In reality this would be no contest. The General would win but its fun anyway.

[79-TA]

pfft. Bandit, 185 hp Olds 403 and all, all the way.

[absintheisfun]

Great video...thanks for sharing!

[Johnny Blaze]

Sweet! Good driving there!

[critter]

Both cars are owned by Mark Osborne. He is a member of the Arkansas Pontiac Association, my car club. Most of the filming was done on his families property just outside of Little Rock.

The cars took a beating in order to make this video but he felt it was a once in a lifetime chance to do so away they went. Wait for the story in Hot Rod. Especially the part where the cops showed up and they convinced them to help out.

[tylers88]

that was awesome and its a toss up because the Genral is one of the first cars I saw and wanted (I think I was 5 or 6 when I saw the Dukes for the first time), but I LOVE the Bandit T/A

[SS PUNISHER]

The 01!!! Can't be better than #1....

[Mr. Anderson]

This guy would take em both

[TT302Z28]

A mustang?.......Really? I mean I know which one it is but still....a mustang?

[SS PUNISHER]

This guy would take em both

This guy will take them all!!!


KA CHOW!!!!!

[mikedc]

Frank Bullitt was barely keeping up with the bad guys in a stock Charger R/T.

I imagine the Duke boys & Cooter put more muscle under the General's hood & chassis than the factory did.

[trapin]

Yeah, gotta think the Duke boys (in theory) would have had a hemi in The General Lee. Maybe the T/A would have had the upper hand in the dirt but once they hit pavement it would have been The General all the way.

I'd like to see a race been Roscoe's Basset Hound and Snowman's Bassett Hound. LOL.

[Mr. Anderson]

The General never had a Hemi in it until they turned that into a movie. And setting aside the numerous different engines in the cars used for filming, the hero cars had a 383. Considering the amount of off-road exploitations, I bet it worked better not having to toss an elephant around every corner and jump.

[Slick68]

Did I miss something, or does that General have 68 taillights?

Cool vid. That looked like alot of fun.

[go-fish]

I'd like to see a race been Roscoe's Basset Hound and Snowman's Bassett Hound. LOL.

What kind of race would they be in? Which one could lay around the longest? LOLz

Let's face it. If this were "real", any car that passes the General will get a heapin' heplin' of flamin' arrow's to the back tires. Ya'll come on back!




(For the record, typing like a redneck requires a lot of words to be cut off at the last "n". Sheesh, the puncty-ation is killin' me!)

[ChevelleNV]

Both cars are owned by Mark Osborne. He is a member of the Arkansas Pontiac Association, my car club. Most of the filming was done on his families property just outside of Little Rock.

The cars took a beating in order to make this video but he felt it was a once in a lifetime chance to do so away they went. Wait for the story in Hot Rod. Especially the part where the cops showed up and they convinced them to help out.

That's awesome that he allowed them to get beat up a little for something so cool, he gets a thumbs up from me on that...

[mikedc]

Yeah, gotta think the Duke boys (in theory) would have had a hemi in The General Lee. Maybe the T/A would have had the upper hand in the dirt but once they hit pavement it would have been The General all the way.

The General never had a Hemi in it until they turned that into a movie. And setting aside the numerous different engines in the cars used for filming, the hero cars had a 383. Considering the amount of off-road exploitations, I bet it worked better not having to toss an elephant around every corner and jump.

I'm not trying to tear down the T/As, but the GL would have kicked the Bandit's butt on any surface.

The Charger is no heavier than the T/A. A 440/auto General Lee weighed 3700 lbs. The Charger's unibody is a very stiff design for its era and it has no rubber-isolated front subframe. The suspension geometry is probably at least equal between them. The charger has decent negative camber gain & roll centers from the factory. And the Charger's got it all over the T/A in the power department, even with a 440 or 383 rather than a Hemi. There's no reason for the Charger not to win this one every time.


You guys have a point about the Hemi being a boat-anchor up front. The "Dukes" TV mechanics discovered that a 383 was heavy enough to crush its motor mounts if you jumped it more than about 5 vertical feet. The Hemi weighs more than that. That's one of the (several) reasons the TV General Lees ran wedge-head motors.

[72BBSwinger]

Its funny someone brought up Bullitt because their is a story behind why a Charger was even used in that movie to begin with. And its reputation from that very movie lead to why Hollywood used one as the General Lee as well.

[79-TA]

Yeah, gotta think the Duke boys (in theory) would have had a hemi in The General Lee. Maybe the T/A would have had the upper hand in the dirt but once they hit pavement it would have been The General all the way.

I'd like to see a race been Roscoe's Basset Hound and Snowman's Bassett Hound. LOL.

The General Lee was known to have a 440, not a hemi. Still a nice potent big block.

I'd guess the opposite, General on dirt, and the TA on the asphalt, assuming it had some decent corners. Chargers were, in fact, usually heavier than TA's (the heaviest TA with every option known to man is 3800 lbs . . . mine is 3470.) From my limited experience with stock chargers, they're big ponderous feeling cars. Not so much for the TA.

The General's power isn't that big of a deal, unless you had a nice really long straight section of pavement to hook up on. And if you want to talk replacement tires on stock wheels, the TA was available with 8 inch wide wheels and could stuff a lot more rubber than the general, Granted, the General did have aftermarket wheels and tires . . . which were only 14x7's wearing 235/70/14's. Trans Ams came with 225/70/15's stock.


But my summary is as follows:

Cooter and Luke preprared General beats the stock TA (this assumes more is done to the charger than ever actually was)

stock TA takes any midly set up Charger or General Lee replica.

[mikedc]

The General Lee was known to have a 440, not a hemi. Still a nice potent big block.

I'd guess the opposite, General on dirt, and the TA on the asphalt, assuming it had some decent corners. Chargers were, in fact, usually heavier than TA's (the heaviest TA with every option known to man is 3800 lbs . . . mine is 3470.) From my limited experience with stock chargers, they're big ponderous feeling cars. Not so much for the TA.

The General's power isn't that big of a deal, unless you had a nice really long straight section of pavement to hook up on. And if you want to talk replacement tires on stock wheels, the TA was available with 8 inch wide wheels and could stuff a lot more rubber than the general, Granted, the General did have aftermarket wheels and tires . . . which were only 14x7's wearing 235/70/14's. Trans Ams came with 225/70/15's stock.


But my summary is as follows:

Cooter and Luke preprared General beats the stock TA (this assumes more is done to the charger than ever actually was)

stock TA takes any midly set up Charger or General Lee replica.

I have to disagree. I'll grant that a stock Charger might lose to a lighter weight stock T/A, because of handling differences. But I think an upgraded Charger would win most every time.


There was a pretty big spread between the various GL setups among the TV-series cars. It was most commonly a near-stock car with a heavy big block. But other times it was something much better done.

The wheels were 14x7 most commonly but they ran some bigger stuff too. Bigger wheels on the rear end were not too unusual. Sometimes they even had cars with 15x8.5" rims on all four corners. They usually stiffened the rear springs & added aftermarket shocks.

There were a couple times during the series where the show's producers paid for a really hot GL to be built for one reason or another. One had rollcage that tied into the front shock towers & rear spring mounts, a REALLY hot 340" smallblock, and multiple shocks per wheel. Another hot Charger had subframe connectors, shock tower braces, Koni shocks, a mildly warmed-over 440, and lowered axle gearing. These cars never survived more than a few months but they got a lot of screen time while they were alive.