Words & photos: Clive Branson Car owner: Daniel Bourdeau
Safe, conventional work is a ticket to oblivion. Great creative should stun by presenting the viewer with an idea that disrupts conventional thinking. It started with an idea for designer Richard Silas, or to be more precise, a burning desire: not to conform, but to excel. He did more than that. In the 51 years since he put pen to paper, what emerged from the drafting table remains the personification, the epitome of the muscle car – the 1968 Dodge Charger R/T.
“You’re just trying to make that pile of clay look like something you’d like to drive,” Silas explained humbly. On closer examination, there are similarities between the Dodge Charger and its cousins, the Dodge Coronet and the Plymouth Belvedere/Satellite, all raised on the ubiquitous B-platform. Each had the flushed-shaped rectangular mold (though the Charger had the more imaginative and stealth-like hidden headlights).
Silas managed to massage both the top brass and the linear lines by toning down the previous Charger’s fastback styling and created an aerodynamic, aggressive car to match Chrysler’s 425-Herculean Hemi engine. The redesign included “flying buttress” sail panels and the sensual “Coke bottle” profile with the rear fenders. This anomaly made all the difference in raising the bar of automotive seduction. Since its debut, it’s been a favourite line in any car worth its salt.
Other amenities were a small lip spoiler on top of the Kamm-style chopped off tail as well as a set of recessed backlights and four round Corvette-style tail lights. The full-width matte-black blind grill, bordered by an unadorned chrome grill, remained intact from the 1967 year. Its presence was as mesmerizing as its performance. Its brute force and appearance was coldly beautiful and its best friend was a straight line and the right pedal.
“There’s just something about it; you know it’s a Charger,” Silas says. “It’s got character. It’s got that giddy-up-and-go.”
There were only marginal changes to the 1969 model. Gone are the four individual rear lights for the dual, elongated horizontal light display. In the front, a “Cuda gill-like” protruding center nose, separating and enhancing the sinister monochromic black grill. For a muscle car, it was quite luxurious with leather and vinyl bucket seats, pedal accouterments, a sport steering wheel, hood-mounted turn signals, a racy V8X tail pipe, deep-dish wheel covers and a gas cap on the top of the trunk in close proximity to the sloping roof. The car still retains its credibility as one of the greatest looking muscle cars. This was further embellished by its cameo role in the film Bullitt during the famous 10-minute car chase scene. Fifty years later, AmongCars.com acknowledges that the 1969 Dodge Charger is among the top 5 most popular American cars of all time.
Daniel Bourdeau’s ’69 model (not a R/T version) is equally impressive. In 2005, Stagra Automotive replaced the original 383 V8 with a single four barrel 440 fuel injected V8 that displays over 500 horsepower. With its mammoth 7.2-liter capacity, it is a thinly disguised road racer. Even when idling, the engine produces such massive torque that it rocks the car body from side to side and loosens your dentures.
Daniel believes it is the first one made in Canada. He is a loquacious farmer in his senior years with the aptitude to fix (and improve) anything that moves mechanically. His words pour out like a river overflowing its banks. He has rebuilt the majority of his existing ten tractors. After graduation from high school in 1972, Daniel’s dentist (a former employer) loaned him the money to buy the Charger. It took Daniel decades to repay the dentist. That’s a lot of hygiene appointments. The car was brown with a caramel vinyl top.
“I didn’t like the colour combination or the vinyl top. It looked ugly and like a suburban sedan,” confesses Daniel. “So I eventually had it repainted to a sleek midnight black. It’s like artwork. It was the best black I could find.” The car was in perfect condition, furnished with a 383 V8 and with only 12,000 miles ticked on. “The VIN number was wrong, but it has since been corrected.”
Daniel made his own extraordinary modifications, including two gas caps on either side of the rear fenders that took close to 80 hours to install with the assistance of Al Stigter from ASE Motorsports. Why two? “It looks balanced and easier to fill. There are two entrances to the same tank (the tank is the same size). When full on one side, the air pressure automatically goes to the next side.” Daniel nods his head and grins.
The original car came with a complete package of protective gear - stiffer shocks and springs and big front disc brakes - but to Daniel this was child’s play and he re-enforced the framework to enable it to handle any obstacle and longevity, like the Baja 1000 or the Paris-Dakar Rally. “What I did was to ensure more and better stability than what the manufacturer produced. When you have a powerful motor like my 440, the chassis can lose equilibrium.”
He proudly shows me his work. There is a solid five-foot steel bar down the middle of the undercarriage, bolted at the rear and goes through the front beam and floorboard. There is an additional 15-inch bar at the front section. “The brake pedal has been extended with an 80 per cent reduction in necessary bushings from 10 to only 4.
“When I start the engine for 20 minutes, a crowd emerges around the car.” All that testosterone starts sloshing around and a rumble comes across as being predatory. “I am always concerned as to how powerful this car is. I remember a Harley owner followed me for 10 miles. He confessed that he loved the sound and the smell of the car. It was like a magnet.”
The love and dedication Daniel has placed in this car has resulted in winning the People’s Choice Award over others whose cars are in mint condition. “Even the younger generations love this car. They aren’t that expensive to buy unless it’s a matching numbers car; then the price is through the roof.”
Daniel has put 306,000 miles on it and there is a story for every mile, but time is creeping up on him and he knows that he will have to sell his farm, tractors and his beloved car while he is still physically capable.
Rare is the muscle car driver who views his car as a simple tool of transportation. Daniel is no exception and gives a melancholy sigh, reminiscing on his 48-year relationship with a car that is more like family. “This car means everything to me. Take it away and you take away half my life. It’s more important than my ten tractors.” With those closing, prophetic words, we both nod vehemently in agreement.
