1972 Dodge Charger Reviews, Pricing & Specs

My mom lived in an apartment in St.Paul Minnesota. On weekends my wife and I would go visit her. In the parking lot was a bright orange 1972 Dodge Charger S/E with a black vinyl roof and Iowa license plates. I looked at it and drooled every time we visited. I climbed up it, down it, in it around it, and through it! With the exception of a couple rust holes in the top of the front passenger fender and rust bubbles in the rear whel arches, it was in near perfect shape. A few months later, we finally hunted down the owner. I found out that she was the original owner and that it had been sitting there for over 6 months, when she had bought a new Jeep. It ran fine, and only had 53,000 miles on the clock... I had to have it! A deal was struck and, $950.00 later, I was the very proud owner of my first dream car! That was 1993. I have had a lot of cars before and since, luxo-boxes, brit cars jap-traps, k-car variants, Mustangs, and so on, but the old Mopars stood out for some reason. Shortly before the Charger I owned a beat up $150.00 1972 Duster 340 that wouldn't die and in the years following I had a 1973 Barracuda, a 1971 Challenger (Both 318 automatics) and a nice 1979 360 auto Chrysler Cordoba... What? Cordobas are actually quite nice cars, once you removed the lean-burn system and put on a larger (pre-emissions) carburator and better flowing intake. Also, they put the Charger name on the Dodge version of the Cordoba in 1975. People may complain about that but at least Cordoba-Chargers were two door cars with optional big blocks, unlike today. Back to the subject. I bought a Charger... then I bought parts! Tons of parts! Some NOS, some aftermarket, some from junkyards. I replaced the already once rebuilt 727 Torqueflight Automatic with a HD 727 I found at a junkyard that came out of a police car. The original was getting weak and was slipping at stops. I bought two rust free front fenders from a forest green 1973 Charger for $50.00 that I never used. Then I replaced every plug wire, hose, belt, and seal I could find, and rebuilt the carb. Then I ran out of things to fix. I had a ton of parts I thought I would need and I never needed any of them. I just had to deal with the rust and change the oil. That's Mopar. I used the car for a few years as a daily driver. Even in the snow and ice it was nearly perfect, after you add a hundred pounds worth of sandbags to the trunk. You can't see out the back too well, so either go faster or trust the mirrors. I averaged about 17 mpg when I wasn't doing burnouts and doughnuts, which isn't bad. Two tons of steel, power front disc brakes and two piece shoulder/lap belts were more than enough safety. Which brings me to a point. The Charger was rear-ended at a stoplight once. Keep in mind this car was made long before rubber bumpers, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, and airbags for your knees-face-armpits-nutsack and so on. The car that hit the Charger was a geo-chevy metro, doing roughly 45mph in it's econobox sort of way. Inside the Charger it felt like running over a speed-bump upon impact from behind. Of course I never slowed down over actual speedbumps in the Charger... In a car like that, those were simply ramps to play Dukes of Hazzard on! Yee-haw! But I digress. To correct myself, it felt like running over a speedbump in, say, a modern Volvo... Ker-CHUNK! The Metro was totalled, most of the front end was gone and the driver went to the hospital. I suffered no injuries. On the Charger, the passenger side tail lens was broken, the chrome light surround was cracked, the lower valance panel was creased in two places, the trailer hitch (yes it had one, dealer installed) was scraped up and there were scratches and one dent in the chrome bumper. I probably put 30 hours of work into returning it to better than normal and about $125 in buffing pads, parts and paint. Keep in mind, this total cost was back in the 1990's, before the collector car market got really stupid. The essence of the RT model was gone for 1972 as well as the Superbee and the Hemi. The 440 was still available, but detuned like the 400 to be more cush and less wooo! Parts to re-tune them were readily available direct from mother mopar and some even came tuned from the factory with discreet block markings indicating a hotter cam larger valves and so on. 1972 to 74 cars in general used to be a soft market in the collector world, ignored by Mecum, Barrett Jackson and the like. Now they fetch unrealistic prices on the auction block. Most of the non-muscle era 70's big three cars at auction have modern Shelby, Hemi, Viper, or ZR transplants and have been lowered with cut up bodies and huge Donk-wheels, making them look like an insulting caracature of their original form. How many Car-toons magazines did Chip Foose read as a boy thinking they were real pictures of cars? When it comes to Mopar B Bodies, near basket cases and restoration projects are still mostly affordable. Take your time and find a good one - they are out there still! You may have big block Challenger and Baracuda dreams but you can't really afford them. Besides, you would be afraid to drive them once they are restored because it may get damaged or be built or rebuilt wrong. Both my E bodies were 318's and original drivable cars. The Barracuda was turned into a Hemi cuda-clone by the idiot that I sold it to. Here's a hint at what went wrong there, Torque boxes. The Challenger became a T/A clone two owners down the line. Then it was crashed twisted and rolled. Last I heard it was sold again and being restored to it's T/A clone status. What was wrong with either of them being original I will never know! Believe me, you will forget all about the E Bodies once you drive a good original or restored 1972 Satellite, Charger, or Road Runner.Sep 28, 2013