There's no doubt about it, this is a star car; the most famous of all time according to a recent CNN poll, which ranked the Charger above the 1977 TransAm Pontiac driven by Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit, and even the 1968 Mustang Fastback driven by Steve McQueen in Bullitt It's also quite likely the hottest car of all time. Everyone seems to get a kick outta the car."True, the only reaction the car has so far elicited from absolutely everyone we pass is holler-out-loud, bay-like-a-dog glee. From inside the car looking out, it's like watching a Mexican wave ripple around a stadium or iron filings stand on end when passed over with a magnet. Riding around town on a Harley Davidson driven by John Wayne would cause * *less of an electric reaction. Once flown by the Confederate States of America, the flag has largely fallen into disuse since the American Civil War and is seen today by many as a symbol of the old segregated South.This sticky issue is one the current film, updated to the present time, gets around clumsily, losing a sponsorship deal with Chrysler in the process "I really don't see what the problem is," says Troy "People round here don't seem to mind any. "I think the guy was a bit of a drunk and his wife had beat up on the car some; the windows were all broken up and it was in pretty bad shape."Troy, an oil industry worker who restores cars in his spare time, put his body shop guy to work on the Charger, re-painting it complete with the Duke's 01 racing numbers, and Confederate flag. "I got it a couple of years back from an ex-movie worker in Missouri," he says.
We burn through Lee Circle, the film's double for downtown Atlanta, despite its distinctive statue of Confederate Army general, Robert E Lee. Troy hits the 12-note Dixie horn in salute of the car's namesake, sending out the first notes of "Way Down South in the Land of Cotton" and simultaneously rousing a responsive chorus of honking from every other car on the road. A scream of "yeeeeehaaaaaaw" from behind reveals a boy driving a pick-up truck while simultaneously learning out of the window to take a photo with his phone's camera. That Lee Circle is the site of one of the movie's many car-chase pile-ups suddenly seems alarmingly prophetic but the Charger negotiates the roundabout, complete with slippery tramlines, and we escape without a scratch.Pristine as the Charger is, this wasn't the way Troy found it.
The show ran into the mid-Eighties, a time when my brother and I fought like bobcats in a bear trap for control of our own General Lee (a go-kart dad built from an old pram). Even now, 20 or so years later, I'm still reduced to a near feral state of mouth-frothing at the sight of any Dodge car circa 1970. The latest movie remake of The Dukes of Hazzard TV series finally spurred me into action. After several months of searching, aided by the Louisiana Film Commission, various Deep South tourist boards and a shady dude called Big Al, a date was set.It's 11am on an August morning in New Orleans and the mercury is already bubbling up around the 100F mark. I'm standing in the mercifully air-conditioned foyer of the homey Hotel Richelieu when a girl charges through the door, red-faced and gasping. "Ya'll never guess what's parked right outside," she says, eyes threatening to pop clean out onto the marble floor. What I'd mistaken for a deep rumble of summer thunder must have been the sound of The General pulling up.
