The General Lee

In the series the General Lee is Bo and Luke Duke's orange 1969 Dodge Charger, named after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. It appears in every episode but one.¹²

The car carried a Confederate battle flag on the roof, «GENERAL LEE» over each door and the number 01 on both doors, with a push bar on the front. Its horn played the first 12 notes of «Dixie».³⁴

In June 2015 Warner Bros. said it would stop licensing die-cast replicas and model kits of the General Lee with the flag on its roof.⁵one source

In the story the car was built like a stock car, so its doors were welded shut and the Dukes climbed in and out through the windows.¹²⁴

A Pontiac Firebird and a Ford Mustang were considered first. HowStuffWorks says the Charger won partly because of its NASCAR record; Wikipedia says stunt coordinator Al Wyatt Sr. chose it because he had used 1969 Chargers in the 1974 film Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.¹²

Warner Bros. used 1968 Chargers as well as 1969s. A 1968 got the center piece of the 1969 grille and 1969 tail lamps, and its round side markers were removed. No 1970s were used until the 2005 film.¹⁶⁷

The first five episodes were filmed in Georgia in late 1978. Three cars built for them were labelled LEE 1, LEE 2 and LEE 3 for the film editors. Wikipedia counts five Chargers in the Georgia episodes; the Volo Auto Museum says Warner Bros. bought eight for the first episodes.¹⁸

At first the studio bought replacement cars from used-car lots. Wikipedia says Andre and Renaud Veluzat built the cars for Warner Bros. from the second season into the fourth, and that Warner Bros. later moved the work in-house.¹⁹

Engines varied: 318, 383 and 440 V8s, never the 426 Hemi, and most cars had TorqueFlite automatics, according to Wikipedia. HowStuffWorks, citing the studio, says the first-unit (close-up) car had a 375-hp 440 Magnum; Wikipedia says that held only for the first close-up car, LEE 3, and that later close-up cars had 383s.¹⁴

The jumps wrecked the cars. Ballast in the trunk kept them from nosing over: 500 to 1,000 lb, says Wikipedia, and 600 lb for the longest jumps of almost 150 feet, says HowStuffWorks. At first, cars used for big jumps were retired, more than one per episode on average; in the Warner Bros. years, Wikipedia says, jumped cars that could be saved were repaired and used again. Wikipedia also says the producers later reused more jump footage and, in the final season, radio-controlled miniatures; HowStuffWorks says very little stunt footage was reused.¹⁴⁹¹⁰

The sources do not agree on how many General Lees were used. HowStuffWorks gives «over 150». Wikipedia gives 255, 309 and 325 without footnotes, and 250 to 355 citing BestRide, which prints both 250–355 and 230–330. Fox News and Hagerty say «more than 300», Hagerty also «over 280» destroyed, and the Volo Auto Museum says 249 were wrecked. Sports Car Market's 309 and 250 to 325 match Wikipedia's figures. About 17 to 20 TV cars are said to survive. See the rulings.^{167891011121314}

LEE 1 made the jump over a police car that opened the series, on 11 November 1978 at Oxford College in Georgia: 16 feet up and 82 feet from the ramp, says Barrett-Jackson. According to Wikipedia it was then stripped of its front seats, grille and tail-lamp panel and used once more, in the fourth episode. It spent 23 years in a junkyard in metro Atlanta. It still had cement ballast in the trunk when the president of the North American General Lee fan club bought it for less than $1,000. «Team Lee 1» restored it to its pre-jump look over 16 months.^1121516

LEE 1 was offered on the duPont Registry website in 2008. At Barrett-Jackson's Scottsdale auction in January 2012 it sold without reserve to golfer Bubba Watson. Fox News reported a high bid of $110,000; Wikipedia gives $121,000 after the buyer's premium, and Sports Car Market says Watson paid $121,000 (USD). Barrett-Jackson's lot page does not show the price. In July 2015 Watson said he would paint the American flag over the Confederate flag on its roof.^11012151617

In July 2020 CNN reported that the Volo Auto Museum in Illinois would keep its first-season General Lee on display, and that the museum had owned it since 2005. The museum's own listing of «General Lee #8», a Georgia car it says may never have been filmed, gives 16 September 2008 as its purchase date; when we checked it on 29 October 2026, the listing was marked «Sold», with no sale date. The two accounts give different dates and descriptions, so they are probably two different cars; our sources do not say.⁸¹⁸

John Schneider, who played Bo Duke, built his own General Lee for the reunion movie; it was never in the original series. Old Cars Weekly wrote that buyers had missed the chance «to pay $450,000» for it at Barrett-Jackson's January 2008 auction; Fox News says it sold for $450,000, Wikipedia calls $450,000 a high bid, and Sports Car Market gives $495,000 for the Scottsdale sale (USD). We read $450,000 as the hammer price and $495,000 as the price with a 10% premium; that is our reading, not a source's. Sports Car Market says the car was resold at Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas in 2009 for $258,500 (USD; it does not say whether fees are included). See the ruling.^610121619

Warner Bros. Pictures released a feature film, The Dukes of Hazzard, on 5 August 2005. Its General Lees were 1968, 1969 and 1970 Chargers: about 24 according to Wikipedia, at least 26 according to Sports Car Market. See the ruling.¹¹⁰²⁰

Some jump cars had their engines removed and were launched without a driver by a catapult. Unlike the TV cars, the film cars used aftermarket graphics kits, according to Wikipedia.¹one source

Film cars have come up at auction several times. A display car sold at Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach in 2013 for $60,500 including the buyer's premium (USD). Sports Car Market says a stunt car sold at Mecum in 2019 for $88,000 and another film car the same year for $57,000 (USD; it does not say whether fees are included, or where the second car was sold). Bonhams sold a film car built from a 1968 Charger at its online sale in Paris on 28 November 2025 for €145,600 including premium.¹⁰¹⁴²¹