Lulu Coltrane Hogg - Vehicles - The General Lee

The General Lee

The General Lee was Bo and Luke Duke's 1969 Dodge Charger. It was orange with a Confederate battle flag painted on the roof, the words GENERAL LEE over each door, and the number "01" on each door. In the original five Georgia-filmed episodes, a Confederate flag along with a checkered racing flag in a criss-cross pattern could be seen behind the rear window; this was removed when it was felt that this extra detail did not show up enough on-screen enough to warrant the already very tight time constraints of preparing and repairing each example of the car. The name refers to the American Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The television show was based on the movie "Moonrunners", itself based on actual moonshine runners who used a 1958 Chrysler named Traveler, after General Lee's horse. Traveler was originally intended to be the name of the Duke boys' stock car too, until producers agreed that General Lee had more punch to it.

Since it was built as a race car, the windows were regularly open (except for several shots in early episodes). Through the history of the show, an estimated 309 Chargers were used; 17 are still known to exist in various states of repair. A replica was owned by John Schneider, known as "Bo's General Lee". In 2008, Schneider sold "Bo's General Lee" at the Barrett-Jackson automobile auction for $450,000. An eBay auction which garnered a bid of $9,900,500 for the car was never finalized, with the purported bidder claiming his account had been hacked. The underside of the hood has the signatures of the cast from the 1997 TV movie. Schneider has also restored over 20 other General Lees to date. The show also used 1968 Chargers (which shared the same sheet metal) by changing the grille and taillight panel to the 1969 style, and removing the round side marker lights. These Chargers performed many record-breaking jumps throughout the show, almost all of them resulting in a completely destroyed car.

The Duke boys added a custom air horn to the General Lee which played the first eleven notes of the song Dixie. The Dixie horn was not originally planned, until a Georgia local hot rod racer drove by and sounded his car's Dixie horn. The producers immediately rushed after him asking where he had bought the horn. Warner Brothers purchased several Chargers for stunts, as they generally destroyed at least one or two cars per episode. By the end of the show's sixth season, the Chargers were becoming harder to find, and more expensive. In addition, the television series Knight Rider began to rival the General Lee's stunts. As such, the producers used 1/8 scale miniatures, filmed by Jack Sessums' crew, or recycled stock jump footage - the latter being a practice that had been in place to an extent since the second season, and had increased as the seasons passed.

Some of the 01 and Confederate flag motifs were initially hand painted, but as production sped up these were replaced with vinyl decals for quick application (and removal) as needed.

The third episode "Mary Kaye's Baby" is the only one in which the General Lee does not appear. Instead, the Dukes drove around in a blue 1975 Plymouth Fury borrowed from Cooter that Luke later destroyed with a stick of dynamite during a duel with some mobsters.

The Duke boys' CB handle was (jointly) "Lost Sheep". Originally when the show was conceived, their handle was to be "General Lee" to match their vehicle, but this was only ever used on-screen on one occasion, in the second episode, "Daisy's Song", when Cooter calls Bo and Luke over the CB by this handle - although they were actually driving Daisy's Plymouth Roadrunner (see below) at the time. As it became obvious that the "General Lee" handle would be out of place when the Duke boys were in another vehicle, the "Lost Sheep" handle was devised (with Uncle Jesse being "Shepherd" and Daisy being "Bo Peep").