50 Fun Facts About Mopar

Mopar, short for motor parts, first appeared in 1937 on cans of which Chrysler product?

Antifreeze was the first product to wear the name, coined by an internal Chrysler council. Enthusiasts later stretched Mopar to cover any vehicle the company built.

What is the orange 1969 Dodge Charger driven by the Duke cousins in The Dukes of Hazzard called?

General Lee appears in every episode but one. The name echoes Traveller, the bootlegger's car in Moonrunners, the film the series grew out of.

Plymouth paid Warner Bros. $50,000 to name its 1968 budget muscle car after which cartoon character?

Road Runner rights were only part of the bill. Plymouth spent a further $10,000 developing a horn that imitated the bird's cartoon call.

In which 1968 film does a black Dodge Charger chase Steve McQueen's Mustang through San Francisco?

Bullitt put stunt driver Bill Hickman, who also played one of the hitmen, at the wheel of the black Charger. Spliced takes make the Dodge shed more wheel covers than it has wheels.

What kind of engine powered the 1963 Chrysler coupe lent to 203 ordinary drivers in a public trial?

Gas turbine power meant the coupe could burn almost anything. Mexico's president ran one on tequila after Chrysler's engineers confirmed it would work.

Which 1958 Plymouth model is the possessed, murderous car in Stephen King's novel Christine?

Fury is the badge on the dilapidated wreck that teenager Arnie Cunningham spots on a neglected lawn in 1978. Its odometer later runs backwards as the damage undoes itself.

Which Dodge sports car, launched in 1992, has a V10 engine developed with help from Lamborghini?

Viper development leaned on Lamborghini because Chrysler owned the Italian firm at the time. Its engineers cast the prototype aluminium block.

In The Fast and the Furious (2001), which character finally drives his father's 1970 Dodge Charger?

Dom Toretto climbs into the Charger to pursue Johnny Tran and avenge his friend Jesse, moments after an undercover cop decides not to arrest him.

Which executive, fired by Ford in 1978, took over Chrysler and returned it to profit in the 1980s?

Lee Iacocca was dismissed on July 13, 1978, in a year when Ford posted a $2 billion profit. He led Chrysler until retiring at the end of 1992.

Which Plymouth fastback reached showrooms on April 1, 1964, two weeks before the Ford Mustang?

Barracuda designers gave the fastback a 14.4-square-foot wraparound rear window, the largest fitted to a standard production car up to that time.

Which 1971 film follows Kowalski as he races a white Dodge Challenger from Denver toward San Francisco?

Vanishing Point casts its hero as a decorated Vietnam veteran and former racer delivering the Dodge for a living. He buys pills at a biker bar to stay awake for the trip.

Which winged 1970 Plymouth had to be built in at least 1,920 street-legal copies to race in NASCAR?

Superbird output had to equal one car for every two Plymouth dealers in America. The nose cone and pop-up headlights added nineteen inches to its length.

Which NASCAR driver, nicknamed the King, won the 1964 Daytona 500 in a Hemi-powered Plymouth?

Richard Petty led 184 of the 200 laps that day on the way to his first championship. He later voiced a Pixar racer partly modelled on himself.

Which 2018 Dodge Challenger was barred from NHRA drag strips for being too quick without a roll cage?

SRT Demon runs covered the quarter-mile in 9.65 seconds, and the NHRA demands a certified roll cage for any car that dips under ten.

Which supercharged Hemi V8, launched for 2015 with 707 horsepower, is named after a wartime fighter plane?

Hellcat honours the Grumman F6F fighter. Mopar later sold the 707-horsepower V8 on its own as a crate motor for home builders.

Chrysler's Hemi V8 takes its name from the dome shape of which part of the engine?

Combustion chamber domes leave room for two large valves and lose little heat to the cylinder head, which is where the design finds its extra power.

Chrysler gained the Jeep brand in 1987 by buying which smaller US carmaker?

American Motors brought Chrysler the profitable Jeep line, which is why enthusiasts count Jeeps built after the buyout as Mopars too.

The R/T badge worn by high-performance Dodge models since the 1960s stands for what?

Road/Track has nothing to do with the similarly named magazine. Dodge uses the badge much as Chevrolet uses SS.

The Bluesmobile in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers is a retired 1974 police sedan of which model?

Dodge Monaco sedans with the 440 V8 were, in co-writer Dan Aykroyd's view, the hottest police cars of the 1970s, which is why he chose one.

Which TV series follows Mark Worman's Oregon shop as it restores wrecked Mopar muscle cars?

Graveyard Carz is filmed in Springfield and sticks to Chrysler products of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Worman created the show as well as fronting it.

Which 1970 Plymouth compact got a cartoon twister logo after talks to license the Tasmanian Devil collapsed?

Duster designer Thomas Bertsch drew the twister and its lettering himself once the Warner Brothers negotiations failed.

In Steven Spielberg's 1971 thriller Duel, a tanker truck stalks a salesman driving which red Plymouth?

Valiant sedans carried PLYMOUTH lettering across the hood, so the crew covered the brand name with aluminium foil for filming.

Hurst rebuilt only 80 examples of which Dodge compact with 426 Hemi power for 1968 drag racing?

Dart Hemi cars were sold strictly for the strip and came with a disclaimer that they carried no warranty. Engineers quoted quarter-mile times of ten to eleven seconds.

Which Plymouth hot-rod roadster of 1997, with open front wheels, was sold at first only in purple?

Prowler bodywork was hand-crafted in aluminium. Design chief Tom Gale, who kept a hotted-up 1932 Ford in his own garage, approved the project.

Which Dodge four-wheel-drive truck, launched in 1945, was based on the company's World War II army trucks?

Power Wagon sales of the original flat-fender model ended in the United States by 1968, when it could no longer meet new federal light-truck rules.

Carroll Shelby chose the initials GLH for his hot 1984 Dodge Omni; what do they stand for?

Goes Like Hell was Shelby's pick after Chrysler rejected the name Coyote. The final 500 cars became the GLHS, the S standing for S'more.

Which famously durable Chrysler inline engine of 1960 copied a Mercedes racing trick to fit under lower hoods?

Slant-6 cylinders lean 30 degrees from vertical, the cant Mercedes had used in the sports racer that won Le Mans. Plymouth's marketers called it the 30-D at launch.

Which animal nickname did Chrysler's 426 Hemi earn for its size, weight and ground-pounding power?

Elephant was also the first engine Chrysler actually marketed as a Hemi. The 1950s versions with the same domed heads were sold under the FirePower name.

What did Dodge call the trio of two-barrel Holley carburetors offered on its 440 V8 from 1969?

Six Pack was the Dodge name; Plymouth badged the identical setup 440 6-BBL. It lifted the big-block to 390 horsepower, above the four-barrel version's 375.

Which Chrysler three-speed automatic of 1956 was first controlled by push buttons on the dashboard?

TorqueFlite replaced the two-speed PowerFlite. Early units had no parking lock at all until a separate lever was added beside the buttons in 1960.

Walter Chrysler founded his corporation in 1925 from the remains of which struggling car company?

Maxwell cars did not vanish at once. The new four-cylinder Chryslers introduced for 1926 were badge-engineered versions of them.

Which mid-priced Chrysler brand, created in 1928 alongside Plymouth, was dropped after the 1961 model year?

DeSoto took its name from Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer who was the first documented European to cross the Mississippi River.

Which famous ship appeared on the logo of the low-priced car brand Chrysler launched in 1928?

Mayflower imagery tied the cars to Plymouth Rock, yet the brand name itself was inspired by Plymouth binder twine, a product farmers already trusted.

Which name did Chrysler turn into a separate luxury make in 1955 to challenge Cadillac and Lincoln?

Imperial status was made official by letter: Chrysler told every state licensing agency that the cars would no longer be registered as Chryslers.

Which Chrysler platform of 1981, sold as the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant, helped repay its rescue loans?

K-car engineering cost about $1 billion over three years, but a second group of badge-engineered models was spun off it for only $50 million.

Which German company joined Chrysler in 1998 in what its chief executive called a merger of equals?

Daimler-Benz renamed itself after the deal, but investors sued over whether it had really been a takeover. The Chrysler stake was sold off in 2007.

Which Netherlands-based group was formed in 2021 by merging Fiat Chrysler with France's PSA, taking Mopar with it?

Stellantis takes its name from a Latin verb meaning to brighten with stars. The merger put Mopar under one roof with Peugeot, Citroen, Opel and Vauxhall.

Which streamlined 1934 Chrysler, shaped by wind-tunnel tests, was an engineering landmark but a commercial failure?

Airflow engineers ran their wind-tunnel tests with the cooperation of Orville Wright and had tried at least 50 scale models by April 1930.

Which budget muscle car did Dodge launch for 1968 on its two-door Coronet body?

Super Bee is a play on the B-body platform underneath. A Dodge designer won an in-house contest with the name and a logo based on the Scat Pack's bee medallion.

Which upscale Plymouth muscle car, launched for 1967 on the Belvedere, was pitched as a gentleman's choice?

GTX buyers got a console-mounted tachometer, a pop-open chrome fuel filler cap and simulated hood scoops as part of the upmarket trim.

Which driver first lapped a closed course at over 200 mph, in a winged Dodge Charger Daytona in 1970?

Buddy Baker did it on March 24, 1970, at Talladega, during a test session in Chrysler Engineering's blue No. 88 car.

What invented name did a designer give the three-pointed Dodge logo of 1962, later revived for electric cars?

Fratzog means nothing at all; a designer made the word up and it simply stuck. Dodge announced the fractured triangle's return in 2021.

Which designer gave Chrysler's 1957 cars their soaring tailfins under the Forward Look banner?

Virgil Exner's 1957 line so alarmed GM that its stylists reopened their finished 1959 designs after one of them spied the cars through a fence.

Which 1955 Dodge option package, aimed at women, came with a matching purse, raincoat and umbrella?

La Femme purses were pink calfskin and held a compact, lipstick case and cigarette lighter. The rain gear was cut from vinyl patterned to match the rosebud upholstery.

Which letter did Chrysler give the pony-car platform that the Dodge Challenger used from 1970 to 1974?

E-body Challengers arrived in autumn 1969 as the larger, pricier sibling of a Plymouth pony car built on the same platform.

Which electrical component did Chrysler make standard on a production car in 1960, years ahead of Ford and GM?

Alternator charging replaced the DC dynamos that cars had relied on until the 1960s. Unlike a dynamo, it can keep a battery topped up while the engine idles.

Which NHRA drag racing class still builds its nitro-burning engines on the 426 Hemi's basic design?

Top Fuel engines keep the original layout of two large valves per cylinder and a deep-skirted block, though every part is now purpose-built.

Chrysler's Highway Hi-Fi, an option from the 1956 model year, was what kind of in-car device?

Record player turntables sat in a shock-proof case under the instrument panel and spun special seven-inch discs. Breakdowns and a thin catalogue soon sank the idea.

Which Allied medium tank did Chrysler mass-produce at its Detroit Arsenal plant from 1942?

M4 Sherman production followed the M3, which the plant had been turning out while its own buildings were still being raised.

Chrysler was prime contractor for which Army missile, whose stretched version launched America's first astronaut?

Redstone boosters with a longer fuel tank lifted Alan Shepard on his suborbital flight of May 5, 1961. Chrysler built the missiles in Warren, Michigan.