If you were ever flipping through the channels as a kid and came across a bright orange ’69 Charger with Waylon Jennings belting out, “just a good old boys, never meanin’ no harm,” you knew you were in for an hour of action-packed afternoon fun. The Dukes of Hazzard TV show ran for six years on CBS starting in 1979 and featured cousins Bo and Luke Duke running from the local sheriff Rosco in their iconic bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger affectionately named the ‘General Lee’. While only around for seven seasons over forty years ago, the General Lee remains a household name. The stunt team Northeast Ohio Dukes helps bring some of that classic TV to life, with their General Lee catching massive air at the 2024 Mopar Nationals.

General Lee Mopar Nationals

The Northeast Ohio Dukes is a stunt team that started with Raymond Kohn back in 2007 when he jumped his own General Lee clone at a local show. It has since grown into a team that puts on stunt shows at local car shows and events that include police chases with the General Lee, copious car crashes, and of course the iconic big air jumps.

If you’re like me, the first time I saw one of Raymond’s big jumps that ends with an utterly demolished 1969 Dodge Charger, you couldn’t help but cringe at the loss of such a popular muscle car. But rest assured, no great American classics are being lost here, and here’s how: The General Lees that are jumped and wrecked for our entertainment by the Northeast Ohio Dukes are built in-house on a custom chassis dressed in brand new sheet metal provided by Auto Metal Direct.

To the naked eye, it’s a 1969 Dodge Charger, but underneath, it’s a specially stunt car designed to crash.

No Charger’s Were Harmed

The custom chassis starts life as a late-model Ford Panther platform car, like a Crown Vic, Mercury Grand Marquis, or Lincoln Town Car. The drivetrain and suspension are left mostly alone, while the rest of the car is gutted, and the structure and body are chopped off. In place, a full-roll cage bent out of DOM steel tube is welded in with a custom seating arrangement that suspends Raymond so he can still drive the car while being able to land those massive jumps without serious spinal injuries. The exterior is then dressed in fresh reproduction sheet metal from AMD and shot with orange paint and General Lee decals.

Not only does this method of building clones keep good-quality and restoration-worthy classic Chargers out of the scrap heap, but it’s certainly the most affordable method, too. We can all appreciate it because it means that Raymond Kohn and his team at Northeast Ohio Dukes can still provide us with family fun, nostalgia, and big air action at your local car show year after year.