Fast and Furious movies don't win Oscars, and they can appear juvenile. But Dom and his crew are constantly adding to modern car culture, like when the 1970 Dodge Charger became an off-roader for FF7.
The sight of that all-black hunk of metal sitting high in the air with two spare tires tied up in the trunk is iconic. But it's not exactly original. Lifting ponies using junkyard truck suspension is an American tradition of sorts. You probably can't imagine the Dodge doing that because it's collectible, but this model must have had some dirty fun at least once in its life.
Even the modern Challenger has been raised a couple of times in recent years. Most notably, YouTuber Street Speed 717 fitted some gigantic 44-inch rubbers to his General Lee impersonator. However, this story is neither about Fast and Furious nor the 1970 Charger.
Instead, our subject is a 1971 Charger arriving as a rendering by artist Oscar Vargas. While its creator can't figure out what it's for, we think this belongs in the dystopian Mad Max universe, but with a wetlands twist. Who's to say Alabama isn't flooded while the rest of the world is a nuclear wasteland?
There's an event called Pipeline From Hell where trucks race in the mud, sometimes using very skinny tractor tires (see video below). That's what this modified Charger would be good for - racing in a straight line, because those front tires don't look like they do much turning.
This rendering feels a little different from the majority of retro Chargers. That's because, for 1971, Chrysler redesigned its B-body coupes. They were supposed to be more modern-looking, and although the Coke bottle shape is present, the two ends of the car are a bit unusual.
The L37-code concealed headlamps are in line with your beloved R/T models from two years before, but there's a lot more rounded chrome in that bumper. For 1971, that distinctive Air Grabber hood might have been feeding a 440 Magnum V8 with a rating of 370 horsepower and 480 lb-ft. In fact, wb.artist20 always uses the most amazing incarnations of every car for his renderings.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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