The Surviving Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry Charger: The Car That Lived

If you’ve seen Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, you probably remember the ending.

Peter Fonda’s bright yellow-green 1969 Dodge Charger is running flat-out when it comes to a railroad crossing. A freight train appears almost out of nowhere.

The Charger hits it.

Boom.

End of car. End of movie.

Except that wasn’t the only Charger used to make the film.

And more than 50 years later, one of the Chargers used during production is reported to still be alive and well in California’s San Fernando Valley.

[EMBED VIDEO HERE]

Three Chargers, One Movie

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry was filmed in California in 1973 and released in 1974. Director John Hough wanted the chase sequences to look real—and they were.

There was no CGI. These cars were being driven hard, damaged and repaired so filming could continue.

According to Hough’s commentary about the film, the production used three Dodge Chargers: two 1969 models and one 1968.

That’s an interesting detail because sharp-eyed viewers still catch the ’68 in the movie. It’s also something car guys continue to argue about more than 50 years later.

The cars were dressed to appear as the same bright yellow-green Charger, complete with the distinctive black side stripe and 440 callout.

That stripe wasn’t a factory Dodge design. It was part of the movie car’s appearance—and today it’s almost impossible to see that combination without thinking of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.

When the Charger Takes Over the Movie

The Charger isn't actually the getaway car at the beginning of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.

Larry and Deke initially make their escape in a 1966 Chevrolet Impala. But once they switch cars, the Charger takes over.

And that's when the movie really comes alive.

What makes those chase scenes so much fun to watch today is that the cars are actually being driven.

Hard.

The suspension moves. The tires work. The cars get unsettled. Things bend and break.

There’s no computer-generated car floating perfectly through a corner. You're watching real cars, real roads and real stunt driving.

It looks real because it was real.

And Then There Was the Train

Even people who haven't watched the movie in years tend to remember the ending.

Larry and Mary are blasting down the road in the Charger when they reach a railroad crossing.

Then comes the train.

The Charger slams into it and explodes.

The railroad crossing wasn't originally supposed to be the ending of the movie. Hough later explained that the railroad crossings around the California filming locations gave him the idea to change the ending.

One of the production Chargers was sacrificed to create the sequence.

The resulting collision became one of the most memorable—and abrupt—endings of the classic car-chase era.

If you watched the movie without knowing multiple Chargers were involved, there was absolutely no reason to think one of them might still exist.

But apparently, one does.

What Happened to the Other Chargers?

This is where the story gets a little murky.

More than five decades later, there are conflicting accounts of exactly what happened to each individual production car.

One widely repeated history says one of the surviving Chargers was repaired after filming, sold through the movie industry's pool-car system and eventually wrecked in another accident later in the 1970s.

The history of the other 1969 Charger is considerably more interesting.

It was reportedly purchased after filming and ended up with a private owner in Sun Valley, California, in the San Fernando Valley.

Reports and photographs of the car indicate that it retained important pieces of its movie appearance, including the distinctive paint, black stripe and wheels.

That's the Charger you're looking at in the video above.

Is This Really the Sole Survivor?

This is where I'm going to be careful.

You'll find plenty of references calling this the only surviving Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry Charger.

You'll also find conflicting information about which production car performed which stunt, which car was a genuine R/T, what engines were actually installed in the individual cars and exactly what happened to the others after filming.

That's not particularly surprising.

These weren't historically significant collector cars when the movie was being made in 1973.

They were used cars purchased to make an action movie.

Nobody involved was thinking about documenting every VIN so car enthusiasts could sort out the history more than half a century later.

So I'm not going to manufacture certainty where the historical record doesn't provide it.

What we can say is that a surviving Charger attributed to the production has been documented in Southern California and retains the unmistakable appearance associated with the movie.

If the generally accepted history is correct, we're looking at the sole surviving Charger from Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.

Looks Pretty Good for Hitting a Train

Obviously, the Charger you're looking at isn't literally the same car you watch explode against the locomotive.

That's the joke behind the opening of my video:

THIS CAR SURVIVED.

Well...

One of them did.

And that's what makes seeing this footage so cool.

We're looking at a car connected to a movie made more than 50 years ago, during an era when stunt cars were routinely crashed, jumped, rolled, blown up and discarded when production ended.

Nobody knew a 1969 Charger would someday become a highly desirable collector car.

Nobody knew people would still be watching Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry half a century later.

And nobody was worrying about preserving a piece of movie history.

Yet apparently, one escaped.

More Than Just an Old Charger

For me, this isn't simply about identifying another old movie car.

Cars like this are time machines.

If you grew up watching movies like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, Bullitt, Vanishing Point and the other great driving movies of that era, the cars became characters themselves.

You remember the sound.

You remember the chase scenes.

And if you've seen Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, you definitely remember that Charger hitting the train.

That's why discovering that one of the Chargers connected to the movie apparently survived all these years later is so damn cool.

The movie ended with a Charger exploding against a locomotive.

The story of the car didn't.

— Troy Kane, VtwinsToV8s

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