A rare 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona set a new record for the model at auction on May 20 when it crossed the block for a staggering US$1.32 million.
Daytonas have been trading hands for six-figure sums for a long while, now, demand vastly outstripping a supply limited to just 503 factory-built examples. Within those half-a-thousand cars, assembled to homologate the nose-coned and trunk-winged Charger for NASCAR racing, were some 70 fitted with a 426 Hemi. And within those cars were just 22 that came with a four-speed stick, too.
If that wasn’t rare enough, this car happens to be the most highly optioned Charger Daytona currently known to exist, rocking goodies like power steering, brakes, and windows; and a factory center console and tach on the dash. It helps that it wears a handsome shade of F8 Dark Green Metallic with matching interior (and that’s not at all an opinion biased by the fact your author owns an F3 Light Green Metallic 1971 Plymouth).
The car has a rather tumultuous past, one recounted in the pages of Motor Trend, but at least that history is largely known; it is recorded to have for part of its early life worn a white stripe and white vinyl roof, seen at least eight different owners, and been restored two or three times.
The previous record for a Charger Daytona was also held by a Mecum-sold car, a Copper Metallic examples sold in Kissimmee in 2015 to actor David Spade, for US$900,000.
Crossing that threshold into seven-figure territory is quite a milestone, but it’s still a little off the top price paid for a vintage Mopar. That title belongs to another Hemi four-speed car, a 1971 ‘Cuda boasting something a Daytona never could: a convertible top. Such a car – one of about a dozen built – sold in 2014 for some US$3.5 million.