Muscle Car Files
Ouch! If your eyes hurt from these eye-popping orange muscle cars… well, that’s the point, as Tony explains…
For some reason, the buying public have always been suckers when it comes to orange cars – and not much has changed, as they still purchase this retina-burning colour in their droves, with nearly every car manufacturer offering tangerine dream machines. Orange cars really came to the forefront in the late Sixties and early Seventies, as car designers pushed wild bright colours on to the car-buying public, breaking away from the more mundane colours of the Forties and Fifties; the ‘Big Three’ had their versions and even AMC came to the party. Rewind to 1968 with the arrival of the second-generation Dodge Charger, a car that commanded admiration in its own right... then paint that car a bright orange and it’s unmissable, even from the moon! Also new for 1968 was the Cincinnati Bengals American football team and, to celebrate their inaugural year, the owners ordered 50 Chargers from Tom Kneer Dodge of Cincinnati, all painted Tiger Orange, a special-order colour. Team owner Barry Buse took delivery of a car, as did other star players, and the majority were promotional vehicles for that football franchise. The cars were built as a batch and included six-cylinder, 318cu in V8, 383cu in V8 and 12 R/T 440cu in V8 models. All had black vinyl roofs with black interiors and as the dealership had ordered 50, Chrysler added the black bumble bee stripes for free. All the Chargers had special Bengal Tiger emblems on the front wings, floor mats with logos, front and rear bumper guards and Magnum 500 road wheels. Chrome rocker trims further enhanced these heavily optioned B-bodies. The colour chosen started out intended for Michigan State Highway vehicles around 1964. A few years later the hue became known as Omaha Orange which could be requested as code 99 or 999 Special Order; this designation encompassed other paints as well. On February 1, 1969 Chrysler included the shade in its colour codes as K2, morphing into EK2 Vitamin C or Go Mango for Dodges and became standardised for 1970. Chrysler factory-painted orange cars from 1968/69 are scarce and valuable as they were built in such small numbers. I have seen two examples in the UK, both ’69 cars: a Dodge Super Bee A12 lift-off hood 440cu in six-pack finished in Go Mango and a ’69 383cu in Plymouth Road Runner, with original Vitamin C patina’d paint, but alas no fender tag. I guess the most famous orange-painted Mopar has to be the 1969 Dukes of Hazzard Dodge Charger 01 General Lee… but with the way things are now, that’s a different story entirely! Moving along to General Motors, their contribution to bright paints included the famous Hugger Orange, branded Monaco Orange on the Corvette, with the same code: 990. Although Hugger Orange appeared in 1969, the colour traces back to Road Commission Orange available on ’67 Camaros. The ‘Hugger’ term refers to advertisements that promoted the Camaro as hugging the road, as its new handling prowess, low posture and wide two-door sportiness gave it mass appeal. For ’69 the hue was elevated to the car’s signature colour. For 1971 Burnt Orange replaced the Hugger hue. A 1969 factory-painted Hugger Orange Camaro ZL-1 sold at auction earlier this year for a record-breaking $1.1 million, making it the most expensive ZL-1 on the planet. Over at Ford they recognised the importance of bold, bright colours, so they came up with Grabber Orange and subsequently other vivid ‘Grabber’ colours, to ‘grab’ your attention. For 1968 Madagascar Orange was one of 13 ‘rainbow’ special colours that could be ordered on Mustangs, with Grabber Orange appearing on Shelby Mustangs in very limited numbers for 1969. Ford and Mercury released the colour for 1970, of which around 8% of the total Mustangs were painted Grabber Orange. Mercury continued with the shade into 1971, but only for the Cyclone Spoiler. So lastly, we come to American Motors, for 1969/70 the Javelin and AMX. These were offered as a ‘Big Bad Colour’ option. Only three colours were available: blue, green and orange. For ’69 the cars came with body-coloured bumpers and special front trim, although 1970 saw a return to chrome bumpers and the package did not return for 1971. Only 941 ’69 Javelins were painted orange, with only 60 for 1970. AMX numbers were extremely low as well: 283 ’69s and 122 for ’70. To sum up then, any factory-painted orange muscle car from the period is a rarity – not only are they highly collectable and sought after, they are incredibly a-peeling!