As seen in our cover story, the original Challenger was versatile: Musclecar, road racer, and Indy pacer were but three of its guises. Along with its E-Body sister, the Plymouth Barracuda, the Big Bad Dodge played major roles in the evolution of drag racing in the early 1970s. Super Stock was still popular, as was a new class called Pro Stock. Funny Cars had defined themselves and were huge crowd-pleasers, with their "flopper"-style bodies and 150-yard-long prerun burnouts.
Challengers ran all three categories. "Dandy" Dick Landy was a consummate Mopar door-slammer driver of the day and a force to be reckoned with at any NHRA or AHRA event. A big guy, Landy was always seen chomping on a cigar. This photo of Landy aboard his S/S Challenger was taken at SoCal's Lions Drag Strip in 1971 on his way to another high-nine-second pass. Note the left front tire has cleared the tarmac. Lions closed the following year, and Landy passed away in January 2007. But the Challenger is coming back for another slice of the modern musclecar pie.
Coverage: April 1968
"1969-Year of the Electrics?" The answer turned out to be no, and this is a question we're still asking four decades on. The pint-size battery-powered city car featured on the cover was called the Amitron, a joint venture between American Motors and researcher Dr. Leslie K. Bulton. Motor Trend sponsored the NASCAR round at Riverside International Raceway, which was won that year by Dan Gurney. Again. For the fifth time, in fact.