Image: BozeForged.com

There’s a chasm between the purists and the performance-enthusiasts. That’s not to say muscle car purists don’t love high performance as much as anyone else, but the purists would rather forgo the benefits of modern fuel injection, multi-stage nitrous, water/methanol injection, and superchargers just to keep their cars looking more stock. It’s a “personal taste thing” they say. Well, those unafraid of straying from outdated technology are really enjoying a renaissance of muscle cars that can do just about everything.

Take a good look at the all the bodywork that went into smoothly incorporating the grille and front bumper into the quarters and bottom fascia. A lot of manhours were obviously spent to make this Charger as clean as it is.

Call it a street machine, a cool custom, a Pro Tourer, or a g-Machine, Tom Boldry’s wicked black-on-red ’69 Dodge Charger R/T is a perfect example of old-meets-new. The Kansas City, Missouri native brought his shaved, smoothed, and Frenched HEMI Charger to last year’s Good Guys annual Street Machine auto cross event in Columbus, Ohio. There, Boldry placed in the Top 5 for the Street Machine of the Year awards.  The beautiful ’69 Charger stood out among the Pro Touring crowd, and showed that classic muscle can play ball with the late-model toys.

A beautiful blend of old and new, the 472 HEMI is fed with modern fuel inection and rests in an engine compartment made for a king. Check out the custom dual-inlet cold air intake.

Boldry commissioned in-town muscle car and hot rod specialists, Rock’s Rod & Custom to build the never-before-seen Charger. Getting the massive 4,000-pound B-Body to handle like a car half its size took quite a bit of work. Up front, Rock’s replaced the factory engine cradle with a Magnum Force tubular K-member with drop spindles, QA-1 shocks and all tubular upper and lower A-arms. Getting the tail to hook up was equally challenging, requiring hand-fabricated frame rails with a triangulated 4-bar with QA-1 coil over shocks.

Propelling the clean machine is a growling 472ci HEMI topped with INDY aluminum cylinder heads and a high-tech Mass-Flow fuel injection system. Snorkeling air to the hungry elephant is a very custom dual inlet cold air intake system funneling air through the grille and chin spoiler into a polished aluminum air box. Behind the King Kong plant is a Tremec 5-speed manual gearbox spinning a Ford 9-inch rear axle housing filled with a Detroit Tru-Trac differential. Putting all that horsepower to the pavement are a set of black powder-coated Boze Friction rims with custom “R/T” cap engravings; 18×8s up front and 20×10s in the rear.