Looking back at the muscle cars of the ‘60’s, we are often struck with a sense of awe at what the major car manufacturers were putting out on the street. Many of these cars were essentially street-legal race cars. Because of rules in Trans Am and NASCAR that insisted the race cars had to be street-legal production vehicles, manufacturers went to great length to build and sell these production race cars to the public.

Watching this video, it seems that these facts weren’t lost on auto journalists of the time. Muscle Car Films brings us this vintage review of the 1969 Dodge Charger 500 HEMI, one of the rarest and most sought-after muscle cars of all time.

Introduced for the 1969 model year, the Dodge Charger 500 was a response to Dodge losing in NASCAR to the slipperier Fords. Dodge engineers went to the wind tunnel, taking the Charger through a battery of tests to improve its aerodynamics. Improvements included making the rear window flush with the roof and adding a ’68 Coronet grille. Going with the smoother rear window added 2-3 mph at high speeds.

The car in this video was exceptionally rare; only 67 of the 500 Dodge Charger 500’s were ordered with the HEMI 426 engine. Despite this potent powerplant, it took 6.9 seconds to reach 60 mph, which the narrator says is “fast enough to wipe the stripes off.” It did manage to knock the quarter mile down in 14.1 seconds with “more tire spin than a Las Vegas roulette table.”

This Charger 500 is particularly rare as it rides on a set of 15-inch Kelsey Hayes rims which were recalled nearly as soon as they were available. Chrysler rushed to replace these rims before customer delivery, but several examples have survived since their September 1968 recall. The testers also managed to get a laughable 7 mpg. Perhaps because of all the spirited testing they did around their track.