This Is How To Successfully Pull Off A 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona Restomod

The classic NASCAR muscle car racer got made in 503 units and is worth up to $1 million – now it returns with a modern body kit and upgrades for 2023.

It’s the return of the Dodge Charger Daytona nameplate: but perhaps not the return you’re thinking of. The Dodge Charger, like the Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro will die out with the current generation, but we’ve already seen the Dodge Charger SRT Daytona and it’s split opinions.

This returning Daytona is the real deal – the 1969 muscle car designed to go racing and full of purpose and style, an icon if there ever was one.

The thing is, the Charger here is a restomod which further splits opinion on whether you could/should permanently modify a rare classic worth $300,000.

Either way, the car you see before you is a render representation of the Daytona in restomod guise, which allows it to break into 2023’s competitive battleground and emerge a winner, just like in 1969. Let’s take a look at the render courtesy of HotCars artist Rostislav Prokop.

This car takes almost a unilateral approach to modification, while retaining pretty much all the things that made the classic so recognizable and likeable.

Things that made the Daytona and Plymouth Superbird work well like the long, low body; something so iconic and lost in that era.

Here, the Daytona gets presented in a great blue color all over its lowered, wide body kit. The wheels are 6-spoke chrome alloys and the design carries over the circular wing mirrors, rear lights and tail wing.

Major changes aside from the lowered and widened profile and wide wheels happen on the side where there are now air exits behind the front wheels, unlike the non-functional cutouts on the original legend.

Up front though are the major changes that set this car apart from the original in order to bring it up to date for 2023.

Instead of pop-up headlamps, the front has LED lights, which look cohesive alongside the rest of the design. Its hood has two large ducts and the front has a larger pointed splitter and grille which wasn’t a feature on the ’69 Daytona.

All in all, it’s still perhaps an acquired taste, but as far as restomods go the ’69 Daytona restomod cleverly retains all the features and idiosyncrasies that made the original car so unforgettable.

The wide wheels, stance, LED lights and body kit all change-up the recipe and take the Daytona into another gear – just as values have been doing. Values are always going to be high for a ’69-’70 homologation special from the golden years of the muscle car – only 503 got made.

Of those, the 375-hp 7.2-liter ‘Magnum’ V8 was standard fare, but 70 models got made with the sought-after 425-hp 7-liter HEMI V8, that commands an easy $1 million at auction nowadays – the ‘cheaper’ Magnum-engined machines only command $300,000 or so.