While it's always great to see a magnificent Mopar in a movie, the reality is that more often than not that beautiful piece of machinery is going to end up destroyed by the final frame. Recently, John Wick has sunk a Charger STX to bottom of the harbor and in the upcoming John Wick: Chapter 4, he rips the doors off of a '71 'Cuda, but Mopar murder is nothing new.

Beginning with the fiery death of a '68 Charger R/T in Bullitt, Hollywood has taken perverse pleasure in killing off some of the greatest street machines ever built. In Christine ('58 Plymouth Fury), and in The Wraith (Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor), the cars were actually the killers, but generally speaking, if a Mopar is in a movie, it's going to be murdered.

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A '68 Charger R/T That Wasn't Bullitt-Proof

The chase between a 1968 Charger R/T and a 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback, in the film Bullitt, is considered by many to be one of the best ever. The Mustang, piloted by Steve McQueen's character, chased the bad guys in the Charger through the winding streets of San Francisco in a truly thrilling cinematic sequence.

When the chase hit the open straights of the highway however, Mopar fans had a hard time accepting the premise. The 440-powered Charger's superior speed should have left McQueen's 390 'Stang in the dust. Instead, the Mustang kept pace and eventually sent the Charger careening into a gas station, exploding the Mopar in a spectacular ball of flames.

There were either two or three Chargers used in the film production and definitely 2 were destroyed. The possible 3rd R/T was said to be returned to a dealership in Glendale, California and eventually ended up in the hands of a collector. Though it can't be confirmed as one of the Chargers from the film, it makes this Moper murder a little less tragic to believe one survived.

The Vanishing 1970 Challenger R/T

The minimal plot for the 1971 film Vanishing Point is: a guy bets he can drive from Denver to San Francisco in less than two days, and then he pretty much just drives, occasionally races and frequently gets chased. The cool thing about it is that Barry Newman's character does all that driving in a white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T with a 440 4-speed.

The 390 horsepower beast was more than enough to outrun the cops or any challengers, but in the end it was that power that did the car in. In the dramatic finale, the Challenger plows full-speed into a barricade of bulldozers and explodes. Another Mopar bites the dust.

Or did it? The film used 8 Challengers, but the car that actually exploded was a Camaro loaded with explosives. The story doesn't have a happy ending, though, because the cars were returned to Dodge, and when the company saw that the movie promoted drugs and lawlessness, were so furious they had all eight Challengers crushed.

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A '71 'Cuda Gives Up The Ghost In Phantasm II

For the first Phantasm film, director, Don Coscarelli, bought a beat-up 1971 Plymouth Barracuda 340 and fixed it up to look like a 4-speed 440 Six-pack 'Cuda, which would have been one heck of a rare car. When it came time to do the sequel, Phantasm II, the original car was long gone, and he had to find another.

The production found four 1971 Barracudas with 318 engines, and again modified them to look like badass 440 'Cudas. In the film, the heroes are driven off the road by the Tall Man in a hearse, where the "Cuda flips and bursts into flames. Mopar fans gasped that a movie would destroy such an amazing piece of muscle, but luckily it was just a replica.

Of the four cars used in Phantasm, 3 were destroyed, but one survived and sits comfortably in Don Coscarelli's garage. It may not be the elusive 4-speed 440, but having been used in the film, its has serious collectible value. The director has said he would like to drop a 426 Hemi in the Barracuda, swapping out the rear end and springs for a full conversion.

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The General Lee Is A Mass Casualty Event

The General Lee is supposed to be 1969 Dodge Charger with a 440 engine but for the 2005 film The Dukes of Hazzard, producers used 26 1968 and 1970 Chargers, converting them to look like '69s. No doubt they had to use the wrong year cars because the original TV show trashed so many 1969 Chargers that there was a supply issue.

During the 6-year run of The Dukes of Hazzard television show, over 300 1969 Dodge Charger General Lees were destroyed. The show only made 147 episodes so that's a frightening ratio and qualifies as a Mopar mass casualty event. The film also destroyed quite a few Chargers, but its real crime was murdering the Dukes of Hazzard franchise.

The reason some many Chargers were destroyed in both the TV show and film is from all the jumping the General Lee had to do. Sticking the land on an 82-foot jump tends to bend the frame irreparably. Though an unacceptable amount of Chargers met their fate in The Dukes of Hazzard, approximately 17 Genral Lee cars still exist.

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Furious At The Destruction Of A '70 Charger R/T

The 1970 Dodge Charger R/T of the Fast & Furious film series was already murdered before it ever crashed because one way to upset Mopar purists is to modify one or even use incorrect parts. In the first film, The Fast and the Furious, the Charger featured a chrome supercharger that reportedly jacked the 426 Hemi up to 900 horsepower.

The Charger was trashed by a roll-over in the first movie, but fully restored in Fast & Furious. In Fast Five, the Charger is rear-ended by a prison bus and then rammed by an armored car. The Charger skipped Fast & Furious 6, but the original was back in Furious 7 only to be destroyed. Miraculously by F9, the Charger was in perfect shape, sitting in a garage.

The Fast & Furious franchise destroyed in excess of 2,000 cars, but the saddest were the multitude of Mopars. It wasn't just the '70 Charger R/Ts either, at least 6 1970 Challenger R/Ts with 426 Hemis were lost in the filming of 2 Fast 2 Furious.

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A Pattern of Violence

Hollywood is a habitual offender when it comes to killing Mopars. A 1967 Plymouth GTX convertible was trashed in Tommy Boy, a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner flew off a cliff in Moonshine County Express, and Death Proof wasted 2 second generation Chargers. This partial list barely touches the seriousness of the issue.

While it's great that amazing Mopars have starred in films, it is shameful that so many of them met such terrible fates. Why not kill a 1992 Geo Metro and let the '69 Coronet Super Bee ride off into the sunset?