No, Replacing the Flag on Bubba Watson's General Lee is Not Like Painting a Mustache on the Mona Lisa

Getting caught up in the current controversy over the Confederate battle flag, pro golfer Bubba Watson has announced that he’s going to paint over the Army of Northern Virginia’s flag on the roof of the authentic Dukes of Hazard General Lee Dodge Charger that he owns, and replace it with the stars and stripes of the American flag. I have no desire to rehash the controversy over the Confederate battle flag, but I do want to address an opinion that I’ve seen raised in comments about Watson’s decision.

A number of people have suggested that because Watson’s car is an authentic vehicle that was used in filming the television series, painting over the flag would degrade the car’s value as a collectible. From what I know about TV cars in general and about the history of the cars used in filming the Dukes of Hazzard show, that’s not likely. From what I know about collectible cars, even if Watson does repaint it, that might actually increase its value.

Watson’s car is historically significant as TV and movie cars go and not just because it was one of the 300 or so Chargers used to film the series. Watson’s car was the actual vehicle used to film the signature car jump seen every episode in the show’s opening credits. It was also labeled General Lee #1 by the production team (or should that be 01 The landing for that jump wasn’t exactly soft. The car was wrecked and disposed of by the studio, eventually sitting in an Atlanta area junkyard for more than two decades before an Indianapolis based Dukes of Hazzard fan bought and restored it. Watson acquired it for $110,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction in 2012.

Bubba Watson tweeted out this photo when he bought his General Lee

Because of its use in that scene, it’s probably one of the two most valuable General Lees out of the 17 that have survived — the other valuable Charger being the “hero car” used in shooting scenes with the human stars of the show, which we featured at TTAC recently.

Besides the monetary value, there’s the car’s value as a cultural artifact. Some see painting over the flag as akin to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. That level of hyperbole aside, the thing is that I like the idea of property rights. If you owned the Mona Lisa and wanted to paint a mustache on it, I might call you a cultural philistine, but it’s your painting to preserve or deface at your will. The General Lee is Watson’s to do with what he wants.

Getting back to dollars and cents, I don’t think Watson would be doing any sort of damage to the car or its value by putting a different flag on it. As mentioned above, the car was wrecked in the filming of the show and later restored in Indianapolis. The flag that’s currently on Watson’s car was not painted by the shop in California that made the first handful of General Lees for Warner Bros. It was painted during the restoration. It’s not an original artifact.

As the saying goes, it’s only original once. A corollary is that once it’s no longer original, changing it is usually no big thing.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Illinois farmer John Grafelman, who may have the coolest barn find ever. He found designer Larry Shinoda’s personal Boss 302 Mustang prototype, used as both a styling prototype and development car for Ford’s Trans Am racing program, in his own barn. Grafelman had bought it many years earlier in the 1970s but didn’t find out what it really was until relatively recently, when he began an extensive restoration that was just completed last year.

One of the 1969 Boss 302 Mustang’s signature styling elements are the C-shaped stripes that adorn the car’s flanks. On the production cars, the stripe was applied with a then new 3M film that reflected light at night. The prototype stripes, though, were painted, and when I spoke with Grafelman I asked him how he could have “restored” something that historical, effectively destroying it. John showed me archival photos from Ford’s styling studio that showed how the car had a number of iterations of the stripe with different lettering: SR2 (the model’s original internal designation), BOSS, and 302, before settling on the production car’s BOSS 302. When Grafelman bought the car, the stripe was solid black, with no lettering at all. He decided to restore it to how it looked in the studio, with just BOSS.

Just as John Grafelman didn’t degrade the value of his one of a kind vehicle by repainting stripes that had already been repainted a few times, neither would Bubba Watson devalue his General Lee by putting an American Flag on it. Like with the first restoration, it could always be brought back to look original.

If anything, should Watson go through with his plans to repaint the roof of his car, he might actually increase its value by adding to General Lee 1’s story. It’s a funny thing about original vs custom. It often depends on who is doing the customization. I wouldn’t let George Barris touch any car I owned, but I’m pretty sure than any “customization” George does to a car most likely increases its value. The flat screen video screens he put in the back of the Monkeemobile didn’t keep it from fetching more than $300K at auction.

The same would likely be true if Watson puts the Stars and Stripes on his General Lee (historical note: the real General Robert E. Lee served under the U.S. flag prior to the Civil War, so while a General Lee with an American flag might not be historically accurate to the TV series, it would have some historical basis). It certainly wouldn’t degrade the value of the car as a collectible. Regardless of which flag is on the car, neither would be original. Watson could replace the General Lee’s orange with pink in support of breast cancer research and it wouldn’t decrease the value of the car. He could replace the flag on the roof with the black nationalist red, green and black flag, or with a gay-friendly rainbow flag and neither would decrease the value of the car as a collectible.

It’s only original once.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS