The Dodge Challenger Message Board

I have a T/A Challenger and I would like to know the placement of the Challenger grille emblem and also the Pen Star emblem which goes on the right front fender. You all have been a great help in getting this thing back together and I sure hope somebody can help with this.There is only one way to put these fine Mopars together and that is the right way.

Well that is not exactly true.

You see. The guys on the assembly line were in a bit of a hurry and rather sloppy in their working practices. So the placement of parts like the stick-on badges and the grille emblem varied a little from guy to guy and shift to shift. As long as they were on straight and in the right area they passed inspection.

However I think the little pentstar emblem fits into a hole? So the placement of that would be exact. Can anyone confirm this?

I will scan a couple of images for you when I have time but there are plenty of images in books and on the 'net for you to use as reference.

Actually you could try asking Steve-R (Rizrtse) as he was very careful about the placement of the badges on his car. He does not have a T/A but he can tell you the exact placement for the fender badge. I do not have my car at the moment. It is in Scotland with Linda so I can't measure it.

I think as far as the grille emblem goes it should be centred verticaly and the last letter (the 'r') should be about 5 of the square holes from the edge?

But I think you will find there was some variation in real life.

The Penstar clips into one central hole and is prevented from turning by another slightly smaller hole. I measured mine and the centre is 2" above the lower character line and 6 7/8" forward of the fender rear edge.

On my grille the final r of challenger is 10 holes in from the left and centred (centered?) top to bottom. The R/T script fits in the gap between script and grille edge with the R being level or on the same line as it were as the script.

Of course this may not be original as this car has been rebuilt so I guess you need some other measurements to confirm these.

Thank you all again for your input.You all are a great bunch of people. I will wait patiently for any pics and further info as far as the placement of these particular items. You see my T/A had been painted before and the penstar emblem was glued back on and obviously the hole for the emblem was covered therefore I have nothing to go by because of that. If anybody can even give a website that can also give me an illustration that would be great. I am getting a bit anxious because this project is nearing the end. I don't want to get careless now especially this far into it.Even though summer is almost gone the T/A will be done and then I can post some pics here.

I found a few interesting pictures last night but didn't have time to scan them. They all show the front grille badge in different places. In one shot (taken from a Dodge advertisement) you can see that the Challenger R/T script is not even close to straight!

I will try to scan them tonight.

Thanks Dave

Ok here we go.

This first one is a brand spanking new 1970 R/T being given to Bobby Isacc as part of his prize for winning the Texas 500. See how crooked the badge is?



Now this is factory photo of a R/T. OK it is a pre-production photo taken in the summer of '69 but I have seen the odd Challenger with a badge this low on more than one occasion.



This next one is a factory photo from 1969.



Lets move on to the T/A. I have 3 photos here for you. The first one was taken in 1970. The other two could be restorations but I don't know.





I hope this helps??

To sum this up I think the 'correct' distance of the Challenger script from the right edge of the grille as you look at it is 10 or 11 holes. The examples I have found are between 5 and 12 holes. The factory did not seem to worry about the exact placement or even if the badges were straight in their own publicity shots so I would not worry about it either.

As Dave states their probably is no "code" location other than the holes predrilled for the pentastar emblem. I suggest looking inside your fender for the holes and punching them out. The challenger script is best approximated by looking at a few TAs from photos or in person and placing them there. I went crazy trying to find the exact location for the challenger/RT script that went on the trunk, only to eyeball it in the end! Too many cars had them in different (1/2" either way) locations. I wouldn't do this with the fender emblems since they were supposed to be mounted in predrilled holes, so I made sure the dummies at the shop left them open. Good Luck, T/As are hard to find regardless.

After reading this I went and looked at my badge and its on the oppisit side , however there are some markes in the alloy where it was placed from the fatory.

It sure helps alot. thanx all again.