Iowa Man Builds 1970 Charger R/T Out of Matchsticks
Matchstick Charger was built for the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum collection in honor of The Fast and the Furious films.
Usually, when a Dodge Charger project is built, there’s quite a few parts to go over, possibly to replace a rusted body panel or two, maybe a fresh set of heads for the 440 V8. The interior might even need some new leather and carpet to pull it all together.
No other Charger, though, requires thousands of matchsticks to come alive. Des Moines, Iowa NBC affiliate WHO-TV has the story of such a project, which currently resides over an hour northeast in the Matchstick Marvels Museum in Gladbrook, Iowa.
“For about six years, I’ve been contracting models with Ripley’s Believe it or Not,” said museum owner and artist Patrick Acton. “This is the 1970 Dodge Charger, the fully blown Charger, from The Fast and Furious movie.”
Acton spent 15 months and 3,000 hours building the 2/3-scale Charger, using 750,000 matchsticks and 20 gallons of glue to put it all together. The Charger includes a green-lit interior, functioning (and automated) hood, head and tail lamps, and the rear wheels move, too.
Other matchstick models in Acton’s museum include a replica of the space shuttle Challenger, the United States Capitol, the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, and the USS Iowa battleship.
“For somebody to take the time to sit down and glue a million matchsticks together to look like the Millennium Falcon, from Star Wars, there aren’t a lot of people who would take the time to do that,” said Acton. “This is literally a hobby gone mad.”
Acton’s museum is open April through November every day from 1 to 5 pm, though appointments can be made to see the models during the off-season. The Charger itself will be on display until June, when Ripley’s picks it up to display in one of its museums. And while we normally love Chargers doing burnouts, this is one we agree probably shouldn’t.
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