Hey guys I had my chally in a car show the other day. It was the only mopar there, aside from a couple of new challengers. the majority of the cars there were novas and first generation crapmaros. Anyhow I didnt do worth a squat... only cars that won anything were cars that were sponsored by a company or car club. And it was in the unfinished class. Anyways I had my buildsheet on display and I got to looking at it and noticed at the very bottom of it in the margin it says Comments

01 Special Handling Car

What does that mean? And How common is it? I don't know why I just never noticed it before lol.

 

my guess is heavyduty springs, shocks, brakes and swaybars, could be wrong,

 

If you have a true ralley Challenger, it would be the beefier suspension.

 

From what I have learned over the years, "special handling" was for the dealer. Some cars recieved dealer applied stripes, or wheel/tire packages, or dealer installed a/c. Sometimes these were either police cars, taxi cabs, special order cars that were outside the "normal" production items.

Unusual but not all that uncommon.

 

I googled special handling car, and I only found one thing on it. It was another forum and a guy was pretty much just as clueless as me asking about it. And they replied with almost exactly what you said. That it was for the dealer, and a lot of times it was for police cars and taxi cabs and what not. I don't know for sure but I don't believe their were any E body taxi cabs or police cars. But one of them also said that some of them were also marked as "Special Handling Car" to let the manufacturer know to take great care in building the car and pay attention to detail with it so it could be a show room car. But I was thinking like the other guys that it was aiming toward suspension. But that really threw me off cause its not a rally car. So I'm guessing that your suggestion and the other forum I found are correct. Just wish there were a way to find out exactly why it was marked as a special handling car. It doesn't have A/C. It has manual brakes not power, It has power steering. It has a vinyl top (used to be white) Infact its the original top it has just been painted black at some point in time. other than that it was just a basic coupe 318 2 barrel, 904 tranny slapstick shifter. just had a flat hood on it no spoiler. Pretty much just a basic coupe, and it used to be dark metallic green. And the green interior to match. Not even a tach. Just a plane jane coupe, as far as I can tell.

 

Could just mean "special handling" for shipping and prep purposes. I.E. "put a drip-pan under it so it doesn't leak all over the other cars on the carrier!" HaHa! It was the 70's!

 

I have seen the term "special handling car" on the build sheets for police service cars. These cars came with bigger sway bars, special shock absorbers, springs, and sometimes frame reinforcements. They also came with a cooler for the power steering fluid, and a different steering box.

I don't know if this classification was used on other cars or not, as I have never seen one.

 

Yea, the special handling wasn't about how well the car drove, but how it was built/treated between the assembly line and the dealer. A police package didn't mean it was built to road race, but that it was a "police package, look closer mr wrench turner and get it right".

 

Bumping an old thread however i saw this build placard on a 1991 imperial advertised on craigslist and googling took me to this thread.
Placard says "Special Handling Show Car"

https://vancouver.craigslist.ca/van/...234453907.html

 

Police car usually. Or sometimes they would use them as showroom cars.