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A 1970 Dodge Charger 500 in Hemi Orange that has stayed with the same owner for 53 years is up for auction on Hagerty Marketplace, where the 318-powered coupe sat at a $26,000 high bid after nine bids, with the auction scheduled to close Thursday, November 19, at 2:05 p.m. EST. It is not a Hemi, a six-pack or an R/T, and it is not numbers-matching. It is a long-held, honestly described, second-generation Charger, and that makes it one of the more interesting ways into the model right now.
The seller says he bought the car in 1973 and has kept it ever since. Along the way the engine was replaced with a long block at 160,391 miles, and the interior, carpet, headliner and vinyl top were redone. The odometer reads 62,708 miles, but the seller reports it has rolled over, which puts the actual figure at just over 162,700. The listing also says plainly that the original engine is gone: when a bidder asked, the seller answered that it no longer exists.
What this Charger 500 actually is
The trim tag tells the story. The Charger 500 name in 1970 was a trim level rather than the NASCAR-homologation special it had been in 1969, and Hagerty notes that the 1970 version lost the previous year's flush rear window and exposed headlights. What you get is the loop-bumper, hidden-headlight car with bucket seats and nicer trim. This one was built at the St. Louis plant, left the factory in Hemi Orange (code EK2) with a full black vinyl roof, and was ordered with the E44 318 cubic-inch V8, rated at 230 horsepower with a two-barrel carburetor, and the D31 TorqueFlite automatic.
Other factory equipment includes power brakes, a center console, a Music Master AM radio, a left-hand remote racing mirror and three-speed variable wipers. Changes since then are modest: dual exhaust, a cassette deck, and the new interior parts. The seller lists the known flaws up front, including a dashboard cut for the cassette deck and holes in the muffler. The car is offered with a clean California title in the seller's name and is located in Pioneer, California.
What the Hagerty value tools say about the market
The more useful question is where $26,000 sits. Hagerty's valuation tools list this exact configuration, a 1970 Charger 500 two-door hardtop with the 318 and 230 horsepower, with a #3 Good-condition range of roughly $35,800 to $46,200. Hagerty says a typical good-condition example with average spec trades around $39,900. Values for the car have been soft rather than hot, down about 2.9 percent over the past year and about 2 percent across three years, with no change last quarter.
Depth of data helps here. Hagerty has tracked 441 sales of 1970 Charger 500s at public auction in the last three years, with a high of $352,000 and a low of $5,768. The most recent was a $70,350 result at Bring a Trailer on October 16. That spread is a reminder of how much engine, originality and condition move the number. Across the broader 1968 to 1970 Charger group, Hagerty counted 79 sales in the past 12 months worth $13.4 million, a 23 percent increase in the number of cars sold, though the $169,800 average is pulled up by the rare big-block and Hemi cars at the top of the range.
That is the lens for this listing. A replacement long block and a non-original drivetrain keep this Charger away from the top of the market, and a 318 car will never be mistaken for an R/T. Hagerty's model notes point out that the R/T was the one that came standard with the 375-horsepower 440, and that only 112 buyers paid for the 425-horsepower Street Hemi while another 116 took the 390-horsepower 440 Six Pack. Total 1970 Charger production was 49,800, so the base-engine cars are the ones most people could actually afford new, and the ones most owners kept driving.
Why it is worth a look
With a week left on the clock, the current bid is below the bottom of Hagerty's Good range, though bidding on cars like this tends to move late and the listing has already drawn 3 comments and thousands of views. The condition of the paint and body is the open question: another commenter asked when the car was last painted and whether it has ever had rust or body repair, and at last check that question was still unanswered. Photos run to 140, so bidders have plenty to study.
If you want context on what the same body style looks like at different points on the ladder, we have covered several. See this non-numbers-matching 1970 Charger 500 that was pitched as an affordable alternative, an eBay Charger 500 that needed some TLC, and a 1970 Charger R/T 440 in the same Hemi Orange from a Utah collection. For the high end of the Mopar world, our rundown of the top special-edition Chargers and Challengers ever built is a good companion read.
As always with Hagerty Marketplace, the listing is built from information supplied by the seller, so bidders are responsible for their own due diligence on condition, history and registration. Values cited above come from Hagerty's valuation tools as of October 2026 and are estimates, not guarantees of what any individual car will bring.
