At the beginning of the movie, the General was a faded orange with a hand-painted "01" on the doors, black steel wheels, standard front bumper, and no Confederate flag. Midway through the film, Cooter repairs the General after it's vandalized by Boss Hogg's hirelings. He repaints it a bright orange and adds the well-known trademarks (American Racing "Vector" 10-spoke "turbine" wheels, octagonal "01", black grille guard, Confederate flag on the roof, "Dixie" horn, and "General Lee" above the door window openings). In the film, the Confederate flag on the roof is made an object of conflict on two occasions. In the first occasion, the Dukes are stuck in an Atlanta traffic jam. During this time passing drivers make remarks towards them that alternate between cheering the South and condemning them as practicing racism, leaving the Duke boys puzzled; the last to comment says, "Nice roof, redneck!..join the rest of us in the twenty-first century?!" and displays obscene hand gestures. Mystified, Bo and Luke slide out of the windows so they could sit on the windowsill to look at the roof and, to their horror, discover the flag. In the second incident, the Dukes wind up with coal dust on their faces, giving them the appearance of driving around in blackface; they stop at a traffic light and some African American youths notice this and the Confederate flag on the General. The youths come to the conclusion that the Dukes are making a racist statement and are about to give them a physical opinion of their roof graphic and facial appearance. Just as the youths were about to assault Bo and Luke, two black police officers show up and throw the Dukes in jail. The movie General not only flies and makes controlled landings, but also drifts with the aid of professional drifter Rhys Millen. During jump scenes, some stunt cars were jumped under their own power by stunt drivers; others had their engines and transmissions removed. The engineless Chargers were then launched without drivers by a gas-driven catapult similar in principle to those used on aircraft carriers. Approximately 24 1968 to 1970 Chargers were used in the film.
Unlike the TV show era Lees, the movie cars used aftermarket graphic kits. The movie gave them new credibility and are no longer considered to be an inaccurate choice. Otherwise, except for the white letters on the Goodrich Radial T/A tires, the exterior of the movie's "close-up" General Lees varied little from the TV show cars. The paint was Big Bad Orange (an American Motors Corporation color) rather than Corvette Flame Red; the interior headliner was black instead of tan, an actual roll cage was used; a 3-spoke Grant wood-trimmed steering wheel replaced the standard wheel, an AM/FM stereo radio with Compact Disc player was installed in the dashboard; and the interiors were a custom color vinyl fabric made to look like the dye/paint used in the later eras of the TV show. One still can differentiate the '68 Chargers by looking at the dash pad, but now 1970 Chargers were thrown in the mix. The cars somewhat resembled a late 1990s to early 2000s General Lee clone, but the overall flavor of the General Lee is still obvious. On all of the cars, the back-up lights and side marker lenses were removed, the openings filled in.