The Charger 500 was Dodge's first-pass NASCAR aerodynamics fix for 1969. The 1968–69 Charger's tunnelback rear glass and recessed grille were aerodynamic disasters at superspeedway speeds — Ford's 1968 Torino Talladega was clocking lap times the Charger couldn't match. Dodge's response: take a regular Charger body, install a flush rear backlight (taking the glass out of the tunnel), and install a flush A-pillar grille (cribbed from the 1969 Coronet) eliminating the recessed grille entirely. Both modifications were performed by Creative Industries in Detroit on donor Chargers; collector sources describe the donors as Lynch Road–built, but the specific assembly plant for the Charger 500 program is not directly confirmed in Wikipedia and is recorded here as widely-cited rather than fully verified.
Period factory framing — the 1969 Dodge Performance Models Brochure describes the Charger 500 verbatim as: 'Available only with the 426-cubic-inch Hemi V8 engine and either a 4-speed, full synchro transmission with Hurst shifter, or shiftable 3-speed automatic, the Charger 500 is offered specifically for the high-performance race track. It is available only to qualified performance participants and is being built to special order on a limited-production basis.' That's the 1969 dealer-brochure framing: Hemi-only, special-order, limited-production, race-only.
Production — period factory framing and later collector tabulations don't fully agree. NASCAR's 1969 homologation rule was 500 examples; Dodge built short of that. Collector sources commonly cite 392 cars total with 67 Hemi and the remainder 440 Magnum, yet the early Performance Models dealer brochure says the Charger 500 was Hemi-only by build spec. A second 1969 Dodge Facts brochure shows the Charger 500 in the regular nine-model 'Scat Pack' lineup with a published MSRP — this suggests publication chronology may be the reconciliation: the early Performance Models pre-publication framed the Charger 500 as Hemi-only special-order for NASCAR teams (≈67 cars per the registry tally), and the later Facts brochure reflects production extended to regular dealers with the 440 Magnum option opened up (the rest of the ~392 total). The discrepancy is unresolved on the public record; Plenum surfaces both figures rather than picking one. Either way, only the 1969 NASCAR season ran with the Charger 500 as Dodge's lead aero entry — the Daytona winged-car program (503 cars, exceeded the rule) followed almost immediately.
Body code XX29. The XX prefix marks the homologation variant on the broadcast sheet and fender tag.
Disambiguation note — '500' as a Charger trim name was reused for 1971–1974 in a completely different sense. The 1971 Dodge Charger-Coronet Brochure shows '500' as a regular mid-line Charger trim level (between base Charger and Charger R/T) — luxury hardtop with 318 V-8 standard, 3-speed manual on the column, vinyl bucket seats, simulated woodgrain dash, F78x14 tires. Period factory copy: '500. The sporty hardtop that's a real softy inside. It's soft on your budget, too.' That 1971-74 'Charger 500' is NOT this car. When decoding a 1971-74 Charger and the option block carries '500' it refers to the trim level, not a NASCAR homologation special.