I don't hate the 1971-1974 Dodge Charger. I hope no fans of that generation take this the wrong way, but I've never warmed up to its design. Overall, there's an incongruity between the front and rear halves, with the front fenders pinching toward the front looped bumper like an eel and the rear quarter and sail panels looking more like the undersea blob eating the eel. Nothing aft of the B-pillar contributes a defining line, so it all comes across as amorphous, heavy, and uninspiring.

But something about this 1974 Dodge Charger listed for sale on Hemmings.com stopped me in my scrolling. This one looks lithe, muscular and taut, like the rightful successor of the famed 1968-1970 generation of Chargers. Could be the lack of a vinyl top — Dodge's designers tried a few different vinyl tops during this period that I feel did nothing to help the blobbiness of the car's back half — but I've seen plenty of cars of this generation sans vinyl tops to know that's not it.

Instead, it's those blue stripes — heavy across the full length of the bottom and more delicate over the belt line, accompanied by a blue highlight just aft of the quarter window — that give the car a completely different character. I'm no car designer, but it's easy to see how the bottom stripes give the car a visual foundation, while the belt line stripe picks out a defining line that separates the quarter and the sail panels, and ultimately ties the back and the front halves together. Even that bit of blue behind the quarter window contributes by giving the daylight opening a longer appearance.

While the back half of the car does start to look like a first-generation Mercury Cougar with these stripes (and with that wing), I see this as a marked improvement over stock. Dodge did offer a pinstripe along the beltline throughout this generation, though I haven't yet determined the origin of that lower full-length stripe. Kudos to whomever designed it.

Tell us in the comments below which stripe and graphics packages — either offered from the factory or whipped up by a customizer — have proven most effective over the years. Which would you choose to revamp a car or truck of your choosing? And for those of you talented with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, include some renderings of your own effective stripe and graphics treatments.