Finale

Final tri count: 10,173 - a little over the 10k.

Hindsight
Looking back over the past month it feels like I have put in a lot of work for this and dealt with many issues especially shader related ones. Not being a vehicle person I'm pretty happy with the outcome despite the barn not quite turning out how I imagined.
The wheels could have been less tris and there could have been more decals and livery on the car as it seems pretty bland towards the rear. Making the lights, both back and front, emissive and on for the final shot could have been a nice oppurtunity for interesting lighting situations. Also alpha-masking the windows slightly to make them tinted but able to show the silhouette of the seats and steering wheel would've been nice and added depth to the vehicle.

Overall I enjoyed working on this for the most part, all seemed to go pretty smoothly until the shaders and although that was a headache I feel a lot better for doing it.

Here's a final sendoff for my vehicle:

Turn it up to 720

Programs used
3DS Max
Photoshop
Xnormal
Crazybump
Grabviewport2.5

Skipping ahead

I've not posted anything in a while. I'm done now. Yup.

Here are a couple renders in Nitrous. (3DS Default renderer) These still have the reflection map from the example scene provided and the god rays are actually working.

Now here is a viewport render using Grabviewportv2.5 which for some reason darkens the image although I'm not going to complain as the horribly ineffective shaders we had to use really mess with tonal values, among many other things.

Here's the same image with some post-processing. I like the warm evening light and the smoke from the exhaust causing interesting lighting situations. I'm probbaly going to take this one a lot further before presenting.

Materials

Had a mess around with the shaders today making material balls:
boop

Final Model.

Added the horns and exhausts. Sitting at 9,961 tris.

To follow:
Unwrapping
Environment
Texturing
Shader use
Final snapshot

Environment

Well I've still got some stuff to add t the vehicle like the high poly bake for the wheel but I felt like doing the environment to see it in a setting.

The Dodge Charger is a very well known car and famous for several reasons, one being the Dukes of Hazard.

I'd liked to have done my still-frame with the car going through a barn like this however I neglected the underside a great deal. I'm going to settle for the inside of a barn. Like the one below.

Here is an overview of what I've mashed together so far.

Reference

A little reasoning behind my design choices:

I was unsure which wheel alloy to go for as there are so many that look good however I knew I wanted one that fit the era of the Charger even though they're still driven today. After a little chat with a peer, the ATS Classic Rim took my eye as it looks interesting while not being too complicated/tri heavy and includes a good deal of detail that can be normal mapped.

As for the spoiler, the Dodge Charger is often modified into the car below called the 'Daytona' Charger which is used a lot in NASCAR. 

Update 13th November

10,000 tri limit has been breached, I'm pretty sure the wheels are to blame for this being at near 2.5k each; so I'll go back to them and take out some edges, hopefully taking away at least 300-400 tris so I can get the buffalo horns on the front as well as the necessary exhaust, fuel cap and basic seating where the silhouette will be visible through tinted windows.