Can someone please post a picture of the fender mounting hardware showing the correct position of the bolts and studs/nuts?

Typically, there are three per side, from the front of the hood hinge forward like this;

Exceptions have been found, the other side of the same car shown above had 4;

thanks Barry.
I checked your CD and the low mileage T/A seems to have a bolt next to the hood hinge and the rest studs/nuts.

Same car pictured.

The story I got (and it may be just that) is that the studs allowed faster replacement of damaged sheetmetal on the actual race cars.

Anyone got any proof one way or the other? I'll take a look through my stuff, but I do not recall it being addressed off the top of my head.......

Seems to me that if the fender got beat up in a race, they'd bang it out and go. Would/Did they replace fenders during races pretty regularly in the Trans Am series?

Not necessarily during the race, but if it got banged up in a practice session it could be swapped quicker. Just a guess.

Studs were used to hold the Shim/Washer during assembly.

Shim/washers were used under the fenders to get a better fit to the hood.

I thought there were other Challengers and Cuda documented with fender studs. Not just T/A and AAR's.

I think I still have some painted fender studs from a 70 fender I got from the junkyard 20 years ago.

Do some 72-74 E-bodies have fender studs.

I'm not buying that race story one bit. Sorry.

Like others I've always heard it was to make it easier shim the fender to hood alignment.. Never heard the race change out version before...

I don't know if they changed to the stud/nut configuration on all 72-74 E-bodies or not. All I know is that my 73 came from the factory with them.

I have never seen a car shimmed there for any reason. Anybody else?

So did mine.

I know the hood sat higher than the fenders(in the middle)when the panels were being aligned. Shims in that area would have raised the fender so it lined up with the hood.

I have four 1971 E Bodies. Two Cudas, One Hardtop Challenger and One Convertable Challenger. The Two Cudas and the Convertable Challenger were all built prior to Dec.1970 and all have bolts. The 1971 Challenger that was built in June has the studs. I can not see any shims on these fender and they have never been off the car. This does not mean shims were not use at this time, it only means my car did not use them.

My theory is at this time May,June,July of 1971, Chrysler started to change over to the 1972 style build. Hanging fenders onto studs then aligning them is a much easier way to hang fenders on cars. There are many other things on my car that have 1972 build type pieces. Trunk floor, bumpers have slots front and back,etc. Now the fenders on T/As with studs is a story only an engineer at Chrysler could answer. What does the parts book say about the T/A fender bolts or studs. Do they list a different part number. I have never looked up if there is a break point number in the parts books for studs on a 1971 E Body.