Dodge Charger: Icon Of All Muscle Cars

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When you think about muscle cars, the Dodge Charger is at or near the top of the list of the most iconic cars ever built. Even when looking at a body of work that spans the entire history of the automobile, the Charger is there standing proud. When it debuted in late 1965 as a 1966 model, its fastback roof, convex grille, hideaway headlights, and bumblebee body lines made it immediately stand out. It looked—and acted—like a full-sized sports car, with engines available all the way up to the then-new 426ci street Hemi.

In the early '60s, Dodge was viewed as a stodgy car company design-wise, this in spite of having an outstanding reputation for chassis and powertrain engineering. Dodge was looking to break out into the youth market and win over new buyers with an exciting design. Its B-Body platform, which was shared with Plymouth, underpinned the Coronet line-up—that car just not being hip enough for many younger buyers. Even with great performance in the form of big-block power plants—including the 426 Max Wedge—the 1965 Coronet just didn't have enough sex appeal.

The 1966-67 Charger was Dodge's answer. Although it was every bit a Coronet under the skin (a good thing considering the Coronet's engineering), you'd never know it. The new body was both beautiful and extremely effective in racing, particularly in the stock car racing world where it won 18 times in the 1966 NASCAR season, culminating in a manufacturer's title that year.

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But sales were not as good as Dodge had hoped. Rather than give up on Charger, the design team kept at it. One young 26-year-old designer named Richard Sias began work on a successor—unofficially—in 1966, building a 1/10th scale clay model of a car that incorporated the now-famous pinched Coke-bottle shape that defines the '68 model. As word of Sias' exciting new design made the rounds, management took notice, and in an unprecedented move, the idea was given the green light without going through the long, traditional vetting process. It was that good. (As a side note, it is Dodge Studio Executive Designer Bill Brownlie who is most often and incorrectly credited with the '68 Charger's design, not Sias. For his part, Sias was largely ignored both internally at Dodge and to this day by automotive history buffs.)

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When the 1968 model hit showrooms, it was a runaway success. Sales topped 96,000 units for 1968, cementing the Charger's position in history. The design was so successful that Dodge was loathe to change it for the '69 and '70 model years; a center divider was placed in the grille and quad round taillights were dropped in favor of a long, flattering taillight assembly for 1969. In 1970, Charger went back to the flat-faced grille and added a chrome surround.

The iconic character of the '68-70 Charger—and arguably the earlier '66-67 model as well—comes from its aircraft-like design. The Cold War and the Space Race put aircraft and aerospace design well into the public eye, and those pleasing shapes were emulated everywhere, from architecture and furniture, to electronics and automobiles. What we now refer to as muscle cars was a direct product of that design philosophy, and while all other domestic manufacturers fed off of this aesthetic, it was Dodge that achieved the pinnacle of that design ethos in the form of the Charger. This was a shape that captured all at once every young American's hope for the future, and passion for performance.

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The third generation of Charger debuted in 1971, and although not nearly as iconic as the '68-70 model, made further use of aircraft fuselage design elements. Major changes made the body longer and sleeker looking; a shortening of the wheelbase by two inches on top of a nose that was yet even longer made the front overhang border on cartoonish, but aerodynamic improvements to the rear backlight (now flush with the c-pillar) dramatically improved its performance on super speedways. (The change to the tunnel-back window in 1968 had severely hampered the car's aero, a matter addressed with a bandage approach in the 1969 Charger 500 and Daytona. With the 1971 design, however, all was good again.)

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Sales for 1971 were great (topping 82,000 units), partly a result of Dodge discontinuing two-door hardtop and post variants of the Coronet. (If you wanted a two-door Dodge intermediate, it was by default a Charger, starting in 1971. To that end six variants of the Charger were offered in order to please as many people as possible.) As history unfolded, however, it became clear that the days of the areo-styled muscle car were numbered. Spurred by a poor economy, OPEC, Federal emission and safety standards, insurance premiums, and a change in public tastes, the Charger's days were all but over. And though a new Charger would be introduced for 1975, nobody was fooled. A poorly disguised version of the Chrysler Cordoba, The 1975 Charger—though quite nice in other ways—was a decidedly softer personal luxury coupe, not a muscle machine.

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The Dodge Charger—in particular the 1968-'70 variant—will go down as the most recognized muscle car in history. Seizing upon its free-spirited shape, the film and television industry practically adopted the '68-70 Charger as its own, co-opting the shape to underscore a range of iconoclastic characters. (Dukes Of Hazzard; Bullitt; Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry;and thefranchise, to name a few.) There is arguably not a person on the planet who doesn't immediately associate the Charger's shape with 1960s America. Charger embodies not just muscle car culture, but an era of technical superiority, freedom on the open road, unbridled hope for the future, and the can-do, fun-loving spirit of America.

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