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There was certainly no shortage of legendary monikers that sprang forth from the Golden Era of muscle in the 1960s and ‘70s. You had the GTO, the Chevelle, the 442, and the GSX amongst many, many others. But for some, especially the Mopar faithful, there was one name that rose above all others: the Charger.
So indelible was the mark the Dodge Charger left on the zeitgeist, most notably the second-generation car made iconic by its appearance in the blockbuster 1968 Steve McQueen film, Bullitt, that the Charger has managed to stay in production, with a few pauses, right up until today.
Although these days those 1968-1970 cars of the second-generation garner the most attention and fetch the highest prices by collectors, they were preceded, of course, by a first-generation Charger that was quite a distinctive piece of automotive design itself. What’s more, it could be outfitted with the largest and most powerful engines Mother Mopar offered at the time, including the legendary 426 Hemi V8.
Owing to the high price the Hemi option added to the total cost of the Charger, it ended up being exceedingly scarce, and thus a perfect subject for this month’s iteration of Rare Rides.
So, if you care to learn a thing or two about a remarkable car that was the first in a sixty-year-long lineage, then by all means join me as we take a deep dive on the 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi!
A stunning and immaculately restored 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi. (Photo courtesy of Bring a Trailer.)
The Dodge Charger story begins in earnest not with any new model development or corporate decision within Chrysler, but rather with an external seismic event in the automotive world.
The date was April 17th, 1964, a day that might not immediately register with you, but it was when Ford launched, at the New York World’s Fair, what was perhaps one of the most important vehicles in history: the Mustang.
The car, the brainchild of legendary automotive executive, Lee Iacocca, represented a then revolutionary concept: to pack sportiness, style, and performance into a simple, low-cost, two-door that was priced within reach of most young professionals.
Ford vice-president and Mustang godfather, Lee Iacocca (second from right) at the 1964 New York World’s Fair where the car was first revealed. (Photo courtesy of the Ford Heritage Vault.)
The Mustang struck a chord amongst that demographic, and an astonishing 22,000 buyers snapped one up on its first day of availability. Sales eventually reached 263,434 cars by the end of 1964, and a record 418,812 by the end of the model year.
What’s more, the Mustang also established a brand-new sector in the automotive market – the pony car – on its way to becoming an instant classic and icon.
Due to this unparalleled success, virtually every American manufacturer and their associated brands raced to create their own version of the Mustang.
The 1964 Barracuda, Plymouth’s first stab at a pony car, actually beat the Mustang to market by some 16 days. (Photo courtesy of Bring A Trailer.)
Although Plymouth had actually beat the Mustang to the market by 16 days with their own similar offering — the Barracuda — that car did not possess the unique alchemical formula that the Mustang did, and was not nearly the sales windfall as the Ford.
Dodge would attempt to do better than its stablemate.
Mere weeks after the Mustang went on sale, Dodge’s production and design executives began meeting to lay out the plan for their contender.
The wild 1964 Dodge Charger I concept car. (Photo courtesy of Stellantis.)
The conceptualization for the vehicle eventually took shape as a marginally pricier, upscale version of the Mustang, coincidentally the very same approach FoMoCo itself would later pursue with their Mercury Cougar. Dodge General Manager Byron Nichols is alleged to have said in one meeting that if Dodge designers could “give us a car halfway between the Barracuda and the T-Bird, we’ll have a big chunk of the market to ourselves.”
In the interim, while the actual car was being designed, two concepts were released to the car show circuit. The wild-looking 1964 “Charger I” featured an open, speedster cockpit with bodyside exiting exhausts and a flying rollbar incorporating headrests for the occupants.
In 1965, Dodge released the “Charger II,” which was far tamer and actually represented what direction the production vehicle was taking.
The brand new for 1966 Dodge Charger. (Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)
So as to get the Charger to market as soon as possible and increase profit margins by keeping costs low, the division opted to take its forthcoming, intermediate B-body based 1966 Coronet and graft a fastback roofline onto it.
Integrating the Coronet’s cowl, windshield, and A-pillars, famed Dodge designer Carl Cameron added bespoke touches like a full-width, “electric shaver” style grille that hid quad headlights in “rollover” units, a pillarless hardtop greenhouse, a full rear-wheel opening, and a “wall-to-wall” taillamp.
The Coronet’s unique concave side-sculpting remained, and was accentuated by a pair of faux air intakes at the leading edge of both rear fenders.
A 1966 Dodge Charger outfitted with a 383 V8 and Magnum 500 wheels. (Photo courtesy of Bring a Trailer.)
It was frankly a love-it-or-hate-it look with its bulbous fastback treatment, but few could argue that it wasn’t interesting, and a much better stab at such a design than the similarly styled Rambler Marlin, released in 1965.
Dimensionally, the Charger was almost identical to its Coronet cousin, with an overall length of 203.6 inches, a 117-inch wheelbase, a width of 75.8 inches, and a height of 53.0 inches.
Despite its controversial exterior, few would bristle at the Charger’s upscale insides.
The Charger’s interior was more upscale than that of any Mustang. (Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)
A way more deluxe treatment than any Mustang possessed, the Charger featured an unusual four bucket seat layout, an aluminum-topped center console that extended to the back seat area, aluminum-trimmed door panels, and a stylish dash featuring four gauge pods with metal bezels and lit by cool, blue electroluminescence.
Instruments consisted of a large speedometer and tachometer flanked by amperage, fuel, engine temperature, and oil pressure indicators.
Other standard niceties included a console-mounted clock, variable-speed windshield wipers, an instrument panel-controlled hood release, and a sporty, three spoke, wood grained wheel. Interior options included air conditioning, power windows, power door locks, power driver’s seat adjustments, remote controlled driver’s mirror, a choice of radios, cruise control, and tinted glass.
The electroluminescent gauge cluster. (Photo courtesy of Bring a Trailer.)
Mechanically, the Dodge Charger offered terrific powertrain and drivetrain options. Unlike the Mustang, which for 1966 came standard with a 200 cubic-inch inline-six with a barely adequate 120 horsepower, Dodge’s new stallion came standard with Chrysler’s venerable 318 cubic-inch V8, good for 230 horses.
The mid-range engine options included a 361 cubic-inch V8 with 265 ponies, and a 383 V8 with 325.
Also, unlike the Mustang, whose top engine offering consisted of the 289 cubic-inch K-code “HiPo” V8 delivering 271 horsepower, the Charger could be equipped with one of the most powerful lumps of the entire muscle car era: the 426 cubic-inch Hemi V8 “Elephant Motor.”
The heart of the beast: the 426 cubic-inch Hemi V8 “Elephant motor.” (Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)
A derivative of the all-conquering Hemi engine that had dominated NASCAR racing in 1964, the “Street Hemi,” as it was then known, featured a 4.250-inch bore and a 3.750-inch stroke with a 10.25:1 compression ratio. A pair of Carter AFB carburetors were mounted atop a dual-plane, aluminum intake manifold that fed a whole bunch of air to the hemispheric-shaped combustion chambers, where spark from the dual-point distributor was delivered to the centrally located plugs.
The 2.25-inch intake and 1.94-inch exhaust valves were motivated by dual rocker shafts that employed forged-steel rocker arms. A forged-steel crankshaft and rods were utilized, as were forged-aluminum pistons. Iron exhaust manifolds sent gasses to the rear through a dual exhaust with reverse-flow mufflers.
Output for the Hemi in 1966 Charger guise was a hugely underrated (so as to aid buyers with insurance availability and cost) 425 horsepower and 490 lb-ft of torque. This was enough to propel the rather portly, 3950-pound car to a brisk zero-to-sixty time of 6.25 seconds and a quarter mile time of 14.10 seconds at 97.15 mph. Pretty good numbers for 1965.
A delightful example in Sequoia Green. (Photo courtesy of Bring A Trailer.)
The Hemi option wasn’t cheap, however. At $877.55, it cost more than a quarter of the price of a base Charger.
Offsetting this was the fact that ordering the Hemi got you more than just the mill. A strengthened K-member with a skid plate that protected the Hemi’s huge oil pan was installed, while thicker .92-inch torsion bars and a .94-inch front anti-sway bar tightened up the car’s handling. Torque boxes ahead of the rear spring mounts added chassis stiffness, and heavy-duty shocks and six-leaf rear springs improved traction. Heavy-duty cooling helped keep the dash needles away from the red.
Hemi cars could be had with either a robust A833 four-speed manual transmission, or a A727 TorqueFlite three-speed slushbox. With the latter, the rear differential was an 8 3/4-inch unit, containing 3.23:1 or 3.54:1 ratios. When equipped with a manual, the differential was upgraded to the massive 9 ¾-inch Dana 60 unit, to which one could assign a variety of performance gearing, although 3.54:1 cogs were standard.
The “wall-to-wall” taillamp treatment. (Photo courtesy of Bring a Trailer.)
Steering consisted of an integral power-assisted recirculating ball unit with parallelogram linkage and a 16:1 ratio on Hemi cars. For slowing down, the Hemi Charger came standard with 11 x 3-inch hydraulic drum brakes up front and 11 x 2.5-inch drums out back, all with vacuum power assist. 11-inch front discs with four piston calipers were available for an upcharge.
Surrounding the brakes were standard 14 x 5.5-inch steel wheels painted to match the car’s exterior color and featuring a hubcap. Magnum 500 style wheels were an extra-cost option, as were 14 x 7.5-inch Goodyear Blue Streak tires.
Mopar had not yet graduated to offering the wild, High-Impact colors on their cars that it would later be renowned for, but the ’66 Hemi Charger nonetheless could be painted in a wide variety of hues that included BB-1 Formal Black, WW-1 Persian White, PP-1 Scorch Red, RR-1 Daffodil Yellow, CC-1 Powder Blue, SS-1 Ivory, XX-1 Desert Beige, 33-1 Dove Tan, EE-1 Regal Blue, KK-1 Frost Turquoise, LL-1 Royal Turquoise, FF-1 Haze Green, GG-1 Sequoia Green, 44-1 Moss Gold, YY-1 Saddle Bronze, ZZ-1 Spice Gold, 55-1 Dusty Gold, QQ-1 Spanish Red, 77-1 Ruby, 88-1 Deep Plum, AA-1 Silver Mist, MM-1 Granite Gray, and 66-1 Mauve. Interior colors consisted of black, red, white, Citron Gold, and Saddle Tan.
The “electric shaver” grille, Fratzog ornamentation, 1960s-era font, and Scorch Red paint combine for a dramatic statement at the front end of the Charger. (Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)
The auto buying public generally liked what they saw in Dodge’s pony car, enough so that 37,344 Chargers found new homes in its first model year. This was unquestionably considered a win inside the halls of Chrysler’s corporate headquarters in Highland Park, Michigan, but was likely considered a dud to Ford executives, who continued to rake in the bucks off the Mustang, to the tune of a mind-bending 607,568 sales for the 1966 model year.
Owing to the high price tag of the Hemi option, a paltry 468 cars left the Dodge factory so equipped. Of those, 250 Dodge Chargers sported the four-speed, and 218 the TorqueFlite. Even fewer Hemi cars were built in the Charger’s second model year, with only 118 people electing to put the Elephant under the hood of their ’67.
Because of these low numbers, the ’66 Charger 426 Hemi fetches fairly elevated prices today compared to other early muscle cars, including most non-Shelby Mustangs. In 2022, a four-speed equipped, concours condition ’66 Hemi was exchanged for $110,000 in a private sale, and similar prices are reached whenever a top-flight Hemi car hits an auction block.
The fender badge says it all… (Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)
One of the Golden Era of muscle’s earliest supercars, the 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi stands as a pivotal model in the Mopar pantheon. It was the progenitor for a bloodline of powerful, boulevard scorching apex predators that live on today in the form of the 2026 Charger Six-Pack and Charger Daytona EV.
For that distinction alone, the 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi is truly one of the 1960’s great Rare Rides.
