The Charger made its debut in mid-1966. Sharing its chassis and front-end sheet-metal with the mid-sized Coronet, the Charger was positioned to take on AMC’s conceptually similar Rambler Marlin. It was better looking, but somewhat more expensive, $2,850 to $3,100 ($25,706 in 2023 dollars ) to ($27,960 in 2023 dollars.....thus✨"THE CHARGER LEGEND WAS BORN"✨
On January 1, 1966, viewers of the Rose Bowl were first introduced to the new "Leader of the Dodge Rebellion", the 1966 Charger. The Charger's debut also followed by a half model year the introduction of a new street version of the 426 cu in (7.0 L) Chrysler Hemi engine. With the Charger, Dodge had a new model to build a performance image to go along with this engine.
Designed by Carl "CAM" Cameron, the Charger introduced a fastback roofline and pot-metal "electric shaver" grille, complete with fully rotating headlights, a feature not seen on a Chrysler product since the 1942 DeSoto. In the rear, the fastback design ended over a full-width six-lamp taillight with chromed "CHARGER" lettering.