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AMC had a fastback on the auto-show floor before the Mustang even existed, then handed the idea to a new CEO who scrapped it for something bigger and slower to sell. The result moved barely 17,000 units in three years, yet one six-cylinder survivor from suburban Chicago shows exactly why the story still matters — and its owner bought it in 2011 for a reason that has nothing to do with horsepower.
The Dodge Charger debuted in 1966 as a two-door-only muscle car with V8 power and a distinctive rotating-headlight grille, a formula it kept until the nameplate went dormant in the late 1970s. When Dodge revived it in 2006, the Charger came back as a four-door sedan, a shift that still splits opinion among Mopar loyalists decades later.
This burgundy 1966 Dodge Charger wears the styling cues that made it an instant standout: hidden headlights borrowed from a 1942 DeSoto trick, a six-lamp taillight panel spelling out its own name, and a white bucket-seat interior built around a full-length console. Only 468 of the 37,344 Chargers built that first year came with the 426 Hemi. Read on for how the fastback nearly flopped as a Rambler copycat before becoming a Dodge Rebellion icon.