DROPPING THE NEW-FOR-1966 HEMI into the new-for-1966 Charger gave Dodge its first proper muscle car. Pairing the division’s in-vogue new fastback body with its race-bred, barely tamed V-8, should have set hearts and minds exploding. It’s not even like this was some back-door track fantasy — Hemi Chargers were in your local Dodge showroom up the street, waiting to be discovered. These days, that’s a recipe for a monstrous street beast (or else a collector piece that will sit under a cover). But in 1966, it wasn’t quite planned to happen that way.
In 1960, Chrysler launched the Valiant as part of Detroit’s seemingly orchestrated suite of compact American cars; while the driveline was simplicity itself, the style was wild enough that even its own brochure didn’t try to convince you of how good it looked. A year later, Dodge launched its own badge-engineered version, called Lancer, but it got lost in the sauce: Lancer sales were half of that of the Valiant, and Valiant sales were
