Dodge Challenger Story - Page 1

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Up to model year 1967, the phenomenally successful Ford Mustang was pretty much alone in the ponycar field it had established in mid-1964. Te be sure, Plymouth had introduced a sporty compact of ist own at about the same time. Called Barracuda, it was obviously spawned from the Valiant, and lacked the crisp long-hood/short-deck proportions of the Mustang, which looked nothing at all like its parent, the Falcon. So, Ford’s lithe bucket-seat sportster simply ran away from the "glassback" on the sales charts. It was inevitable that rival makes would try to cash in on the enormously popular ponycar concept, and Mustang al last got some serious competition for 1967. Besides a completely restyled Barracuda with handsome Italianate styling, the Challengers included Chevrolet’s new Camaro and a Pontiac clone christened Firebird, launched at midmodel year. Meantime, Ford Motor Company was preparing the new Mercury Cougar, a longer, plusher, pricier pony aimed at the more affluent end of the "youth market."

Chrysler Corporation executives got their first look at the Cougar in late summer 1966, and viewed it with more than casual interest. Sportylooking but a touch more elegant and with more standard amenities than Mustang, it appeared to be aimed squarely at Dodge territory. Dodge had become Chrysler’s "full line" division by the mid-Sixties, with a model range that went from the sensible compact Dart trought the family-size intermediate Coronet to the big high-glitz Polara and Monaco. It was also the company’s performance division. Once saddled with a stodgy, old-fogey image, Dodge now portrayed its dealers as the "Good Guys," the "White Hats," and the "Dodge Boys," purveyors of "The Dodge Rebellion" and the "Scat Pack" – not to mention a warehouse full of speed goodies that could turn granny’s Coronet into the terror of the local Saturday night drags. There were hot street machines like the Dart GT and Coronet R/T, and Dodge got involved with virtually every sort of competition, including stock car and drag racing. But while cultivating a highperformance image, Dodge got trampled by the ponycar stampede. The closest thing it had to the Mustang was the hotter Darts, and its response to the fastback revival of the period was the Coronet-based Charger and not a compact like the Barracuda. Then the Cougar arrived, the product of a long-time rival, and there was no longer any doubt among Chrysler execs: Dodge would develop a Cougar-like ponycar – and fast.

The project got under way in late 1966. In command was Harry Cheeseborough, Dodge Division’s senior vice-president for styling and product planning, who tapped studio chief Bill Brownlie to head the design effort. Brownlie created a full-scale concept clay of a clean yet formal coupe more than coincidentally resembling the Cougar, and in early 1967 he called in a group of young stylists to view it. He emphasized that this was only a starting point. Though the long-hood/short-deck proportions and certain basic dimensions were absolute, everything else was wide open - even the car’s name, the clay having the letters N-A-M-E where the marque’s signature would normally be. Brownlie instructed his charges to bring back their own ideas for what was labelled Dodge’s "super sporty compact car." The styling group met repeatedly, devising four more clays with different treatments on each side in an effort to achieve the desired gran tourismo image within an overall look that would be sufficiently versatile for the model variations planned. But a cohesive design was slow in forming, Mockups began drifting away from the Cougar’s GT-like elegance and toward a more aggressive look like that of the forthcoming 1968 Dodge Charger, reflecting the division’s performance aspirations at the time. According to author Anthony Young in Mighty Mopars, Brownlie stepped in at the last minute, ordering up a model made from his own sketches as a backup to the studio proposals. It was this design that got the nod. So did his suggestion for the name. It was singularly appropriate: Challenger.