I’ve always had mixed feelings about the 1966 Charger, and this review confirms I wasn’t the only one. It was something of a hodgepodge of stylistic elements that didn’t quite click; a Coronet with a big long fastback grafted on, hidden headlights and an upgraded interior. That was a concept that had failed miserably with the 1965 Rambler Marlin. Of course Dodge wouldn’t have known that when it was planning the Charger, but they must have been sweating a few bullets during 1965.
Car and Driver tested the new Charger equipped with the optional 383, and they mostly liked it. But they questioned just what the Charger was supposed to be, since it clearly wasn’t an all-out performance car given its standard mild 318 V8. What their preference would have been is for the Charger to have the soon-to-arrive street hemi standard, so as to really show the GTO and SS396 and such who was top dog; a genuine charger.
The sudden reappearance of the fastback started with the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, and quite brilliantly so, as it was of course reflecting the common use of fastbacks on sports-racing cars, although with its own distinct tapered style. The 1964 Barracuda was the first copycat, adapting something of an enlarged version on a Valiant, with decidedly less than stellar results, both stylistically as well as in its sales. But suddenly the fastback was the new cool thing. But there was a fundamental problem, stylistically.
The fastback originated in the early thirties on streamliners, and as applied on production cars, like the 1951 Pontiac on top, these cars had quite short rear overhangs, allowing for a fairly steep angle of the sloping back. Also, the high roofs on these older cars also contributed to this. The fastback looked balanced and the proportions were right.
But that was not the case when a fastback was grafted on to these large 1960s cars with long rear overhangs. Their fastbacks were too steep and too long. They may have been flashy, but they just weren’t really good design. The Charger’s was a bit better than the Marlin’s, but it still lacked a cohesive design and betrayed what they were: something tacked on.
C/D was a bit more generous: “the artistic challenge of placing a streamlined fastback on a 117″ wheelbase is not inconsequential and Dodge Chief Stylist William Brownlie and his staff were generally successful in pulling it off.” But C/D noted that there were angles from where it looked less than great. C/D goes on to say “a cynic recently described the Charger as a ‘good-looking Marlin’, but that isn’t fair.” Well, I think it is fair, and rather spot-on. Let’s keep in mind that this was all hot new stuff, which quickly didn’t look so hot just a couple of years later when the big fastbacks were mostly gone.
The ’65 -’66 Mustang fastback was almost too short, but the ’67 nailed it. Its short tail and proportions successfully captured the look and feel of the sports racing cars of the time, like the Ferrari GTO and others, as well as Ford’s own GT-40. And of course the 1970 Camaro (and Firebird) took that to the next level. These are the right size cars for fastbacks, not 203″ long American sedans.
Car and Driver doesn’t come right out and say that the Charger is just a Coronet with a wig and hidden headlights, but they get close to it, pointing out that when the Charger’s headlights are open, it looks very much like a Coronet from the front.
The 1968 Charger fixed that issue very successfully, as well as the fastback, by making it shorter and a tunnelback, the latest stylistic fad then. It was still obviously a dressed-up Coronet, but suddenly it really worked visually. And sold like crazy. The ’66 Charger sold a disappointing 37k times; the ’67 slipped to 16k units; then the new ’68 shot up to 96k sales. Consumers now really liked what they saw.
Another nit: C/D did not like the fussy wheel covers and fake spinners that tried to look like some sort of ’50s mag wheel. They specifically recommended that Dodge offer genuine sport wheels, like these which they did starting in 1967. Full wheel covers on performance cars looked hokey and old-school.
The ’66 Charger’s interior featured a full-length console, limiting seating to four. It looked good, but the rear seats were deemed uncomfortable. This arrangement was obviously not a hit, as it was dropped in ’67 for a regular back seat, and the front seat was a split bench with fold down armrest; buckets and console were optional. That’s essentially what would be carried over into 1968. Chrysler realized quickly that the Charger was not a viable Thunderbird or Riviera competitor.
The dash was also from the Coronet, but had four big flashy round dials for instruments. C/D would have preferred three of four simple round instruments, as in the Corvette. Chrysler still had a thing for space-age instruments, but that soon passed.
The tested Charger had the 325 hp 4-barrel 383 and Torqueflite automatic, a combination that had been universally praised in many reviews since it became available. Not the ultimate performance engine from Chrysler, like the hot 413 and 426 wedges, but a very balanced package. But somewhat curiously, C/D was not quite as enthralled this time around; they felt the engine lacked the “potent throb” and “fiercer feel” that the 383 provided when hooked to a manual transmission, apparently due to different ignition timing. “...we failed to get terribly turned on with the car…it wasn’t that we disliked it, it was just the fact that we’d been there before —in an ordinary Coronet“.
Acceleration was good but not outstanding: 0-60 in 7.8 seconds, and the 1/4 mile in 16.2 @88 mph. Handling was up to the usual Mopar standards, and it was a competent all-round car, but the again, “why shouldn’t it be, the Coronet being what it is.”
What C/D missed was the 426 hemi, which would become available later in the model year. They were looking for excitement, and wanted to see the Charger be the flagbearer for the new street hemi. Now that would have made the Charger really special, and not just a Coronet with a few accoutrements. But were they suggesting that the Coronet should not get the hemi?
What C/D rightly points out that the Charger, priced starting at $3,100, would be more expensive than the hot-engine pony cars but competitive (price wise) with the hot muscle cars, like the GTO, SS396, Fairlane GTA, etc. But the problem was it came standard with that wimpy 318, and even the 383 wasn’t quite up to the task either.
It’s a curious thing: Chrysler had for so long been at the forefront of performance cars, but in 1966 they still didn’t have a single true complete performance car a la GTO and such. Sure, you could usually create a competitive car with the right options, but the Dodge R/T and the Plymouth GTX, with their standard 440 engines and optional hemis would not arrive until 1967, a full three years after the GTO. That was a mistake, and it’s clear that C/D was expecting the Charger to be that car. It wasn’t.
C/D’s final line: “Please hurry up with that Hemi.”
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1967 Dodge Charger – Chrysler’s Marlin
Cohort Capsule: The 1966 Dodge Charger Makes Its First Appearance At CC
Maybe it’s because the plane of the top is flatter and the shape of the rear window and quarter panel elements help, but (to me) the ’66 Charger never had the “hunchback of Notre Dame” look that afflicted the Marlin. In all honesty, I will say that I thought of it as a glorified Coronet, and like thousands of others, my fire was lit with the ’68 restyle; ultimately culminating in my ownership of a 1970 model! 🙂
I’ve never thought of a horn ring as sporty, just old-fashioned.
The rim-blow feature that started to appear a few years later on various cars was great. A sporty wheel with the horn control always under your thumb. Then, by the late seventies, they disappeared. Guess the take rate was too low and they were dropped.
I had one of these as a rental when home on Christmas leave in 1966; I believe it had the 318. Despite being a new car, and equipped with a heater (a good thing during a Wisconsin Christmas), I much preferred my “air conditioned” Honda 305 Super Hawk that was sitting at the Redstone Arsenal. The lil bike was fun to ride whereas the HUGE Charger was meh…….
Neither the fastback styling nor its handling or performance (what performance with a 318/AT?) was impressive to me. All these years later my take away memory of the car was simply a LARGE, meh-mobile…….not a memory that makes one want to purchase. DFO
I’ve always thought the Charger’s interior was more compelling than the exterior, really the ultimate exponent of the buckets-and-console fad of three or four years earlier. It wasn’t very practical (the ’67 was a bit better in that regard), but neither was a Thunderbird. The exterior styling has the inevitable problem that it looked good from certain angles and very awkward from others.
The Hemi made it faster, but I’m not convinced it was really more desirable (except of course as a collector’s item, since Hemi Chargers are now highly prized). If one wanted a Hemi street racer, a Coronet seems the more honest statement; the fastback and the fancy interior of the Charger are perhaps a bit too prissy for that scene, and if you wanted a Dodge Thunderbird, the Hemi was too high-strung.
The Torino sportsroofs somehow came off better than these Chargers despite also being intermediates with long rear overhangs, it just looks tighter and better executed. It’s probably just in the details, the bright trim on the beltline, that odd character line that goes along the roof shape, the very marlinish quarter window shape and even it’s little subtle tailfins work against it. It has a lot of good elements, the hidden headlights look great closed as well as open, the non skirted rear wheel openings fixed a major thing the Marlin and Barracuda got wrong and various details are very neat like the electroluminescent gauges and are of overall high quality along the lines of cars like the Thunderbird but it was all probably just a way to distract from a so-so styling job of the basic Coronet, the 68s didn’t need any of that and customers didn’t seem to mind the decontenting.
I think the idea that this should have had the Hemi standard is absurd enthusiast dreamer nonsense, if Dodge actually ran with that idea the following 68s that were a success would have sold squat. The Charger was an image car, in essence Dodge’s Barracuda but based on the B body, eg a large ponycar(or what I’d argue the beta test of the 69 Grand Prix and all intermediate PLCs to follow), C/D clamoring for a standard street Hemi they may as well be clamoring for the Mustang 2+2 fastback to come standard with the K code 281 rather than the six. Mustangs and Corvettes used wheel covers too.
Detroit was making so much money during this time, they threw a fastback on a lot of their cars, just to see if it sold. By the late 1960s, you could get full size Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick fastbacks. The Riviera ended up with a boat tail, remember? A fastback was a “going thing” during that decade. The Mustang showed Detroit that looking sporty sold cars, so one could buy a Ford Galaxie XL or a Mercury Marauder X-100 with special paint stripes. The fake sports look was big all the way through to the 1980s.
The fellows designing these full sized fastbacks remember the 1940 aerodynamic fastbacks as kids. The opportunity of updating that looks was greater than logic. The designer’s excitement towards these cars didn’t carry over into the full sized family car market. The 1940s economically, were one-car families. However, the next generation sees a family car and a work car. So these full size two door fastbacks tried to fill a market that no longer existed. Fastbacks were not for large families at a time when the average US mother had 3.67 children.
Today, we see these cars, fake or not, being restored for thousands upon thousands and selling for 200X their original prices. My family was especially enamoured of Mopar muscle cars and today, we are hard pressed to find the lowliest 1960-1970 at a reasonable price, regardless of condition. This first generation of Charger was once a reasonable value, but no longer. They have all been priced beyond any common sense.
Dodge dealers were pissed they didn’t get a version of the A-body Barracuda when the Mustang sold like ice on a hot day. Never mind that the Barracuda sold but a fraction of the Mustang.
So, the quick-and-dirty solution was to slap a fastback onto the Coronet, an electric-razor grille (a la Studebaker Sceptre), and a really snazzy 2+2 interior with a set of electroluminescent gauges.
The biggest failing was missing the one engine that would make it a complete package: the new 440-4v from the Imperial. That engine in the stunning 2nd gen Charger, more than anything else, was what made it a real winner.
That’s very correct, the ’66 Charger was done fast to appease Dodge dealers wanting a sporty car to sell. There was a very interesting article on a Mopar enthusiast website some years ago by Burton Bouwkamp, Dodge chief engineer in those days about how the Charger came about. Dodge had shown a prototype ‘Charger II’ show car in ’65 and that car was close to the production ’66. Rumor was the design for the ’66 was already nailed down before the ‘Charger II’ even went on display. I think the ’66 Charger tried to find a market niche somewhere between the G.T.O. and the Riviera, but it didn’t really exist. Offering base V-8’s like the 318 and 361 in ’66 didn’t make a lot of sense if that is what Dodge was trying to do.. Incidentally, the 440 was made an option in ’67.
I’d say the niche was between the Mustang and Riviera, and the presumptuous name and size category made the market assume it was GTO. The 68s actually kind of validated the niche did in fact exist, the vast majority of those 97k 68 Chargers sold were 318s, some 383s and slant sixes and a lofty few had the 440 and Hemi in R/T trim(the actual GTO fighting package). That niche continiued to exist in the 70s only the Grand Prix and Monte Carlo completely changed the styling paradigm from sporty spacecraft to neoclassical formality(brougham).
Part of the 66 Chargers problem was the 65-66 Marlin’s problem too, the 318 and 361 were were the old polysphere engines that weren’t really notable performers and heavy, 67 brought the new generation LA 318 and RB 440 to the mix, filling out the “classic” mopar muscle engine lineup the more sought after 68 and later cars had. But the 67 Charger had very stiff competition, including GMs new ponycars, so some better engine choices on the quickly dated carryover body didn’t make much difference until the 68s caught people’s attention. The Marlin was better in 67 with its new body and second generation V8 but by then who cared?
Minor detail: the 361 was a B wedge head engine, not a poly. The 361 just had a smaller bore than the 383. The four barrel 305 hp version was a good performer.
The problem with the 65-66 Marlin was grafting the fastback on the stubby chunky Classic front end. That, and the asinine deck lid. They would have been better off going with the American based Tarpon prototype. The 67 Marlin on the longer Ambassador chassis with the more modern exciting fuselage style body went much better.
The problem with the Tarpon was simple: AMC didn’t have a V8 that would fit the American-derived car’s engine bay. It will never be known if the Tarpon without a V8 option would have sold better than the less attractive Marlin with a V8. It was a calculated gamble, considering that the six/V8 split in ponycars was about 50/50.
The new AMC V8 wasn’t put into production until 1966.
The other problem was the Tarpon was in the Barracuda formula right down to the aquatic name, and if the better engineered Barracuda without Rambler’s lame “only race is the human race” image got blown out of the water in the early ponycar wars, what chance would the Tarpon have? I’d wager it would have performed exactly the same in the market as the production Marlin, and we’d still be talking about that awkward roofline on the internet today.
Plus I’m just going to say while the Tarpon’s smaller proportions were better than the Marlins, it’s still an awkward humpback. The standard American hardtop was prettier, and while the fastback was in vogue part of what made the Barracuda viable was it was the only truly stylish standalone bodystyle available on the stodgy Valiant sedan – even even the high line hardtop shared the same roof as the 2-door sedan posts and 4 doors. The Barracuda was the only distinct “Valiant” in the manner the American/Falcon/Chevy II hardtops with truly special rooflines were
My beef with the Tarpon/Marlin exercise is how this (and other) Abernethy AMC projects impacted development of the Javelin. That is to say, if Abernethy had simply devoted all of the Tarpon/Marlin effort into getting the Javelin to market a couple of years sooner (like 1966, when the new V8 was ready), it might have made a big difference in sales. A 1966 Javelin would have beaten GM to the ponycar market, as well as the completely distinct sheetmetal of the 2nd gen A-body Barracuda. Someone has pointed out that the Javelin actually outsold the Barracuda every year, save the E-body’s inaugural 1970 debut.
But thanks to Abernethy’s half-baked, sporty Classic fastback distractions, well, the Javelin didn’t see the light of day until 1968, well past the ponycar’s heyday. A real pity because an earlier Javelin might have gotten AMC the invigoration to move away from the stodgy, practical, small-car Rambler image they so badly wanted.
I share that thought, I’ll come to Abernethy’s defense with some of his decisions, but sleeping on the ponycar segment was a missed opportunity, one that was a natural fit for Rambler. Even just getting the Javelin into dealers a year earlier for 1967 would have put it in peak ponycar fever, but instead that year they Marlinized the all new Ambassador – how much of a waste of resources was that one year wonder?
Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for the Marlin doesn’t seem to feel it was a failure, at all, but was a sort of ‘halo-vehicle’ for AMC to draw in customers to the showrooms to buy their other products. Evidently, sales of other AMC cars did increase over the Marlin’s lifetime so there may be some credence to this argument.
It also didn’t hurt that reviews of the Marlin were generally positive (putting aside questionable styling, of course).
Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for the Marlin doesn’t seem to feel it was a failure, at all, but was a sort of ‘halo-vehicle’ for AMC to draw in customers to the showrooms to buy their other products. Evidently, sales of other AMC cars did increase over the Marlin’s lifetime so there may be some credence to this argument.
What a puff piece. Who wrote that? Obviously some hard core Rambler/AMC fans.
No, AMC sales did not increase during the Marlin’s lifetime. In fact, they dropped each year during its lifetime: 1964:394k; 1965: 391k; 1966: 342k; 1967: 303k. So much for being a halo car.
The reality is that the Marlin was a flop, selling barely 10k in its first year, and then falling by 50% in ’66 and then again by 50% in ’67. As a point of comparison, the semi-flop ’66 Charger sold 37k.
I was around in 1965. Most folks saw it for what it was: an overpriced empty suit.
Yeah, calling the Marlin a ‘halo-vehicle’ seemed like a stretch, sort of like calling the Aztek a halo-vehicle or, really, any polarizing vehicle that sold in abysmally low quantities a halo-vehicle.
I turned 16 when the Charger came out and was absolutely smitten with the design. I tended to like fastbacks, although the Marlin was an exception, and the Charger looked good to me, I didn’t care that it was a tarted up Coronet. The interior was where it really shined, to my young eyes that was pure sporty deLuxe. They ruined that lovely interior in ’67. The ’68 restyle, only OK (yes I’m a contrarian) – bigger, fatter, just OK.
I will echo PDXElectric above, except that I was 7 when the car came out. I guess I still look at it with a 7 year old’s eyes, because I have always liked the styling. I looked at one when looking for my first car, and would have been quite happy to drive it home had it been in better condition.
I see the point about the awkwardness about big fastbacks, but I think the Charger was as well done as any ever was.
Excuse me?
No doubt, sexy with a body that just doesn’t quit!
I would put that Buick in a separate class that I would call semi or almost fastbacks. Kind of how the 67 big Ford/Mercury was a semi-fastback while the 68 went almost full-fastback, but did not do it as gracefully as the Charger did.
But I agree that this one was a beaut!
Good looking cars, all of them. they just don’t make them like that anymore. Even the Marlin is so ugly it looks really cool now!
I had never considered that the Charger may have been reaching as high as the Thunderbird and Riviera, but it makes sense. A lot was put into that 1966 interior in terms of styling and quality. Being too obviously a gussied up Coronet, it never had a chance.
I really like this car a lot! Sure, it’s a little offbeat, but I don’t find anything particularly ungainly about it. Much more my jam than the early Barracuda, which seemed crude to me from too many angles.
Dodge was not afraid to market this as a high end car – loading up options was highly encouraged.
Santa, if you’re listening, how about a red one with all the goodies for Christmas!
Aside from the similar “big fastback” design, always though of the Charger as “sports car”.
The Marlin , was a ‘variation” of the “Classic” hardtop coupe.
(sensible ride with some “flash”)
I was 10 when the ’66 Charger came out. I went to a car show, saw one inside and out, and fell in love. I nabbed a brochure to take home and drooled over that interior.
Interesting that they found the seats too upright. Hadn’t thought of that before. Certainly the lack of headrests back in those days would have been more a concern in the light of safety regs of today.
I believe now, that the front end should have been modified on these to mimic the fastback roof. Some sort of slant or angle perhaps, to ensure it didn’t look too squared off in the front. Certainly that clash was a problem in the Marlin. Possibly the Barracuda too.
Jay Leno, who owns a number of original Hemi cars, says that his 1966 Coronet Hemi is the most powerful of them all. The emissions controls introduced in 1967 took the edge off.
I’ve always thought the first-gen Charger is a beautiful car—but pushing the roofline forward just a bit would have made it even better. Here’s my crude Photoshop attempt—also just removing a tiny bit of the “hunchback” hump in the curvature of the roof.
Much better! Now if only it was structurally feasible to lop about half a foot off that rear overhang….
My only problem with these is deciding between the years. The ’66 interior is so much cooler, but you could only get the fender top turn signal indicators in ’67. I suspect you could mix and match and drive the purists crazy. 🙂
I always liked the 66 and 67 Chargers. Chrysler did an admirable job with these cars. There pockets were not as deep as say, Ford or GM and therefore they had to be more conscious of expense and take more risk in design. The automotive rags of the day always favored GM and to a lesser extent Ford. Mopar could have introduced the second coming and the hacks would have yawned and tossed them a back handed complement. This article, while well written is only an opinion after all and does not consider the myriad other factors regarding the subject.
It’s interesting that when Dodge replaced the Marlinesque greenhouse with the more conventional Coronet like greenhouse in ‘68, sales took off. People just didn’t care for ‘66-‘67 roofline. The ‘68 was just more cohesive, and beautiful. The rear end treatment on the ‘68 was a work of art as well.
Always puzzled as to how Dodge viewed the Charger. Definitely not a pony car, but not really a muscle car either, although with the Hemi or 440 it was a screamer. And certainly not in the same league as Thunderbird or Riviera. Maybe a Monte Carlo or Grand Prix a few years early?
You nailed it, with the Grand Prix. At the time Chrysler president Lynn Townsend pushed Dodge to compete with Pontiac and not with Chevy, Ford and Plymouth. And of course, the GP was a hit in its first few years. And all it took was a unique roof and a bit of different trim, including no chrome on its flanks. The Charger used largely the same formula but of course went with a fastback.
But by 1966, the GP was already petering out, as the interest was moving to smaller cars. The Charger might have been the right size for its time as a GP competitor but it just didn’t click.
I feel like Chrysler really struggled to get its head around the concept of specialty cars. I don’t think they were alone in that — there was a tendency in some quarters to just lump all specialty cars together into a single category, which may have made a modicum of sense from a manufacturing/production standpoint, but now seems really naive in terms of the shape and direction of the market.
In that respect, I’m not sure they envisioned the Charger as a GP rival (which would have indicated some kind of coherent strategy, even if it was misguided) so much as a hasty way to jump in on a fad that they hadn’t anticipated and obviously didn’t understand. Chrysler still hadn’t come to grips with the Thunderbird either, and that had been around for significantly longer.
I wonder how much the Charger impacted DeLorean’s decision to downsize the 1969 GP. He surely hadn’t missed the quasi-PLC Cougar which, for all intents and purposes, was Henry Ford II’s ‘mini-Thunderbird’ that he had envisioned for the Mustang all along.
In effect, the ponycars were too small, while the T-Bird, Eldorado, Riviera, Toronado were all too big, so the intermediate GP (followed by the Monte Carlo) were ‘just right’. I’m not sure the credit can go to the Charger, but it seems like it was on that path, especially when the 1969 Charger SE made its first appearance.
Probably not at all. The lead times were such that the A-special ’69 Grand Prix was in the works well before the 1968 Charger arrived. The ’66 Charger was eccentric-looking and kind of a dud commercially. I can’t see much point of inspiration there except as a cautionary tale.
I tend to think that the stratification we now see retrospectively between types of specialty car (sports car, pony car, personal luxury coupe) was not necessarily evident at the time, beyond the obvious differences in price. In that respect, I think it’s dangerous to imagine those categories as kind of platonic ideals toward which the automakers were inexorably moving rather than as the result of push-pull (and a lot of trial and error) with a shifting market.
I think the Cougar would have had greater influence on the downsized Grand Prix if anything, the Pontiac just readjusted the smaller personal car formula to “just right” size, but like mentioned a Cougar influence might not fit with lead times either.
The Charger is interesting as Dodge essentially stumbled onto the winning size formula for a specialty coupe that would dominate the next decade, which I think deserves credit regardless of intentions, but as far as influence it’s probably minimal, it’s styling was overtly sporty, where the Grand Prix and Cougar had a lot of brougham elements the personal luxury car market desired. If anything the Charger was playing catch up with the SE package until it got its clone of a Cordoba body where it was too late and too abrupt of a change.
I really like this Charger when it came out. However once the 1968 Charger’s and ’68 fastback Torino’s arrived that was the end for the first Charger’s. It seemed like those first Charger’s literally disappeared overnight.
I would also say that the rear roof design of the 66 GM A bodies might have inspired the 68 Charger, with the Charger obviously slanting the tunnel much more.
Well,i have very original low mileage rust free 66 Charger that i have imported from Oregon 1992 and i think it has cool desing,in and outside.
Quite different than Coronet and of course those got more or less same mopar parts like all other marks also their owns..$$$
Much rarer that newer ones,everybody have those ,much easier fix with repro part and hey,lots of those came with 318 even with slant 6 so not all were rockets from factory…
1968- got much cheaper interior,not electrolumicent or 4 buckets etc so those were big volume cars,not personal luxury cars like 66-67 and i you wanted you got Hemi,383,361 or 318 but not slant 6..still who want race those anymore and if you got speedparts even to 318 or replace engine,no problem.
Option list was long even in those 66-67 so you get more or less luxury,same in performance.
1966-67 are rare,collective and get much attension..much more than 1968-70 or 1971-1974.
All Charger models are very nice of course..well not those new 4d sedans..but vintage models,even 1975- and must remember time and space then,not only very pricey performance versions,even original 1968- Hemi or 440 are very rare Chargers but of course you can put bigger motor to 318 car or restore total junk with new parts and floor around VIN plate but whats the point then..money or what?
Cars are original only once,so even 318 cars with very good factory condition are rare and collective in my opinion.
My car is Xp29e car but has 1970 340 installed in USA long ago,so its not numbers match but in Finland rare,by the way here are lots of old US cars here,common hobby like in Sweden too.Thanks!