Many memorable cars were based on Chrysler’s versatile B-body platform, but there’s a a solid consensus that the 1968 Charger was the most beautiful of the bunch.

Despite its hasty development, the Chrysler Corporation’s intermediate-size B-body platform enjoyed a long and bountiful life with the automaker. This one package served as the foundation for many of its most memorable cars, from the Plymouth Road Runner to the Chrysler Cordoba. (See our feature on the 1962 origin of the B-body here.) These cars are most often celebrated for their performance, but there is one above all that is recognized for its beauty: the 1968 Dodge Charger. Among Chrysler enthusiasts and experts, there’s a remarkable consensus that it features the best styling of them all.

Principal designer of the ’68 Charger was Richard Sias, a graduate of the Art Center School in Los Angeles who came to the Chrysler studios from General Motors in 1964. Sias had a clear vision about his mission as a car designer. “You’re just trying to make that pile of clay look like something you’d like to drive,” he said. To that end, as a personal project he modeled a 1/10-scale clay with what he called a “double diamond” theme: Two diamonds, front and rear in profile view, that intersected at the windshield to form a striking coke bottle shape.

Reportedly, Dodge exterior design studio chief Bill Brownlie didn’t much care for Sias’ double diamond theme. At the time, the Chrysler studios were producing handsome but businesslike boxes for the B-body platform. The concept was rescued when vice president of design Elwood Engel, the final word on all matters regarding Chrysler design, saw the clay model. He flatly told Brownlie, “That’s what a real car should look like.” The boss had spoken and the course was set: The double diamond became the basis for the unmistakable coke bottle form of the ’68 Charger.

The Charger’s profile was undeniably sensual and luxurious. For dramatic contrast, details were added from the racing world, including a flip-up fuel filler mounted high on the left rear quarter panel. a tunneled backlite, and an aggressive, wide-mouthed grille with fine vertical teeth and hidden headlamps. As the story goes, the cost accountants tried their best to kill the hidden headlamps, but Engel stood his ground and they went to production as standard equipment.

Naturally, as a B-body performance car the Charger was available with Chrysler’s best optional muscle equipment, including the 440 Magnum V8 and the matchless 426 Street Hemi. The fastback ’67 Charger had sold around 15,000 units, and Dodge product planners were hoping for around 20,000 in ’68. To their surprise, the Charger caught fire in the showrooms, and by the end of the model year more than 96,000 were sold. When Dodge Main in Hamtramck couldn’t keep up with the demand, a second assembly line was added in St Louis. It’s sometimes argued whether styling really sells cars, but for the ’68 Charger it did.

A success to say the least, the package was continued in ’69 and ’70 with only minor changes to the styling.  The Charger went racing in NASCAR, too, but there it was discovered that as shapely as it was, the body design wasn’t terribly aerodynamic. Dodge racing engineers went to work in the wind tunnel, and there their efforts produced two more memorable Mopar B-bodies, the Charger 500 and the winged and missile-nosed Charger Daytona.