In a way it was doomed from the start. Because if the Super Car Scare hadn’t have killed off the 340 E55 four-speed ‘Bathurst’ Charger, then Chrysler Australia’s newly installed managing director William Balthrop no doubt would have.
But early in 1972, behind closed doors at Tonsley Park, it was on, as preparations were being made for a proposed V8 Charger R/T to be released ahead of the following year’s Bathurst enduro.
In many ways what they were planning at Chrysler was not so different from what was happening Holden with the V8 XU-1 project. Like the XU-1, most of the basic elements were already there in the existing E38 and the new E49 which was still being developed in the early months of 1972.
While Chrysler’s commitment to the six-cylinder
