While Rawlings is fortunate to have signed up during a period of retro revival \u2013 with HEMI\u00ae<\/sup> engines, Shaker hoods, Challengers and Chargers all making their hugely successful comebacks, Selleck got the job of promoting the 1976 Dodge Charger – a close copy of Chrysler\u2019s Cordoba \u2013 both of which sold well (Chrysler sold 120,462 Cordobas, Dodge sold 65,900 Chargers) despite lacking the horsepower of earlier muscle-era Chargers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this Page From The Past, Selleck poses next to a new 1976 Charger Daytona, the ad copy touting \u201cOnce you\u2019ve looked, you\u2019re hooked.\u201d Interestingly, this same year, Dodge borrowed NASCAR racing legend Richard Petty for another Charger magazine ad with a similar message which read \u201cLook who\u2019s hooked on the Charger Daytona\u201d, depicting The King standing next to a bronze Charger Daytona \u2013 at Daytona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Petty was \u201ca name\u201d in 1976, the same cannot be said of Selleck. Born in Detroit in 1945, his family moved to sunny Sherman Oaks, California, in 1948. Selleck gravitated to Hollywood and acting at an early age, appearing on The Dating Game <\/em>in 1965 at age 20, but secured work with small parts in films and TV and as a model in commercials for soft drinks, cologne, toothpaste \u2013 and 1976 Dodge Chargers \u2013 before his breakout role in 1980 as the star of Magnum P.I.<\/em>, playing a Viet Nam veteran turned private investigator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We wish we could say Selleck\u2019s character Thomas Magnum drove a sleek Charger during his weekly escapades. But the truth is he drove a bright red Ferrari 308 GTS. After all, by Magnum P.I.<\/em>\u2019s 1980 network debut, Dodge had discontinued the Charger nameplate (it would reappear aboard the front-wheel-drive K-car-based Charger 2.2 in 1982), so it\u2019s all wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there\u2019s a twist, though Magnum P.I.<\/em> lasted eight seasons (1980-1988), when Dodge redesigned the mid-size B-body platform (upon which the Charger had been based since its 1966 inception) in 1978, the replacement was named \u2026 Magnum! Could it be that Dodge\u2019s refreshed Charger\/Magnum somehow \u2013 subliminally or otherwise – spurred the NBC\/Universal show creators to use the name too? We don\u2019t know, but kinda doubt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we do know is the Magnum brand name had been a popular Dodge property since it first appeared in 1967 on the high-performance version of the 440-cubic-inch Wedge V8 that powered the first Coronet R\/T. To apply it to the Charger\u2019s successor must have seemed a natural move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the reborn 1975-77 Charger Daytona, though the miserly Slant Six was thankfully not available, base power came from the nearly-as-mild 318 small block with the 360 small block and 400-cube big blocks offered at additional cost. But unlike the original 440 Magnum or 426 Street HEMI engine-powered 1969 Charger Daytona \u2013 which featured such radical aerodynamic body modifications it had to be built off-campus at Creative Industries in Eastpointe, Michigan \u2013 the revived models were built on Dodge\u2019s regular assembly line in Hamtramck, Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though essentially a paint and graphics package added to a Charger SE equipped with heavy-duty suspension and upgraded interior bits, the 1975-77 Charger Daytona (option code A57) added some much-needed excitement to the Dodge lineup at a time when it was needed most. Just 200 were built in 1975 (the official launch date was March 4, 1975), plus 7,295 in 1976 and 5,225 in 1977 for a total of 12,720 of these two-tone, bucket-seat-equipped personalized fun machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Old](\"https:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Selleck_IMG001.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n