Back in the 70’s when America was in the middle of a love affair with the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro, the other member of the Detroit 3 – Dodge – had to come up with their own muscle car or risk becoming just an afterthought to what has become a ‘vehicular arms race’ between Ford and Chevy.

Dodge did release its own muscle car – the Dodge Challenger – and to this day, it is universally recognized as one of America’s true muscle cars.

The Challenger’s design was done by Carl Cameron, the same man who was responsible for the design of the 1966 Dodge Charger. Although the Challenger took off in the eyes of the public at the start – 76,935 cars were produced for the 1970 model year – the changing times and the waning interest in the pony car segment meant that the Challenger didn’t live a long life and was out of production in 1974. Ironically, as a result of its short shelf-lif,e not a lot of Challenger models lived to see the turn of the millennium – especially the 440 R/T version, which only had 163 models built. As a result, those who did have the specific-modeled car ended up owning a priceless piece of American muscle-car history.

Continued after the jump.

This particular purple-colored Challenger model is without question, an extremely rare 1970 Challenger RT Convertible that comes with all of its original parts including a a Rallye instrument cluster that included a 150 mph (240 km/h) speedometer, an 8,000 rpm tachometer, and an oil pressure gauge.

While the Dodge Challenger didn’t have the same lasting impression of the Mustang and Camaro, it’s limited time in production has actually served it some good.

Since it didn’t come out in mass volumes like the Mustang and the Camaro, it’s made it such a hard find these days and in the process, has made all the more prestigious.