Remember the Six Million Dollar Man — the TV hero rebuilt to become “better, stronger, faster”?

Now, for about $6,000, a man can at least look better, stronger and faster — even if he’s really a 98-pound weakling.

From the doctors who brought you breast, buttocks, calf, cheek and chin implants, now comes the first silicone implant designed especially for men: the pectoral implant.

“Men and women have the same vanities,” said Dr. Mel Bircoll, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who has performed 50 male chest implants in the past 18 months. “It’s natural in the human personality to want to improve.”

The procedure takes less than two hours. An incision is made in the patient’s armpit, and three pieces of silicone are inserted behind the pectoralis major, the large, fanlike chest muscle.

Patients can resume strenuous upper-body exercise within two months, according to surgeons who perform the procedure.

“I have people bench pressing 350 pounds,” said Dr. Brian Novack, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

Novack said the implants are “unbelievably soft” and won’t cause bone erosion the way some early breast implants did. He said the procedure carries the same risks as other plastic surgery procedures: infection and shifting of the implants.

Bircoll likens the procedure to breast implants for women.

“We’ve been doing that operation for 40 years, so there’s no basic reason why we should look at this very differently,” he said. “We’ve had a great deal of experience. There are several million people who have silicone implanted into their body.”

Other doctors aren’t so quick to judge the procedure safe.

“It’s a new procedure that has promise, but the public needs to be forewarned that it hasn’t been proven over the long term,” said Dr. Norman Cole, president-elect of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. “There’s no operation we should be foisting on the public … based on one year’s results. That’s an insult to the public that we serve.”

Pectoral implants for males can’t be compared to breast implants for women, Cole said.

“They’re completely different situations. I don’t see men and women putting these implants through the same stresses and strains.”