Have you ever seen that meme that ends with, “…because in thirty years, nobody is going to be excited to open up a barn and see a Honda Civic?” or whatever low-end car they can come up with? The rip is that the good cars ended back when…whenever the hell that was. Maybe it was the early 1960s, before Detroit brought out intermediates and cars started to shrink. Maybe it was before 1972, when the horsepower was cheap, the fuel was cheap, and the party was still going on. So what do you tell somebody who wasn’t alive for either one of those points? “Sorry, nobody made anything worth a damn.” Nah, I don’t subscribe to that program. Interesting cars were made…just maybe not directly from Detroit. Take the 1985 Dodge Daytona…interesting car, yes. In stock form? Eh…while the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird will still wind up going down as great cars of the era, the Daytona is saddled with one big problem: it was front-wheel-drive and powered by smaller engines. They were plenty capable and they looked good, but they didn’t have the V8 thump and didn’t spin the rears. In the 1980s, they were throwaway sports coupes. Today, they’re unicorns.
Most Mopar historians will point out that even Chrysler themselves rectified that problem with the RWD conversion kit that was sold through Mopar Performance. It was meant to be a race-only application and it wasn’t perfect, but if you wanted to make the V8 swap happen, you had an option. Funny thing though…I don’t see RWD Daytonas on the road often. In fact, only two come to mind: Mark Beckett’s “Bad Day” Daytona and a guy on Moparts.com who has a nice Pro Street-style later model in red. Currently, the car is sporting a big-block Chrysler powertrain that looks to be set on “kill”, but I’ve got other ideas. Ideas that involve a take-out 392 Hemi powertrain from a recently-mangled Dodge. Ideas that involve stupid levels of power and license plates, maybe a little bit of nitrous oxide just to add to the fun. The car is ready to be re-powered. Are you ready to re-invent the 1980s?
Thanks to Channing Ivey for the tip!
“…because in thirty years, nobody is going to be excited to open up a barn and see a Honda Civic?”
Actually, I’m pretty sure we’re likely to see a wave of ’90s rice nostalgia in 10 years or less. It’s already happening to some of the more desirable cars. Have you tried to buy a Mk IV Supra lately? I suspect it will trickle down to more commonplace cars soon in much the same way somebody who couldn’t afford a Charger might have bought a Demon, then somebody who couldn’t afford a Demon bought a four door Dart, and we’re hitting the point that someone desperate for ’60s Mopar DNA is spending decent money if the find a clean Cordoba. It’s already nearly impossible to find a non ragged out ’90s Eclipse or Civic, and they’re probably going to start commanding big money soon.
OK, back on topic – I was kind of on the fence about whether to try to make this into a street car or not; then it hit me that a street version would be perfect for Drag Week or Rocky Mountain Race Week. I’d be tempted to call it the Bastard Child of Wayne County and openly run nitrous just as a troll move.
Dodge is always super hero for any generation. I just loved them in the past, love them now and will love them in future.