The Dodge Daytona of the 1980s was proof of a couple of things. One was that Chrysler had zero trouble recycling names…”Daytona” had last been seen on a late-B body Charger as a trim package, and neither of them lived up to the legendary 1969 Charger Daytona. Another was that engineers within Chrysler were able to work miracles with the K-car platform…yes, the Daytona/Laser twins were G-bodies in lexicon, but truthfully it’s a K-derivitave and managed look surprisingly good for what was a worked-over Dodge Aries. And finally, this was Chrysler’s first real attempt at front-drive performance. Ignore any Omni-based “sport” models that came prior, they were weak sauce. The Daytona was a solid effort…a turbocharged four-cylinder was a solid choice when it debuted, with Ford giving the same setup a try in the Mustang. The looks tended to blend a lot of Camaro and Mustang together, with just a hint of bubble-backed Capri for good measure. But it was the front-wheel-drive that killed the Daytona’s chances of being taken too seriously. Pity…these were slick-looking machines. Plus, we know a guy who is pretty good at shoving third-gen Hemis into them cleanly…driving the correct wheels, of course.
I had a 84 Turbo Z back in 1988. It looked like a twin to the black one at the beginning of the video. It had the same chocolate brown leather interior as the test car and had every option available. It had a sunroof instead of T-tops.It was a one owner car with 48K on it and was like brand new.
My car always ran WAY better than most 1st gen cars for whatever reason. It never once lost to another turbo 1 car and it got around LOTS of turbo 2 cars that supposedly had 28 more HP.
It got 30MPG whether you idled around like an old lady or beat the tar out of it so there was no reason not to pound it.
I really liked that car but like most stupid decisions, I gave it to my girlfriend when we broke up. She eventually sold it to some dumb kid that wrapped it around a tree the first time he drove it in bad weather. A shame but oh well.
Okay, who added Dr. Evil into the clip?