Five thousand dollars isn’t pocket change, especially if you’ve spent months or even a year or two scraping it together so you can have a little fun or if it’s the only five grand you’ll have to spend on a car for quite some time. It’s why we’ve stuck with that budget for our Rough Start cars…it provides the opportunity to get a beater on the cheap and have some cash left over to piece it together into something respectable for the moment. But what if there is no time to “piece it together”? What if this poor set of wheels has to be pressed into service ASAP, no questions asked? That’s the beauty of the budget…you can do that too! If you can be patient enough to wait on the modifications, you can find a unique driver that is still pretty cool, has potential, and will do the hard task of shuffling you around until you scrape a few more pennies together.

A Dodge Dakota on it’s own is a sensible choice. A mid-size pickup truck that’s just a little bit bigger than a Chevrolet S-10 or Ford Ranger, yet smaller than a full-size truck. In the 1990s, Chrysler was all about niche vehicle placement, and the Dakota was one of their more successful ideas. The goal of the Dakota was to offer up a truck that could be put together using parts-bin raiding and minimal investment, and there, they succeeded. But between 1989-1991, the Dakota convertible, the first drop-top pickup truck since the Ford Model A, was offered up for sale. Normally, it was more common to see the convertible Dak as a two-wheel-drive sport truck, which makes today’s find that much better: it’s a four-by-four.

To be fair, it’s not perfect. The interior has all of the wear you’d expect from a vehicle of this era and the paint isn’t as good as it first appears, especially on the tailgate. And there is no V8…in 1989, the only way to get a V8 was to buy a Shelby Dakota, and the 175 horsepower LA 318ci mill might end up disappointing you a little if you saw “SHELBY” and got excited. But here, you have a fuel-injected 3.9L V6 and all of it’s 125 horsepower glory. Will it move the truck and get you from point A-to-B? Yes, it will. Will it set your nerves alight with it’s noise and capabilities? Nope. Not even close. But being able to throw the top down on a run to Home Depot has to count for something, the four-wheel-drive does help cushion the blow, the looks are handsome, and there is room underhood for a small-block Mopar. Might we suggest saving up some coin for a 360 that’s set up to make torque?

Craigslist link: 1990 Dodge Dakota Sport 4×4 Convertible