(first posted 4/20/2018) There is no beating around the bush. The epiphany cannot be contained. The truth must spring forth…
This is the ultimate in pickups.
There. I said it. Much like a compass cannot escape pointing to magnetic north, I cannot escape proclaiming the truth about this Dodge.
It’s just a shame the popularity of pickups around here isn’t as rampant as it is for passenger cars. This generation of Dodge pickup has so many things going for it many just don’t realize.
The goodness began when this Mopar goddess of hauling was introduced for model year 1972, a year that definitely fielded some heady events. President Nixon commissioned development of the space shuttle, The Price Is Right with Bob Barker premiered on CBS, and Mark Spitz and his mustache won seven gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Munich. It was quite the year.
In addition to production numbers of the VW Beetle surpassing those of the Ford Model T, Dodge introduced a new pickup.
The Chrysler Corporation was really pouring itself into new product. The C-bodies had been redesigned for 1969, the intermediate B-body was redesigned for 1971, and the entire Dodge light truck line followed in 1972. It was a definite change from the prior generation which had been around since the early 1960s.
With the A-body Dart / Valiant being the lone holdout (aside from the captive import Cricket), a Chrysler showroom was a visually captivating place to be in 1972.
For 1973, Dodge upped the pickup ante as it had done with the four-door crew cab a decade prior by introducing an extended cab called the Club Cab. While initially intended to be a very limited production option, it proved popular enough that Dodge invested in more robust tooling to meet demand. At the time, anybody wanting more cab space in a Ford or Chevrolet had to spring for the full-blown crew cab that was on nothing lighter than a 3/4 ton chassis.
From its introduction in 1972, this generation of Dodge pickup had a very wide variety of available engine displacements, but all engines over 360 cubic inches were last seen during the 1978 model year.
It was also the year Dodge would have an available 243 cubic inch six-cylinder diesel. The take rate on those was quite small.
In 1979, my Grandfather “Albert’s” oldest brother-in-law, Otto, purchased a new Dodge, a lovely faced beauty with its fabulous stacked headlamps. Otto’s Dodge (and Otto, for that matter) was tougher than trying to chew a handful of roofing nails.
Otto was a Devout Disciple of Dodge.
For those unfamiliar with this melodic song, skip to 1:00 for the music to begin.
Once when at Grandpa Albert’s (and my late Grandma Violet’s) house, Otto stopped by. He had already had a stroke or two by this point but was still quite mobile. When leaving, he fired up his Dodge, the sweet melodious sound of its starter motor hypnotically enthralling all creatures within earshot, and for whatever reason Otto had his foot most of the way to the floor.
Still gabbing, and the Dodge’s engine screaming in Park, Grandpa Albert finally said “Ott, take your foot off the gas. She’s starting to smoke.” From under the hood.
Otto took his foot off the throttle and the 318 of the Dodge settled back to a normal idle. It wasn’t fazed one iota, almost as if it had been in that rodeo before.
How could one not be captivated by such ability to take abuse?
Model year 1981 brought a revised front clip, tweaked rear fenders, and a new interior. It added a lot of testosterone to an already phenomenal pickup.
Various automotive tests of the day commented about how masculine these pickups were in comparison to the contemporary Ford and Chevrolet. They weren’t wrong; these trucks are so masculine some examples have been found to be growing hair under the hood and around the hinges of both doors.
1983 would see the last crew cab Dodge pickups of this generation.
The Divinity of Dodge jumped exponentially in 1992. It was the first of three summers I worked for the Illinois Department of Transportation as a construction inspector intern. The Dodge pickups in the fleet were as plentiful as hooch at the liquor store. While as durable as ever there was, all but one of the herd I drove were built with a six and one-half foot bed.
With their 115 inch wheelbase and short bed, the typical installation of a toolbox really compromised any cargo carrying ability. They were richly derided for their bed length. Interestingly, the few 1988 and newer Chevrolet pickups to be found had a full sized bed of eight feet.
However, these Dodge’s were all powered by a 318 whose general peppiness quickly motivated one to not hanker for the 4.3 liter V6 powered Chevrolets.
The only Dodge possessing an eight foot bed length was a 1986 model powered by a slant six. Driving it was a rather laid back affair in comparison to the other Dodges. 1987 was the last year for the slant six in a pickup, replaced by a 3.9 liter V6.
It was always easy to determine when one of these Dodges was a 1988 or newer model. In 1988 fuel injection was introduced that not only produced a different (and less alluring) sounding starter motor, but also a whine when shut off. Careful examination revealed the whine was the accelerator pedal lowering itself around 1/2″ when killing the ignition.
A tangential Dodge fling came about in 1994 when I test drove a very lightly used 1993 model, the last year of this fabulous body style. It was equipped with a Magnum 5.2 (a metric name for the 318) that was introduced for 1992 plus the four-speed automatic that was introduced as an option in 1989. It made for the best driving Dodge pickup I had ever experienced up to that point. In modest trim and painted red, identical to the one seen in this ad, I wanted that pickup badly.
Interestingly, Dodge introduced the Magnum 5.2 and 3.9 for 1992 but waited a year before doing similarly on the 360 (5.9 liter) V8. When the 360 was Magnumized, both it and the 5.2 / 318 were rated at 230 horsepower. However, the 5.9 / 360 had a 45 to 50 ft-lb advantage in torque.
One fateful Sunday in 2006 an ad appeared in the Hannibal newspaper. A quick trip to the small town of Vandalia rekindled my unbridled affection for these Dodges. Writing a check for $400 netted me a 1987 Dodge D-250, my prime motivator in calling our featured Dodge the ultimate in pickups.
Various country music songs extoll the kinship a man has with his pickup. True that. That pickup was everything good in the world and a bag of chips. It was pickup nirvana.
It was also like an old dog. A dog will tell you when it’s hungry; a little valve ticking always told me when the Dodge was a quart low on oil. Seeing a dog jumping around by a door will tell you it needs to take a leak; the old Dodge’s transmission would tell you when it had leaked just enough as a mild slip meant a quart of transmission fluid was needed.
There is a certain indescribable luxury in having a mechanical device so clearly tells you of its needs.
I miss that pickup to this day.
Since then any sighting of this era of Dodge pickup causes me to look and fantasize. Even the most plain of plain Dodge pickups ever produced, one with a “Eat Rice, Potatoes Make Your Butt Big” bumper sticker seen annually at the state fair, makes me stop and swoon like a crazy person.
Recently I stumbled upon this particular Dodge, causing the well of admiration to overflow into what you are now reading.
Maybe it’s nostalgia that has led me to such syrupy verbiage but rational thoughts have me making a few key realizations, realizations that back up my initial statement about this being the ultimate in pickups.
By the 1980s, pickups had shed their prior image of being low speed offerings generally powered by mild six-cylinder engines. The construction of the interstate highway system from 1956 to the mid-1970s necessitated the ability to travel higher speeds over much longer distances. Pickups were now able to keep up with contemporary traffic and interior comfort and convenience options were not that much different than seen on passenger cars.
This Dodge was simply superior (in my highly subjective and biased opinion) to its Ford and Chevrolet contemporaries due to being much more rust resistant than Chevrolet and having less wheezy drivetrains than Ford.
The era was Peak Pickup. This era started in the early 1970s and wound down during the 1990s.
As much as I love the current crop of full-sized pickups, they are just a little too manscaped at times. A lot of effort has been undertaken to make them look, sound, and act ripped, cut, and ready for action, eager to kick butt and take names. Some available trims can get rather tedious.
Chrysler even went so far as to drop the name Dodge and rebrand their pickups as Ram. Does this make it sound tougher? Or is it trying to deny its heritage? The jettisoning of the Dodge name has always seemed idiotic since many people still call them Dodges. There is a reason I refer to these newer ones as being a Dodge Ram.
Conversely, this Dodge is quite comfortable with what it is. It seems to have the demeanor of “You like me? Fine. You don’t like me? That’s fine, too. I really don’t care either way.”
That is the other reason for my assertion for these being the ultimate in pickups; this Dodge is comfortable in its own skin, something that just doesn’t always seem to be the case nowadays. Shouldn’t we all be that way?
Found April 2018 on US 54 south of Jefferson City, Missouri
Author’s Note: Yes, I’m fully aware this pickup was referred to in both feminine and masculine terms. Things happen.
While it might be a Greatest Hit, would it also be appropriate to call the Dodge Club Cab a game changer? It seems like when extended cabs would later become available on the much greater selling Ford and Chevy light-duty pickups, suddenly, with the extra space of an extended cab, using a pickup as regular, daily transportation became much more viable to the point that, today, pickups are now the best selling domestic vehicles.
I’m afraid that I can’t share Jason’s enthusiasm towards these Dodges. I frequently drove a few examples of this generation of Dodge pickups for work in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While the mechanicals were basically sturdy, the trucks were poorly put together, developed lots of annoying rattles within a short time, and rusted like nobody’s business. One new 1979 stepside 4×4 gave off a horribly loud buzzing sound out of the right front fender at any speed over 50 mph. The dealer was clueless. We found out that two pieces of sheetmetal in the front were vibrating together in the airflow. A nerf ball jammed between the pieces cured the problem. And then there was the brand new 1979 van that had holes in the roof welds where sunshine would pour through into the interior. These trucks were far from Mopar at its best.
I can confirm that the ones (that model and the one before it) we got in Israel, assembled in Upper Nazareth by AIL were no better. A guy I knew had one on or about 1971 and according to him it was an utter heap. He was using it for IDF contract work in the Sinai desert and constantly had to repair one thing or another; he finally had the bright idea of parking it in an area known to be bombarded by the Egyptian artillery on a daily basis. Once the bombardment came to an end there was not much left of it but an insurance claim which translated into a Chevrolet C20.
Having said that, when they broke – given their simple construction – they could be repaired by anyone with a set of basic tools, so…
Love me some Dodge pickups! While I think the 1994 T300 restyle became the best looking pickup ever, that is the Greatest Generation of trucks. I don’t think Dodge gets the historical credit they deserve for them, between the first crew cabs and club cabs, the Cummins diesels and the first packaged muscle truck, the ‘Lil Red Express, they should have full legendary status by now.
Tough trucks, there’s lots of them still on the road here and clean, low mileage CTDs from that era command big price tags. I hate the ’91-93 front ends though.
For a long time, I really struggled with the front end of the ’91 to ’93 models. However, over time, it has become a bit more endearing. The ’86 to ’90 front end is the hands-down best.
You’ve got a good point about the ‘Lil Red Express. There was a brief time with the earlier generation where Dodge did something less obvious by placing a 413 (I think) in a half-ton equipped with bucket seats. Some grocery store Mopar magazine once had an article on one and they said it was ridiculously easy to burn off the rear tires.
The early turbo diesels aren’t the only examples of these with hefty asking prices – looking on CL last night, even some gas powered examples with low miles had five digit asking prices. A coworker recently bought a restored ’92 W-250 diesel for around $12k. After seeing some others for sale, it seems like he got a bargain.
Agreed, the 86-90 front ends look the nicest, followed by the ’79-80 stacked headlights for me.
Squad 51 will probably always be my favorite though.
Great article Jason, thanks
I struggled the same way, at about the same time, with the 1989-90 (really midyear ’88) buttlift of the Ford Escort (like the one I did Driver’s Ed in). Same deal with the last couple facelifts of Dodge’s B-van.
It’s funny how something that screams “a facelift too far”, and seems to put two distinct design eras adjacent on different parts of the same car at the time blends in and becomes more coherent with age.
I´m with you. Loved “emergency” as a child. The show ran here as “Notruf California” (emergency call California) in the early 90´s.
Great article, nice trucks.
Ditto the 86-90 front end. We own an 87 W150 LE bought new, ordered actually. Still use it on the farm. That said, BRs (94-02) set the standard that brought pickups to where they are today and put Ram pickups in 2d place above Silverado over time (last year, maybe this one too). The old W/D pickups practically didn’t even sell if it wasn’t for the Cummins. Dodge almost killed the pickup, and the BR was a “re-do.” The original BR was too bland, and Lido sent the team back to the drawing board.
One thing that really annoys me is that business of calling the 1981-93 model, Generation 1; Was that a Lee Iacocca thing? Did the generations of Dodge trucks that came before, not count for anything? Under the skin, the 81-93 is the 72-80 truck. The only legit reason I can think of, is that the trucks became Dodge Ram, instead of just Dodge.
Dodge did not have the first factory crew cabs that was International in 1957 and it was even available as a 1/2 ton at the start. Now it was a 3dr at the start but quickly gained the 4th door though by that time it was only on the 3/4 and 1 tons.
I have always admired these from a distance but have never lived with one. This one looks like it would be a great weekend warrior. Imagine how much better my landscaping would look if I owned this! Life would be about trips to the home center multiple times every Saturday and Sunday.
What I find odd is that these looked best at the very beginning of their long run (1972-3) and again at the end. It is the ones from the mid and late 70s that I am not nuts about.
A great find. I share your pickup feelings, but I am not as conflicted because I don’t own a modern pickup. Dodge Caravan FTW, and it’s still badged as a Dodge. (That gives me a very uncomforable mental image of a manscaped RAM Caravan, yuck)
That being said these pickups now instantly remind me of the Top Gear USA trip episode, oh dear!
What a sad treatment to a fine old pickup.
The subject vehicle is indeed for sale but at what I think to be a crack pipe price. Maybe it isn’t. Either way, I know this old Dodge is much more me than is my ’07 F-150. The Dodge even has 50,000 fewer miles. However, the Dodge will require periodic work as it’s 31 years old and appears to have been sitting for a while. My Ford? It has required nothing of consequence the entire time I’ve owned it.
Now you have me imagining manscaped Caravans. Thanks.
. . . . but isn’t there a young Shafer who will be driving soon? 🙂
Yes. She has her eyes on a certain van that is suffering from a crank-no-start condition.
Maybe she could take my pickup and I get a Dodge.
I actually watched the video until he got that poor thing started. The suspense was killing me. 🙂
I’ve driven a couple of vans from that time period, but my only experience with the pickups is grabbing some junkyard parts that went on my Dart.
Pretty sure a truck chassis with the cab gone is the easiest starter motor removal I’ll ever do.
That sounds like a delightful starter removal job! Yeah, I watched the video too. There ought to be the vehicular equivalent of the ASPCA that can rescue old cars from maltreatment and neglect. I can’t believe the poor thing still runs.
Watching that video was a mixed bag. Lots of delightful starter motor sounds (which is why I picked it) but all that accelerator pumping likely had it as flooded as what Noah saw.
I owned an ’85 Dodge Royal SE long bed model for about 3 years, purchased in 2008 off evilbay, showing 86K (or 186K??) on the odometer. Even though the sale price was less than $1500, knowing the legendary reliability of this powertrain (the 318/Torqueflite combo was reputed to be Mopar’s lowest warranty claim powertrain ever), I cheerfully flew to Corpus Christi, Texas to buy it and drive it back the 560 miles to New Orleans. A fluids top off and run thru a Texaco car wash gave me an uneventful trip home. I was pleased (relieved?) not to hear one squeak or rattle on the drive home.
And oddly optioned truck, prolly thanks to Mopars (in)famous sales bank program: the still under-rated today 318 V8 engine, 3 speed torqueflite automatic transmission, power steering, power front disc brakes, tilt wheel and cruise control, delay wipers, power door locks but hand crank windows, an upscale, two tone brocade light brown/darker brown cloth & vinyl bench seat without a fold down armrest & carpeting and headliner, c-c-cold factory air conditioning, the top of the line sound system, dog dish hub caps, two tone copper exterior with beige inserts on the sides.
Although not a pick up truck kinda guy; I gradually developed a grudging affection for this one.
I found it to be a quite adequate performer, far better than the dog 305 engine in my brother’s ’83 GMC with it’s thumping, hunting, oscillating automatic overdrive tranny. (After borrowing it for a weekend run my brutha off offhandedly said “Wanna trade trucks?”). There was a certain mechanical perfection in the engine/transmission/final drive ratio. It never felt under-powered or bogged down, additional acceleration was just a gas pedal toe touch/part throttle downshift away.
The “nang-nang-mang-nangggggg” sound of Mopar’s “Highland Park Hummingbird” gear reduction starter was a comforting sound that has been imprinted in my brain’s synapses since childhood , having heard this on various Mopar’s in our family since the 1960’s. Other starters just sounded somehow bland and boring when compared to this one!
Small block Mopars of the 1960’s/70’s/80’s had a certain “whiiirrrrrrrrring” sound to their engines, perhaps a combo of the alternator, fan clutch, fan belts & power steering pump all humming together? A rather familiar, somehow comforting mechanical symphony to those of raised on Mopar products.
The power steering was the best I have ever experienced on any Mopar of the 1960’s thru 1980’s. Not as good as a Chevy, but far better than the same generation Ford.
That Dodge was an uber-reliable workhorse, in spite of it’s age and (assumed) high mileage. I never had any qualms about jumping into it and driving it anywhere. I would cheerfully loan it out, knowing it would always find it’s way back home.
I most reluctantly sold it when the A/C system died. (SO very necessary for me here in one of the heat & humidity sink holes of the USA!) The repair estimates were much higher than the resale value of the truck.
The first person that looked at it bought it at my asking price (more than i had paid for it) , drove over 300 miles to come back and pick it up the next weekend
Wow, just who needs power locks in a pickup? I am not sure I have ever seen those on a pickup of that vintage, particularly a Dodge.
I know, right?
I thought someone had just screwed on the “Power Door Lock” buttons stolen from a Cordoba; but the PDL always thumped up and down with a macho “klunk”.
And everything still worked properly 25 years later!
Definitely a oddly optioned truck.
After seeing decidedly rare factory air-conditioning in a late ’60s Chevy pick-up, it made me do some research on a truck I got a ride in in the late ’70s.
A friend’s dad came to pick us up at the golf course. He was not in his usual loaded 1978 Buick Park Avenue company car, but a different company car – from the pool as his car was in the shop. A 1978 Chevy pick-up luxed and loaded in a way I’d never seen before, including power windows and locks. It made quite an impression, and its combo of luxury with a macho twist was very appealing to my 14 year old mind. It was the first sign that quickly became a beacon in the sky that my generation was going to embrace the pick-up as a replacement for the full-size American car.
So, in the spirit of the important research done in CC labs, I poured through year’s worth of Chevy truck brochures to see when various options came on-line. 1977 was the first year for power windows and locks.
So, by 1985, Chrysler was definitely showing signs of keeping up with the emerging importance of the pick-up. They had likely been offering power options for several years.
Regarding odd optioning, I can recall a lot of cars favoring power locks over power windows in the early ’70s. While windows came first in terms of availability, locks seemed to overtake them from the mid ’60s on. (Power seats usually had the lead over locks).
In the parlance of today, the powers at my dad’s employer carefully curated the power options on the Oldsmobile Delta 88s in the company garage. Power locks made the cut for many years as it would, of course, be awkward to be reaching across the car to open locks when admitting guests and clients. But, power windows seemed over the top and a waste of the client’s money when the car was already outfitted with air-conditioning. The first car in the company garage to get power windows was a 1978 model.
New Power Windows and Locks for 1977, at your Chevy dealer……..
Power locks are handy in a pickup. It’s a long reach across a pickup cab to the door handle.
Yeah I hate that my SuperDuty lacks power locks it is a long reach across its cab which is hindered by the arm rest/middle seat that I keep in the arm rest position.
I can’t believe that they’re not standard in this day and age.
Another Dodge pickup lover here, although in my case my love is aimed more at the Dakota (having owned two in my lifetime, and would have had a third except the wife wanted something smaller, so I bought an S-10). I can understand the attitude of “the last honest pickup” as in pickup as work truck, not luxury cruiser.
Of course, there is the matter that, with the invention of the Club Cab, Dodge can be credited as taking the first step towards the current abomination of leather seated, luxury equipped, I-can’t-believe-you-haul-loads-in-it pickup trucks.
A rational, useful and needed first step, but the first step . . . . .
Funny how yesterday I just drove by one of these Dodges still working hard on the job. Always rooting for the underdog, I naturally have a soft-spot for the old Dodge D-series trucks. Honest and a bit different from the rest.
However, objectively I do not think they were the best of the herd or had the least wheezy power trains. Ford trucks were completely redesigned from the ground up for the 1980 model year. Not to mention their 7.5L v8 or high-output 5.8L V8 could probably out run anything dodge had in those times.
Ever experienced the “joy” of driving an early 1980’s V8 Ford truck with the spastic “variable venturi” carburetor?
Not to mention the infamous ‘Swiss cheese’ lightened chassis. 1980-83 were not Ford’s best truck years.
Yes, and properly maintained feedback carbs are great. So long as maintence is kept up, the system performs better than the mechanical versions.swiss cheese frame was a dumb idea that only lasted a year or two. I’m
Let us all hope a 7.5 liter Ford might outrun a 5.9 liter Dodge! 🙂 As mentioned, everything larger than the 360 disappeared after 1978 so Dodge was at a disadvantage when Ford still had the 460 and Chevrolet the 454.
If memory serves, this lack of larger engines was a factor in Dodge introducing the Cummins diesel. One account I read was by around 1990 over half of the Dodge trucks produced were equipped with a Cummins.
I guess I’m not well versed in Mopar history, but why did they drop the larger engines after 1978? Was it low take rates? Or would it have been the only vehicle still using those engines and they wanted those assembly lines for the K-car? Or something else?
With the end of the big C-Body cars, Chrysler decided to kill its big block V8s (400 and 440). They apparently couldn’t justify building them for trucks only. This caused a big impact in the motorhome industry, as Chrysler utterly dominated that market until 1979, and its 413 and 440 powered just about everything, including the biggest motorhomes being built back then, because diesels were almost unheard of in motorhomes.
It wasn’t just the engines either; Chrysler just flat killed their motohome chassis business, which were under them too. Of course the 1979-1981 energy crisis and subsequent deep recession pretty much decimated that industry, but when it finally came back in around 1983 and so, now Chevy and Ford were the dominant player. Chrysler was the first of the Big Three to exit the medium truck field.
I think there was serious consideration of killing all truck as part of Chrysler quasi-bankruptcy reorganization. The vans had always been good sellers, but the pickups were a very distant third. The Cummins engine is what got them through the end of this generation; without that, they might have folded the pickup tent.
Thanks, I figured it was probably something like that. I wasn’t even aware of the motorhome thing too. I knew Dodge was huge in that market in the 1970’s and suddenly went to almost non-existent in the 1980’s, but I didn’t know why. In hindsight, it seems kind of a shame to throwaway a market like that, but at the time I’m sure it seemed like the right thing to do, and the events of the next few years I’m sure vindicated that decision.
Keep in mind Ford also dropped the 460 in 1980. The largest engine available was the 400. Ford’s engine lineup was nothing to brag about during the 1980-1983 time period. The Dodge probably held its own against the likes of the 255 Windsor, 351M and the 400, not to mention the 3.8 Essex V-6
I am unclear about whether Ford actually stopped building the 460 in that short time or if it kept building it for RVs and other commercial applications but just eliminated it from the light duty trucks.
In either case, Ford was able to bring the 460 back to retail trucks where it stayed available through most of the 90s. Chrysler destroyed the tooling for its big blocks during the dark days of the early 80s and was forced to resort to the V-10 program (derived from the LA engine) in order to compete with Ford and Chevy for big-engine trucks.
If these trucks have any fault, it’s that Chrysler waited way too long to redesign the truck (uh, 23 years with at most two minor upgrades?) while GM and Ford went thru a couple of generations of pickups in that time period.
I’m going to guess the lack of updates compared to Ford or Chevy was a product of Chrysler’s primary truck customer being to government and commercial fleets. Fleet buyers, unlike civilians, aren’t nearly as concerned with styling updates. As evidence, just look at the ancient Chevy Express commercial van which was probably (mildly) updated no sooner than a few decades ago.
For a very long time, civilian sales of Dodge trucks seemed more like a sideline than their main target demographic. That’s why the Club Cab was so important. While the sales improvement was negligible, the Club Cab was definitely a concerted effort to make Dodge pickups more appealing to civilians.
The lack of updates is real simple: Dodge pickup sales were so low and such a distant third that the company couldn’t justify a return on the investment. This really came into play during Chrysler’s near-death experience in ’79-80, when they completely exited the medium truck/motorhome business. See my comment on that a bit further up.
They killed the big block engines, and I’m sure some serious consideration as given to killing the pickups too. The vans sold quite well, and that probably gave them the incentive to stick with the pickups, but with minimal investment.
Keep in mind that the pickup market was much smaller then, and the profit margins were nothing like the are now; probably fairly modest. Look how long Chevy kept their 1973 vintage pickup in production, and without an extended cab.
The pickup market really heated up in the 90s, and Chrysler saw it had to get back in the game, or quit. But that was a huge investment for them.
Nowadays Ford makes the ion’s share of its profits from the F Series, and these are huge profit margins, so they (and the GM and FCA) will spend what it takes to constantly stay fully competitive, as they have no choice. It’s a life-or-death situation, ery unlike what it was back in the 70s and 80s.
I remember in one of Lido’s books he mentioned that failed executives at FoMoCo were always banished to the Truck Department, the company’s equivalent of Siberia back in the day.
Great trucks- legendary durability. Let’s not discount the appearance of the Cummins in these pickups. Between the Cummins arrival in ’89, and the restyle in ’94, Dodge really did scramble the full size pickup market.
Great picture. The solid color and tastefully modded nature of that truck really captures the spirit of these trucks.
Nice post Jason.
However for me these were perpetual also rans behind the F series and the C/K series.
These looked dated in the late 1970’s let alone in 1993 when it was finally replaced by the attractive 1994 Ram. Once Ford came out with their 7,8 and 9th gen F Series trucks, the Dodge was relegated to those that folks that were Mopar diehards and fleets.
True the 8th an 9th generation F Series was simply a warmed over 7th gen with a new front end and a bit of streamlining. But still those generations of F Series looked good then and look great now.
Selling that generation of Ram into 1993 was just like selling the 67-76 Dodge Dart in 1993.
Dodge was flush with cash in the 1980’s, it took them that long to replace that truck?
The 1994 Ram was an attractive truck then and now, so why did it take them so long to offer it?
If you do a google search you can find the halfassed bag of buttholes that almost became the 1994 if they had done it earlier. Looked like a Chinese knockoff of the derpy looking ‘87-92 aero fords. Glad they waited and did it right.
The 80-96 F-series is one collective generation to me, just as the Fox generation mustang (79-93) is one collective generation, which underwent the same transitions in the switch to EFI, different dashboards and aero front ends to keep the same basic bodyshell current.
Personally, I never truly liked the styling on this collective generation of F-series, the cab had the same awkward downsize proportions the Box Panthers had. The 87-91 in particular was possibly the most anynomous looking truck ever made. The saving grace of these were the later engines with proper modern multiport fuel injection across the board, but for the earlier carbed era trucks I’d take a C/K followed by the Dodge.
Youre right, that generation is mostly the same truck with ongoing improvements. But styling differences can make or break something. This ’85 F-150…damn good looking rig. Just clean and purposeful looking, very handsome and that’s coming from a very non-Ford guy. You wouldn’t be insane to think that Dodge cribbed the look in ’81, either.
The 92-96 was the only front end I felt worked well, the 80-86 looks unsubstantial to me as well, like a watered down version of its predecessor(again, like the box Panthers)
The 81 Dodge front end looks more cribbed from the previous Ford dentsides to my eye.
Like the rest of the ’87 aero abomination that Ford foisted on most of its vehicles, this….GAH-BAGE!!! To me it just looks terrible, even though its a nice color and even a stepside. Its easily the worst the F series and Broncos have ever looked. My parents had a gorgeous midnight blue over white ’85 XLT Bronco they traded for an ’88 Eddie Bauer Bronco when I was in middle school…these just got slammed face first into the ugly wall…
The ’92-’96 was a big improvement over this iMHO.
Nice article.
I want that Highland Park Hummingbird as a ringtone!
What an awesome suggestion!
i-phone apt center, are you listening?
No app needed. You can make ringtones of whatever you want, rather easily—try a Google search. I made a few Chrysler starter ringtones, but quickly stopped using them; to my surprise they quickly grew annoying and didn’t work well as “Hey, answer the phone” sounds.
When did it change? It was always called the ‘hamtramck hummingbird’ in the midwest (at least everyone I knew called it that).
Mmmm…no, this is the first I’ve ever seen or heard of “Hamtramck Hummingbird”.
“Highland Park Hummingbird” has been in use for many, many years pretty much all across North America. It makes more sense, too: Highland Park was where Chrysler’s HQ was located before it was moved to Auburn Hills (after that starter was no longer in use on new cars); Hamtramck was relevant only because one of Chrysler’s build plants was there.
Pre internet, I’d never heard it called anything but Hamtramck Hummingbird, go figure
https://www.allpar.com/model/fury.html
https://www.allpar.com/history/plymouth/1962.html
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/welcome-to-mopar-mania-a-weeklong-tribute-to-all-things-chrysler/
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/08/curbside-classic-chryslers-deadly-sin-2-1987-chrysler-fifth-avenue-edition/
If I recall correctly: Even in Mopar’s terrible quality control lacking, spastic, bi-polar days of the early/mid 1980’s (I recall Chrysler common stock prices dropping to ONE dollar a share!); the J. D. Power owner survey consistently rated the Dodge trucks highly.
I had Fleet Customers running Dodge trucks up on the North Slope of Alaska. Crappy build quality, but they were durable and reliable in this type of extreme service.
Daddy likes! Jason, you are making me rue the “opportunity” I had to rescue and take over the one that came with that foreclosed house I bought a few years ago. Since then I’ve always taken a second look when I see one on the street. I did sit in it and make (mental) engine noises as if I was forty years younger at the time so that and the starter video will have to make do for now.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/foreclosure-classic-1986-dodge-ram-pickup-not-exactly-the-cobra-in-the-barn/
Climb into the truck
Turn the ignition key
“Nang-Nang-Nang-Nang-Nangggggggg”
Pump the gas pedal twice, (forgot to set the automatic choke!), hearing the jingling of the gas pedal/throttle/carb linkage mechanism
“Nang-Nang-Nanggggg-ROAARRRRRR!”
Quiet whirrrring sound from the engine
Put it in “drive”
Goose the gas pedal
take off, hearing the “oooooooooooh” first gear sound of the Torqueflite automatic, sorta like greased up/oily metal parts rubbing on each other……
My favorite place to hear the Hamtramck Hummingbird (other than in person) is at the beginning of ZZ Top’s “Manic Mechanic.” 🙂
Jim you still have time. I looked at your Craig’s list last night.
Plus, I just snapped a picture of one two minutes ago. It’s even a three on the tree
We can call it that, I suppose, but only just barely. It was a throttle body system with cheap, nasty, primitive hardware by Holley, cheap, nasty, primitive firmware by Chrysler, and numerous thoughtless design, uh, “features”. Compared to the feedback carburetor setups it replaced, its driveability and economy flaws were mostly just different, not lesser.
The two things were not causally linked. Chrysler stopped using their in-house starter after ’87; for ’88 they started buying starters from Nippondenso: much smaller and lighter, but they sounded Toyotalike. One of the first things I did after buying my ’89 was to swap on a carefully-built Chrysler starter. Apparently you and I aren’t the only ones who feel this way; see/hear also this for an even bigger anachronism.
Speaking of cheap, nasty, primitive hardware: this what you saw and heard was the throttle positioner: a large, loud, slow, geared-motor actuator hung on the throttle body with a stem that pushed against the throttle lever. Despite the fact that idle air controllers had been known and common technology for many years (and are the right way to do it), Chrysler and their suppliers chose not to. Instead they used this clunker to control idle speed by nudging the throttle plates open in response to what the system (often wrongly) thought it understood about prevailing conditions. Driveability ugliness from it included making multiple-point turns in narrow roads: the system would react to your tapping the accelerator by opening the throttle plates—slowly, so peak RPMs were reached just in the middle of your Drive-to-Reverse shift (or vice versa), which meant a BANG! engagement…every single time.
That thing you noticed of the accelerator moving down a fraction of an inch after shutdown was the system opening the throttle plates a little so the poorly-designed intake manifold wouldn’t get too badly flooded by fuel drip from the leak-prone injectors with thermal soak.
I wasted a lot of effort trying to improve this system. I had some sound ideas, and managed to make it not quite so completely godawful, but that was the limit of the potential. The Magnum engines that came in ’92, with real fuel injection and cylinder heads from sometime after the stone age, etc, were a giant improvement over the slackassed mess Chrysler put on the ’88-’91 trucks and vans.
I can enjoy the sound of starting a 360 (with its manual choke conversion) exhaling through a low restriction exhaust system anytime; there’s one sitting in the back lot in the form of my ’77 Dodge Chinook. I’m going to miss that, as the Ram Promaster sounds just like what it essentially is: a Dodge Caravan on steroids.
But I’m not going to miss the 360’s deadly tendency to stall when pulling away from a stop, like turning into a highway or crossing one.
I had the same issues on the 2 barrel Holley carb on my Dodge truck mentioned above.
Repeated automatic choke adjustments and accelerator pump linkage “finesses” just about eliminated these issues; but I was always wary.
Oh, don’t mistake my scorn for the halfassed ’88-’91 TBI as pining for carburetors, which I very much do not miss. Given the choice I would take the ’88-’91 TBI for no other reason than the elimination of tip-in stalling (which, yes, is hideously dangerous). My main gripe was that Chrysler could have made a much better cheap TBI system—viz GM/Rochester, though the very same clunky throttle positioner motor was used on some of those setups, too.
My only experiences with Mopars was of the carburetor models.
How would you rank Mopar’s TBI when compared to the GM and FoMoCo system of the early/mid 1980’s?
The GM TBI systems were rather good. They were what they were, with the attendant limitations and constraints of a TBI system, but they were a lot better sorted; not nearly so halfassed in terms of hardware design and firmware rectitude, so a Chev 305 or 350 with factory TBI was a much better-behaved animal than a Dodge 318 with factory TBI. There wasn’t much of an unreliability problem with the Mopar system, it just didn’t work very well even when everything was exactly as intended.
I am tempted to let fly with bulk scorn for Ford’s TBI systems, but it’s difficult for me to separate out only those problems that were directly caused by the design and execution of the TBI system from the long, long list of problems and shortcomings and badness on the ’80 Stinkoln Clown Car as a whole. It’ll be written up someday from deep in the COAL mines.
Mopar’s TBI was Holley-sourced. I had pretty good luck with them, biggest issues were poor quality fuel pumps and idle stepper motors. Driveability issues were usually EGR related or low fuel pressure.
Ford thankfully never used their TBI system on a full size truck.
Great read! Obviously Im a fan, having started out on a ‘84 Power Ram which my dad still owns/drives. When we picked it up in 1990, it was just about the spitting image of the black one just below the video. Same awesome turbine wheels but no hood ornament and it’s a shortbed. It’s been a damned reliable rig over these 28 years, only needing the expected care and feeding of an old pickup. Now that my pop is retired, it can get the cosmetic restoration it needs. I always enjoy getting reacquainted with my first ride when I go visit TN…nostalgia is a strong influence but an honest hard as nails truck is a VERY tactile and pure experience.
People really love or hate that 1992-93 grill. I like it, depending on how the rest of the truck is wrung out. That black 4×4 shortbed looks nice with it, but in a red or cobalt blue it really pops…especially when it’s painted to match the body. It’s interesting that Dodge dropped the club cab after ‘82 but kept the tooling around to resurrect it in 1991. CC Cummins are plentiful but on 1/2 tons they’re almost nonexistent.
Back in the early ’80s during summers between college semesters I worked at a large state park on the park maintenance crew. The state-owned trucks we used at the time were mostly late ’60s to mid-’70s GMCs and Dodges, with maybe one or two Fords thrown in. Mostly 1/2 tons, a few 3/4 tons, most were 4x2s with a few 4x4s. My recollection is that they were mostly V8s, but I think one of the 4×2 Dodges was a slant-6.
We worked the hell out of those trucks maintaining trails, hauling mulch, dirt, gravel, rocks, garbage, railroad ties, lumber, hay, manure, you name it…just generally operated the hell out ’em all day, every day. I got a lot of seat time in those trucks during those summers.
As I recall, our least favorite were the Dodges…they just felt less solid even though they were among the “newest” of the park’s small fleet of pickups. Our favorite, and the one we always fought over, was a particular faded dark green ’69 or ’70 GMC 3/4 ton 4×4 with a 350 V8. That thing was badass, must’ve had over 200K on it, but it was the most solid truck of the bunch.
While, yes, the first model year was 1972, these pickups were introduced in fall, 1971.
Mark Spitz didn’t win all of the 7 Gold Medals until Sept, ’72, and the 1973 models were about to be marketed.
But another Dodge product that lasted very long, from early 70’s into the 90’s, was the B full size van. So old, that the first models were introduced in spring 1970! And, so old that one appeared in final season of “Beverly Hillbillies”; as a ‘hippie van’.
Yes, I would imagine that most of us know the 1972 models were introduced in the fall of 1971. 🙂 I needed a point of reference and referencing events of 1971 would have been a little confusing.
I was born during the window in time in which the 1972 Olympics were going on. Not everybody can lay claim to that!
Great article Jason
Although a tried and true Ford fan I have had numerous encounters with this breed. When I first started at my company as a young apprentice mechanic I was tasked with driving one of the company trucks to and from a satellite location a few times to move equipment around, a 500 mile round trip.
The approx. 1985 D250 was ex BC Forest Service, in BC government green with a large steel headache rack. With a 360/auto 2 wheel drive it had sufficient power but government specs, with all vinyl and no radio . . . . not great for long drives. Also it had spent it’s entire previous 12+ year life being driven very had on logging roads and the rattles proved it. Virtually no part of that truck didn’t rattle, even in a light breeze. (As one commenter had mentioned)
For many years they were a familiar site out in the bush, as government Forestry vehicles and as logging company crummies until the crew cabs began to disappear.
But it was dependable and never left me stranded aside from one winter night when the wipers quit – but I made it. The comments regarding the familiar starter whine brought back the memories for sure.
Well done, thank you.
Pickup trucks aren’t really my primary area of interest and expertise, but you really have made me find an appreciation for this truck.
Comparing this Dodge Ram to similar-era Chevy/GMC and Ford pickups, you’ve made it easy to see where the Ram was superior. Despite its lengthy production, the Ram never really seemed outdated, with the possible exception of its final few years. Still, Chrysler kept making meaningful updates to keep it competitive, especially in the powertrain and interior departments.
These are as evergreen as ever there was in a pickup.
You have a good point on the interior….I have been looking at CL ads for these in different cities around the country. The upgraded interiors from the mid-80s on were quite nice and very rugged. What I’m seeing in these ads are seats and interiors in phenomenal condition.
Live next door to my old Dodge 360 on a cold morning and you want to sleep in? Let me play you the sound of my people…
I had similar with mine; every time I drove it to work it awakened my retired next door neighbor. Having little more than a straight pipe exhaust behind that 360 likely amplified it some.
I really liked these trucks until the 1988 GM full size trucks came out.
Dodge adopted the “Ram” moniker as a model name with the ‘81 refresh. In my opinion, it was elevated to represent the “make” name in 2009 in order to separate the truck lineup from the cars in case of what seemed to be the inevitable breakup and sell-off of Cebarus’ Chrysler Corporation.
It is my opinion that unless GM somehow gets it act together, we’ll see Chevy trucks separated from the cars and rebranded as “Silverado” trucks.
My experience with the ’80s Dodge vs. Ford pickups was that the Ford was nimble to drive (relatively), and somehow handled rather well despite the front twin I-beams. But the frame was flexy, and the 302 V8 was very peaky and didn’t have much torque. The whole truck felt sort of lightweight and flimsy. The Dodge, on the other hand, felt relatively heavy and solid, but didn’t want to do anything but go in a straight line. The 318 was all torque. It didn’t rev up very well, but neither weight nor incline kept it from slowly pulling along, getting where it needed to go, no matter what. Just don’t ask it to stop or turn corners quickly. But then, pulling heavy things along slowly in a straight line is what trucks are all about, right?
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Exactly! At least they USED to be, anyway. Simple, plain old pickups that aren’t business-owned are gradually becoming an endangered species in the automotive world. Everyday I see extended/crew-cab or jacked-up 4×4 pickups with little to no actual load in the bed and/or only seldom towing a size-able trailer. The sight of a small utility trailer from Lowe’s or wherever being pulled by ANY of these trucks looks ridiculous! All you NEED for that kind of job is a 4-cylinder Ranger (or Tacoma or Frontier) like mine. I finally got to hitch up that Nissan 720 truck bed trailer & I have to say it looks & pulls GREAT behind my truck! The bed heights are almost even, too, despite 225/70R15 (truck) vs. 195/75R14 (trailer) tires. If anything looks different about the trailer from the time my Aerostar was pulling it, it’s because 1) the wheels now have hubcaps off of a salvage ’95 Aerostar from the nearest Pull-a-Part location in my area (believe it or not I just wanted to see if they fit & they both had a 14″ diameter!), 2) the spare tire now has a cover over it, & 3) I upgraded the safety chains to more durable safety cables that don’t sag when they’re even slightly too long for the tow vehicle. To correct the issue of having Ford hubcaps on a Nissan vehicle, I simply printed off paper copies of Nissan emblems & taped them over the Ford ovals.
I’ve had trucks, primarily Dodges, for decades (a ’66 Ford F250 4×2 300 six and a ’69 W200 starting the lineup) and have had one Chevy (K1500) and a couple of Fords (F250 4×4 and F350 4×2 Diesels, F250 300 six 4×4, etc.). Current daily driver is a ’98 W2500 5.9 5 speed extended cab long bed. The several Dodges I’ve had with slant 6 engines were about the best farm trucks–dependable, indestructable, and able to lug without wheelspin. I had one Dodge W100 extended cab 318 automatic (all the others have been standards) and I can honestly say the 727 Torqueflite/318 combination was excellent, to the point I didn’t hate automatics for a little while! For practical use, repairability, durability, and value, I’d say Dodge/Ram was the top, followed by Ford, and then Chevy/GMC. Slant 6’s and the 300 Ford top my engine list, followed by the 6.9/7.3 Ford/Navistar Diesels, although the 318/360’s have treated me well. My Chevy 4.3 was a real problem child, but when I finally got it straightened out, it was a pretty good truck to push a snow plow, and remarkably durable at that. Realistically, nothing can top old iron like any of these for just plain work, and there’s nothing like any of these being sold today, on this side of the pond, anyway, for any price. I guess that the bottom line has always been that if you get a good one of anything, rejoice, and if you get the inevitable dud, cut your losses and move on. I’m glad I’m not planning to be in the market for a replacement truck in the forseeable future, because I don’t see anything that would be practical for my usage or that would be affordable for anyone of ordinary means. How many of today’s light trucks will be on the road 20 or more years from now?? So make the Ultimate Goddess four wheel drive and you’ve nailed it in my book!
A former neighbor had an early 80s model with a long Utiline (Dodge’s name for stepside) bed. Stepside longbeds were pretty rare by the 80s, mostly relegated to municipal fleet trucks. It was a Slant Six, and I think the only options were a 3+OD floor shift and larger side mirrors. I wanted that truck so very badly.
Had a lot of seat time in the Army version (M880) of this generation Dodge. The Military Police Highway Patrol based in Waegwan, Korea had a couple mixed in their fleet. I will say they made much better Highway Patrol vehicles than M151 Jeeps – but they weren’t near as nice as a sedan. I do recall these as fairly reliable MP vehicles. My biggest beef with these was the lack of power steering.
My last Army assignment detailed me for one summer to coordinate Army support to fight a major western forest fire. I was assigned an M880 for that duty. Field support troops from Ft. Carson, CO were equipped with HUMMWVs – amazingly capable off road vehicles. I had previously used the M880 with the MP Highway Patrol, but that duty rarely took me off road. The M880 earned my respect by keeping up with the HUMMWVs without once getting stuck.
Partially nostalgia, but I now prefer the design of the pre-1981 face-lifted Dodge pickups. I like the originality of the curvier design. Rather, than the greater conformity to mainstream styling, Dodge later pursued in the 1980s. I also found the first gen Dakota styling bland, and too GM-like.
My assumption when I read about Ram being separated from Dodge was that Sergio Marchionne was preparing to potentially sell the Dodge brand to another company but wanted to keep the trucks; hence “Dodge” was removed from trucks and vans. If not, I don’t see the point, and yet you can’t argue with results; Dodge/Ram, long a bit player in pickup trucks, has grown so popular they’ve outsold Chevrolet pickups in some years. As the New York Times noted, there are lots of Ford truck fanboy who don’t like Chevys, and lots of Chevy truck fans who can’t stand Fords, but hardly anyone hates Rams.
Who would possibly want to buy the Dodge brand? Absolutely nobody.
It was just part of a move to differentiate the various brands more clearly. Dodge was to become a performance car brand; Ram the truck brand. Made lots of sense, actually, since the Ram’s head/horns had been used on Dodge trucks going waaay back, and the Ram name had been used in various ways too.
Ram is a better name for a man-oriented than Dodge, in any case.
Who would want to buy the Dodge brand? I’m guessing a Chinese company that’s little-known in the West. Just like how they bought MG and even Borgward, anything to have a familiar brand name on their vehicles, even vehicles that are nothing at all like the ones that those badges once adorned.
I don’t know how my experiences differ so much with so many others on so many cars and trucks, but they do.
This Dodge. Styling wasn’t bad, not a Ferrari, but not bad for a pickup.
But from there. I worked at a county hospital for a while in the late 80s, early 90s and we had 3 of them as fleet trucks for the engineering dept. Absolute stripper, shortbed, half ton, auto and P/S, but no radio. 6 cylinder engine. I suspect by then heater and wipers were standard as they were on it too. I had to go up to one of our storage areas one day and eased up to the curb I had to jump, then pushed on the pedal. Rrrrrr. Rrrrr.
Didn’t
Go.
Anywhere.
A pickup that wouldn’t climb a curb, empty except for my skinny 140 pound ass. With traffic approaching I had to back up and take a running start to finally clear the curb.
One left out care with a failing A/T with 75K on it. Another departed with cracks in the frame resembling a spiderweb and similar mileage, the other I don’t remember. To call them turkeys is to defame the poor bird. They were truly awful.
Late 90s. Still with the County with a different department. Was assigned a somewhat later Dodge pickup, same body, not quite as much a stripper, V8 and a radio! Found out one day the supplied jack wouldn’t lift it high enough to change a flat. Dead stock factory!!! Then another tow back into fleet after it died on me while waiting for an appointment to be worked on. They had that thing over a month supposedly fixing it, an early, an early crude attempt at FI. Fleet claimed they had to replace everything related to fix it. That one I think may have just been them not wanting to work on it though.