I spotted this bizarro turbo Mopar on the same trip during which I came across another Chrysler relic. Sitting in an abandoned used car lot next to a bunch of other CCs (which I was sure to capture), the red fastback stood out in its ugliness. Such deliberate efforts to “improve” a car are not uncommon, but this begged to be shared.
Is this a warning not to lift the hatch using the spoiler or does it designate a home grown aerodynamic package? Maybe the former owner was inspired by the “zero lift” aerodynamics of the Infiniti G35, widely publicized upon that car’s introduction twelve years ago.
With the combination of slightly faded taillight lenses and well preserved vinyl, it would make sense that this mod was done well after the car’s original purchase. No need to void the 5/50 warranty, after all.
While improving this Daytona’s aerodynamics sacrificed its rear seat, but this contact paper woodgrain trim must’ve provided ample compensation. The combo of the older dashboard and airbag wheel marks this as a 1989. Cosmetic surgery aside, it’s in decent shape, and restoring the it mostly requires a new hatch and some elbow grease to remove the glue. What would you pay for the privilege?
Pay? Dont be daft I want the old Valiant in the background, that one I’d pay for the red one, yeah nar.
i’d have that red and black mustang in the background of the first pic
I have pics of both the Valiant and the Mach 1.
I like unmolested Daytonas well enough, but I’d rather have the Valiant in the background and upgrade the brakes to dual master cylinder and put an electronic ignition in it and drive it.
I’d pay. But, there’s no way that I’d pay almost $4000 for it! $400, maybe…
These kind of mods were kind of popular in Europe in the late 80’s, early 90’s. Why, I don’t know. I guess some people just want to be different. They were especially popular with customizers specializing in Porsches. Strosek made the best integrated and most harmonious, in my humble opinion.
Pontiac did the same thing with their Notchback Firebird Trans Am GTA.
I’m thinking the owner of this Daytona had that car in mind.
Oh, yeah, I forgot about those! Those were pretty slick!
That was factory? Wow, wouldn’t have guessed that one. Totally don’t remember those existing (though I would have been about 10 at the time and I have no clue how many might have been sold…)
Those are so cool, I never saw one in person until last year however, and I grew up when third gen Fbodies were EVERYWHERE. These must be rare as hell
+1 they must have sold practically zero of those….
Wasn’t there a W113/4 & 123 Benzimino made is S. America? I’ve only seen photos of them, not sure if they were factory authorized, but they looked well done.
Maybe there is a bed under all the plastic and it’s a daytonamino in disguise. Whatever it is, I can do without it.
That’s the first thing I thought, can’t tell if there is a removable panel- it could be useful for mulch runs.
$3995, Right! 😉 maybe $1500 if she runs perfect?…I hope the future owner at least finishes the project or puts it back, probably the glass hatch had gotten broken, and was unobtanium in price and this was the previous owner’s solution.
I really hope the car could be put back to stock in the future, it could be collectable someday. Lots of middle aged guys like me have soft spots for Daytonas.
I think getting rid of the vinyl And Painting the hatch would go along way To making this thing Look a touch more normal .
I don’t get why everyone rags on the car’s looks. Compared to its contemporaries the facelifted Daytona wasn’t… Bad. A few days removing the cheap vinyl graphics, stripping the vinyl from the top to replace it with FRP so it could be painted, and cutting new inserts for the dash and center console wouldn’t be hard. Spend a couple hundred dollars, and you could have an 80s car that could fetch a good $1,000 to $2,000 over a regular Daytona due to how unique it is. Then again I’m not thinking of keeping the car either, so I guess that shows what we all think of it.
The facelifted Daytona itself wasn’t bad at all, though I preferred the angular 1st-gen. It was just fine with these hidden lamps, but when they replaced them with the exposed lamp design for the last couple of years of production–that was not particularly pretty.
The only thing wrong with this particular one is that odd tunnel-roof! Can you imagine how horrid the rearward visibility must be with the hatch’s side windows turned into huge blind sail panels, and that tiny limo-style window?
It is somewhat incongruous that the vinyl job seems to be quite well crafted…
Got a jigsaw and a couple of Pepsis? We can take care of that! But yeah, I think they moulded it and forgot they needed a rear window, same as Chrysler forgot that the pop-up headlamps and turbos were what made the Daytona one of the “cool” cars for the era. Either that, or they screwed up the parts and got a window that looks like it belongs on the front of an RV…
I’ve always liked these cars and Chrysler was so ahead of the game when it came to turbos. So far ahead of the game that no one cared. The Lazer, the Charger, I think there was a Plymouth varient, the original Omni 024. These were tidy sized good handling cars. The car magazines were crazy for these things even putting one in a “best handling American car shoot out” where it did pretty well. Everyone thought that v8s were dead except that Ford had a different idea and developed and improved the Mustang. GM woke up and improved the F cars. Pretty soon the American FWD performance scene moved completely to the V8s and these were left in the dust. Still wouldn’t mind one of the Shelby versions.
The shelby versions were faster and handled better than the Mustangs and Cameros of the era. They just didn’t have the RWD mystic. I converted my TC-3 (Omni O24 clone) to V-8 RWD. Great fun car.
Looks like a Daytona was mated to a 1st Generation Chevy Avalanche.
This is most likely the result of broken glass and no-longer-available replacements.
Detective Dee Dee Mccall from the television show ‘Hunter’ got me to love this car. Someone should give it some tlc and enjoy it.
I never cared much for the Daytona. FWD was a fatal flaw, and it did not look American. It seems like so many Chrysler vehicles from the mid ’70s to the mid ’90s were imports or import based. The Dodge Colt, Plymouth Champ, late ’70s Dodge Challenger (YUK) and Plymouth Sapporo, The Omni/Horizon, including the Charger and Rampage versions of those cars, the Daytona and Laser, the Mitsubitshi built Dodge Stealth (Mitsubitshi 3000 clone) It seems that Chrysler did not build much of anything during that time, but mostly sold Japanese imports.
Say what you want about them, but back when Chevy had the Vega, Ford had the Pinto, AMC had the Gremlin and Pacer, the best Chrysler could do was the Japanese made Colt. Later on, when Chevy had the Camaro and Ford had the Mustang, Chrysler had the FWD Daytona and Lazer. I never cared for the Fox Mustang, but at least it was American, with RWD and a V8.
“… It seems that Chrysler did not build much of anything during that time, but mostly sold Japanese imports…”
Uh, ever heard of the K-Car and its descendants? Of which the Dodge Daytona in this CC Outtake was one?
This was done purely for style, and maybe to save weight. There is ZERO aerodynamic advantage.
Case in point: compare a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T with a 1968 Dodge Charger 500
I don’t think it was aerodynamics that played as large of a part as just being able to see out of the rear view mirror.
Changing the subject, I swore the spoiler read ho lift until I read the text below it.
I suppose you could use it as a ho lift, after all, the rear seat is no longer accessible.
I had a Daytona as a loaner back when, and the seats killed me, I never found a comfortable setting, they were even worse than in my 1999 Grand Cherokee. It had another fatal strike against it, being slow, and a third, it was FWD. I liked the looks well enough, in a good color. The one I drove was a kind of odd brownish bronze, sort of old penny colored.
Personally, when making the rear window conversion, I would have made the window bigger and used the rear window frame and allowing it to still open. If done with plastics, it would have been lighter than the glass window.
I don’t think it would help even if that hatch treatment was body-colored and without the vinyl. It just instantly looks homemade.
I see some Jaguar XJS there. By tuner Arden.
@Perry Shoar
Decatur, Indiana!!??!!! I saw that car a couple months ago IIRC.
That lot didn’t really look open for business when I was there, but I didn’t think it looked abandoned. FWIW another car pulled in while we there and looked at a good-from-far-but-far-from-good Chevy II.
Edit: WELL I’ll be…behind it in the last photo is the old Mopar my dad and I pulled in to look at. We had dropped off headers in town for ceramic coating. Those get installed on aDick Landy 65 Plymouth Satellite, pics on twitter @LandysLast426
This is a 1989 Dodge Daytona ES (if the identity on the left rear driver’s side can be believed) probably with a 2.5 liter EFI four banger under the hood (non-turbo due to the lack of a “power bulge” in the hood and no boost gauge in the center console above the climate controls). The rear and sides are 1989, the front nose / cap is plain jane 1988 base Daytona and the wheels are the “crab” wheels first featured on the 1987 to 1988 Shelby Z. This is a Frankenstein and the custom rear hatch treatment reduces rear visibility to that of trying to look out a hole the size of a passenger side visor vanity mirror … not a brilliant idea in a car this small with limited rear visibility as it is. Whoever put this car together deserves a quick, hard kick in the privates … maybe two.