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Joyboy13's 1989 Dodge Dakota Shelby

1989 Dodge Dakota

Shelby 318/5.2L V8

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Build Points

38

  • Color: Red
  • Horsepower: 175
  • Drivetrain: RWD
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    • Vehicle Overview

    The story of this rare truck started back in 2020, when I spotted it driving past me on the highway in my town. Over the course of a few months, I would spot it but it’d either be going the opposite way or I could not stop to look at it closer. In September I managed to see it in a parking lot and spy the owner’s son getting into the truck. Unfortunately at that time he was not willing to entertain any offers, so I watched it drive away in hope that we would cross paths again. After a few more spotting, it disappeared. Fast forward to February 1, 2022, my 23rd birthday. I get a text message from a friend of mine leaving a local scrapyard saying that there was a Shelby Dakota sitting along the fence outside of the yard. I dropped all work I was doing and drove as quickly as I could to leave my name and number. Upon returning to work, another friend rang me up saying he saw my post about it and that his dad knew the owner of the scrapyard, so an appointment was made the next day to look it over. Wednesday the 2nd was when I got to look over the truck really good and minus a bunch of trash and missing trim, the truck had no rust and even fired up on a jump box. I took the next 18 hours to contemplate and on Thursday February 3rd I struck a deal with the yard owner. Friday the 4th I had my buddy who spotted the truck bring a trailer, and after hooking a battery up to it, I drove it from its parking spot onto the trailer and back off it once home. And thus Shelby Dakota #312 was mine. There are still some issues with it. For starters, the freeze plug is missing on the driver side and the one on the passenger side has a hole in it. There is also an issue with the steering. And finally, the truck has 182k miles, so any one of dozens of issues could be hidden within the driveline. But besides the center caps and bed light bar, all the major Shelby pieces are there and accounted for, including the incorrect engine plaque off a CSX-VNT that Shelby installed when new Quick history of the Shelby Dakota- in the 1980s, Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca teamed up to begin production of small FWD turbo 4 cylinder cars based on the L body. In 1989, as sort of a swan song to the partnership, he ordered 1500 Dakota Sports to be shipped to California to his company, where they had a 5.2L V8 out of the Ram installed. The Dakota was not meant to handle that large of engine, so one of the many modifications done included electric fans in place of a mechanical one. These trucks (1475 in total- 995 in red and 480 in white) kick started the craze of the sports truck in the 1990s, and was also Shelby’s first RWD V8 platform since the 1969 Mustang.

    Future Plans

    Basic plan- get back on the road Possible upgrades- 5.2 Magnum swap, Shelby Performance Kit for the 318 TBI (360 intake, computer, throttle body, and Flowmaster exhaust), lowering kit, better brakes and tires/wheels, rebuild A500 suspension.

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