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Junkyard Gem: 1990 Dodge Daytona Shelby

Once Lee Iacocca took the helm at Chrysler and shifted nearly all car models to front-wheel-drive platforms — either members of the convoluted K family or descendants of the Simca-derived Omnirizon platform — he called up his pal Carroll Shelby and made a deal to help with the design of some Shelby-ized, turbocharged Dodges. This relationship resulted in the Shelby Charger starting in 1983 and the Omni GLH in 1984. For 1987, the K-based Dodge Shadow and Daytona got the Shelby treatment, and suddenly the roads of North America were awash in Shelby-badged turbocharged machinery. Most are long gone by now, but I managed to unearth this tattered and rusty '90 Shelby Daytona at a Denver yard. The Shelby Daytona stayed in production through the 1991 model year (when the car got both Shelby and IROC badging, and does anybody remember the IROC Daytona today?), but most of the examples I've found during my wrecking-yard explorations have been earlier models. You won't find many '90 or '91 Daytona Shelbys. Some junkyard shopper pulled the cylinder head and all the turbo-related goodness before I reached this car. That makes sense, because the 1990 Daytona Shelby's turbocharged 2.2-liter engine made 174 horsepower— way more than most previous turbo Chryslers. Maybe someone hot-rodded their Plymouth Caravelle with those parts. This car has the five-speed manual transmission, as it should. Note the New Car Scent Little Tree, which is the second-most common junkyard-found air freshener (after Black Ice). It's not hard to identify the main reason this car got discarded: catastrophic (by Colorado standards) body rot. 171,349 miles is pretty decent for a nervous turbocharged car from 30 years ago. I don't see many Colorado junkyard cars with brewery and/or skiing-related stickers that don't also have stickers from cannabis dispensaries, but here's one. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Pretty much just as good as the Porsche 911 Turbo, and $70,000 cheaper! Featured Gallery Junked 1990 Dodge Daytona Shelby View 21 Photos Auto News Dodge Automotive History Coupe Carroll Shelby shelby Junkyard Gems

2003-04 Dodge Viper recalled for sudden airbag deployment

As if driving the old Dodge Viper (not the fancy new SRT model) isn't intimidating enough, imagine trying to wrangle that V10 beast and then suddenly having the airbags deploy. Yikes. That's apparently what could happen to some 3,660 Viper models from the 2003 and 2004 model years, and as such, Chrysler has issued a recall.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the car's airbag control module may fail, causing the bags or seatbelt pre-tensioners to deploy without warning while the vehicle is in operation. That's a dangerous scenario in any car, let alone one offering insane horsepower a near-total paucity of safety nannies should things get squirrely.
Owners will be notified this month about the recall, though a remedy is not expected to be available until later this year. Scroll down for the full NHTSA statement.

Dodge closes Caravan order books at the end of this month

After being introduced as the Dodge Caravan in 1983, after debuting a long wheelbase Grand Caravan in 1987, after entering its fifth generation in 2007 and going almost unchanged since then to become the oldest minivan in the segment, after being publicly sent to the slaughterhouse in 2011, again in 2013, and again in 2015 before being pardoned thrice by the automotive governor, this month it's over for good for the best-selling Dodge and best-selling minivan in the U.S. and Canada. At least, according to Mopar Insiders, which credits dealer sources for the news that "the end of the month" will be a car shopper's last chance to order the Dodge Grand Caravan in the states that don't adhere to California emissions. Since the Grand Caravan's 3.6-liter V6 can't clear CARB mandates, Dodge pulled the model from the 13 so-called ZEV states in March this year.  Last summer, an analyst at AutoForecast Solutions told Automotive News that Dodge would cease Grand Caravan production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada in May this year. The brief reprieve is said to be related to the coronavirus standstill, Fiat Chrysler not alone in revising its plans to make up for two months of lost production. The new 2020 Chrysler Voyager is the official replacement for the Dodge, being a de-contented Pacifica that returns an old Chrysler nameplate to circulation and is built in the same plant as the Pacifica and Grand Caravan. The Grand Caravan's numbers have come down this year, but Dodge still sold a strong 24,931 units through the first quarter of the year; the kid-hauler has sold less than 100,000 units in a year in the U.S. only twice since 1985, topping six figures for the last four years. In 35 years on sale here, the minivan has hurdled the 200,000-unit marker 19 times. With the order books open until the end of the month and Windsor plant working a single shift and still finding its feet, Grand Caravans will continue to trickle off the lines after May, but not for long.