It is said that you learn something new every day, and the fact that Dodge made a convertible pickup truck was my thing of note today.
I stopped by a fellow enthusiast's house to let him try some wheels I was selling onto this interesting thing. They didn't fit, the offset was wrong.
Picture not the truck I saw, but representative.
They actually made quite a few of those things.
I knew about the military units, but I didn't know about the Dakota.
I've seen them on CL over the years, but they were always in really bad shape. Might be a nice alternative to a K5 blazer or older Bronco, but I never saw one in good enough shape to be worth scrap value. I want to like them, I really do.
Shelby made a version as well
There was an absolutely mint example at the little Friday night car shows here in Commerce
My brother has one, currently wrapping up fitting a 318 Magnum in place of the weezy 3.9 TBI engine it came with. I tried to post a vid of the engine firing up for the first time but couldn't get it to work.
They seemed to out rust even regular Dakotas of the era. I always wanted one.
I knew a kid in the late 80's around my age(then) through BMX/freestyle who's father had been killed by a train not too long before we'd met, and he'd received what seemed like a fortune at the time. He was a Mopar guy, and with part of the cash he bought a brand new convertible Dakota, as well as some ultra-rare Cuda...I'm thinking it was a hemi convertible(I only saw it once). He also built a huge half-pipe in his mom's backyard, which is how we met. 
Anyway, 3 of us packed into his convertible Dakota, with our bikes, and drove from Flora, Indiana to Davenport, Iowa to go ride at Rick Moliterno's indoor skate/bike park "Rampage". That was a pretty long & cramped drive, even for 3 skinny ~17-year-olds.
Grtechguy wrote: Shelby made a version as well
Wasn't that the first factory install of a V8 in the Dakota?
novaderrik wrote:Grtechguy wrote: Shelby made a version as wellWasn't that the first factory install of a V8 in the Dakota?
Yup.
Chrysler turned around and did it themselves a year or two later and the Shelby's have their own ECU and other specific parts so they can be a pain to deal with if they fail.
Gearheadotaku wrote: My brother has one, currently wrapping up fitting a 318 Magnum in place of the weezy 3.9 TBI engine it came with. I tried to post a vid of the engine firing up for the first time but couldn't get it to work.
The guy I went to see tonight was putting a 360 into his.
He also had a Marauder and a Syclone.
You want something a little weirder? My neighbor has one of these:
I knew about those, somebody in the neighborhood had one when I was growing up. I guess convertible trucks weren't as popular in the snow belt.
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