Junkyard Find: 1988 Dodge Daytona Turbo

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Remember the rear-window louver craze? Thanks to the large numbers of Daytonas and Lasers that clung to life long enough to enter junkyards in this second decade of the 21st century, we can relive the Louver Era!

If I ever turbocharge my A100 van (I’m considering it; there’s plenty of room for turbo plumbing beneath the engine), I’m going to use this genuine Chrysler boost gauge.

These cars weren’t known for reliability, but plenty of them are still around. I saw this ’90 last month, and the Chrysler G-body isn’t particularly rare on the street even after a quarter-century.

Should we refer to the late 1980s as the Louver Era or the Turbo Era?








Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • GS650G GS650G on May 14, 2012

    If you look at the shit Chrysler was making just a few years earlier these cars were a quantum leap. Sure, the Japanese cars were better in many regards but Mopar was written off as dead in 1980.

  • Kathy Kathy on Apr 22, 2023

    Looking for 1988 dodge datona

  • Formula m For the gas versions I like the Honda CRV. Haven’t driven the hybrids yet.
  • SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
  • SCE to AUX My son cross-shopped the RAV4 and Model Y, then bought the Y. To their surprise, they hated the RAV4.
  • SCE to AUX I'm already driving the cheap EV (19 Ioniq EV).$30k MSRP in late 2018, $23k after subsidy at lease (no tax hassle)$549/year insurance$40 in electricity to drive 1000 miles/month66k miles, no range lossAffordable 16" tiresVirtually no maintenance expensesHyundai (for example) has dramatically cut prices on their EVs, so you can get a 361-mile Ioniq 6 in the high 30s right now.But ask me if I'd go to the Subaru brand if one was affordable, and the answer is no.
  • David Murilee Martin, These Toyota Vans were absolute garbage. As the labor even basic service cost 400% as much as servicing a VW Vanagon or American minivan. A skilled Toyota tech would take about 2.5 hours just to change the air cleaner. Also they also broke often, as they overheated and warped the engine and boiled the automatic transmission...
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