Junkyard Find: 1994 Dodge Shadow ES

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin
So many Chrysler P bodies in American wrecking yards today, so many that Shadows and Sundances generally make up a good quarter of your typical self-serve wrecking yard’s Chrysler section. You still see some of these cars on the street these days, though hit-bottom-years-ago resale values mean that a running Chrysler P is becoming semi-rare sight. I think the low-buck Shadow America and Sundance America are interesting enough to photograph, as is the Sundance Duster, but most of the time I just tune out the Ps when I see them during junkyard expeditions. The Shadow ES, with its goofy 80s-hangover tape graphics, manages to attract my attention, so let’s admire the exquisitely of-its-timeness of this ’94 that I spotted in Denver a couple months ago.

These cars were pretty cheap, and they weren’t slow (by mid-90s standards).

That is, they weren’t slow when equipped with the Mitsubishi 6G72 V6, as this car is. Though, as we’ve seen, this engine doesn’t guarantee reliability.

The early 90s are notable for having introduced the world to fake wood trim that was much more realistic than the Tormented Souls In Hell Simu-Wood™ of the 1970s and 1980s. Look, 20 years old and not faded or cracked!

There oughta be a law.

The snow is obscuring the mean-looking hood bulge with V6 emblems, but it’s there.

With manual transmission, this sort of car wouldn’t be a bad first car for a teenager interested in making a cheap machine to take to test-n-tune night. Grab the turbo hardware off a wrecked Stealth, experience the joys of Xtreem Torque Steer®.









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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  • Bluegoose03 Bluegoose03 on Mar 13, 2014

    I owned three of these cars. An 87 Sundance auto, a white 92 Sundance Duster manual V6, and a red 93 v6 Duster manual. The cars were pretty good cars. The Mitsu V6 had the nicest note I have ever heard coming from a V6. The car was simple, sturdy, and cheap to fix...unless you lost the gear box. You could stuff the car with a massive amount of cargo because it wide. The 92 I owned was a heavily modified V6 and could do the quarter in about 15 seconds. It was dinoed at 186hp at the crank. It was a true beast with a bullet muffler and an exhaust side pipe. It had Koni shocks/struts and custom sway bars. I embarrassed a lot of drivers with it. These cars get killed by automotive glitterati but if you a are bare bones car enthusiast these cars could be tons of fun in either turbo four or V6 configurations. If you wanted a car in the 12s you could get it with the 2.2 Turbo setup with the right mods.

  • Blppt Blppt on Mar 15, 2014

    Had a '94 with the 2.2 and 3 speed auto. Dreadfully slow, and I always wondered what the Shadow would have been like with the V6 or the high-torque 2.5 Turbo. Good handling though.

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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