Junkyard Find: 1987 Dodge Shelby Charger
Who would have thought, in the late 1960s, that the future held front-wheel-drive Chargers, based on a French platform? Or that Carroll Shelby’s name would be on some of those cars? The Shelby Chryslers aren’t worth a whole bunch today, which means that non-perfect ones show up in cheap self-serve wrecking yards all the time; we’ve seen this ’87 Daytona Shelby Z, this ’86 Omni GLH, this ’85 Shelby Charger, and this ’84 Shelby Charger so far, and now I’ve spotted a very rough but still recognizable ’87 Shelby Charger in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The 146-horse 2.2 liter turbocharged engine is long gone, but the genuine Shelby bucket seats are still there.
Yes, it’s a genuine Shelby.
Air conditioning, maybe some Georgia Satellites on the cassette, some Iran-Contra on the news… yeah, a very 1980s car.
Dodge is creating a revolution in the streets!
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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It was 1989 and I made the mistake of getting out of the Navy and returning to Pittsburgh when everyone else was leaving in a mass exodus to find work. The only thing I could find was a sales trainee position at McCrackin Ford in the North Hills. They would hire about 30 people to find one or two sales people who were good at it. Needless to say I wasn't there for very long. It was the end of a long fruitless day when a couple of kids came in and asked to test drive the black Shelby Charger on the used car lot. "My mom said she'll buy it for me if I like it." Sure kid, I thought. Joyriders. But I was bored and frustrated because I couldn't sell a hamburger to a starving man, so I said, alright let me grab the keys. I waited for a break in traffic then pulled out onto McKnight Road and floored it. Not much happened at first, and I thought, "This car is a do-" then the turbo kicked in and I was grabbing gears and slaloming through the evening commuter traffic at high speed. Turning right onto Evergreen Road, a narrow winding two-lane which was our test drive loop, I continued to take out my frustrations on the little car. Banging gears, running it up to redline, throwing it into the curves, squealing the tires; and then I heard a voice say,"uh dude, could you, like, slow down a little?" I had completely forgotten about the kids. "Don't worry, I have a competition license", I lied. I pulled over and let the kid drive back to the dealer which he did very slowly, then I gave him my card before he left. Next morning a woman asked for me by name and told me that she wanted to look at the car her son drove last night. Well I'll be damned, thought I, as I escorted her out onto the lot. I had trouble finding the car until I finally discovered it in the back, with a big F150 print on the side, left by the lot monkey after closing time. No sale.
Never thought about the tailgate, but previous poster is quite correct that it was big, heavy and managed to always stay open even on a cold day. Good thing, because there was a bit of a guillotine edge on it. I had the non-turbo version though. It had the 2.2HO engine, meaning it put out something like 110HP instead of the 97 in a K car (at least it wasn't the 1.7L version). "Charger 2.2", according to the big sticker on the hood. It handled well, but was hampered by a pretty bad 3-speed automatic, though (which could be shifted without having a key in the ignition). I shared it with my mom and it did get me back and forth to work every day. She kept it after I bought my own car (Dodge Shadow Turbo with a 5-speed, woo!), but that's another story.