Junkyard Find: 1987 Dodge Raider
The Dodge Raider was a transparently badge-engineered first-gen Mitsubishi Montero (known as the Pajero in much of the world), available in the United States for just the 1987-89 model years. The Montero wasn’t a big seller and its Raider sibling was a rare sight even in the late 1980s. I find the more obscure Chrysler-badged Mitsubishis fascinating, so I photograph every Raider I see in the junkyard.
We have seen a Ford product and a GM product in this series so far this week, so we’ll finish it up with a Chrysler(-badged) product.
Mitsubishis of this era weren’t known for longevity, but this one got well over 200,000 miles of use. This is a California truck, so there’s no rust.
I have long believed that the Montero/Raider inclinometer was one of the coolest gauges ever put in a motor vehicle. Naturally, I have a few of them in my collection of weird junkyard parts, and I will be installing one in my latest junkyard-parts boombox.
Under the hood, the 2.6-liter Mitsubishi Astron inline-four that went into everything from the Dodge Aries-K to the Mitsubishi Starion.
The first-gen Montero was license-built by Hyundai and sold as the Galloper. These Korean-market ads are among the greatest ever made for a small SUV.
The Japanese-market ad for the first-gen Pajero features a strange mix of macho imagery and schmaltzy music.
Dakar-proven!
Naturally, the American-market ads were far less interesting.
At home in the desert or on the hills of San Francisco (except when you blow the head gasket).
[Images: © 2016 Murilee Martin/The Truth About Cars]
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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I have a 1987 Raider. Have really enjoyed this little brute. The Astron engine is not as much a deviant as many would report. With proper maintenance it will go a long way...mine currently has 182000 miles on it. Never anything worse than a blown head gasket at 135000 miles. It's the same base motor (G54B) as the one in my '86 Starion ESi-R, albeit the Starion variant came fuel injected, turbocharged and intercooled. I have since converted from TBI to MPI on the Starion (along with a host of other mods) and couldn't be happier with the motor.
What is the contact information for this salvage yard? I need some parts.