Please don't ask, but feel free to wonder, why this Dodge Daytona, that based on the five-lug "snow-flake rims" and lack of a CHMSL I believe is a 1985, is sitting semi-enclosed on the property where I currently work. I could find out but that would involve talking with the owner; if I struck up that conversation, I know I'd get a rambling, wholly uninteresting earful. However, that's not to say this isn't an interesting car. And interesting in ways that went completely unappreciated by yours truly back-in-the-day when it was shiny and new. Or at least at some shine to it.
How we forget. The notion of a high-performance, front-wheel-drive anything let alone something styled in the vein of a sporty-car was unheard of in the mid-1980's. Hence, the Dodge Daytona TurboZ, with 142-horsepower on tap from a 2.2-liter, port-fuel injection, inline-four-cylinder engine with a turbocharger ramming 7-psi of boost down its tiny throttle body was known as the world's first front-wheel-drive "muscle car". I laughed at anything "turbo" back then but zipping from zero-to-sixty in 8-seconds or so was nothing to sneeze. GM and Ford weren't doing much better with their big, V-8 powered Camaro and Mustang. Corvette too while I'm at it. That quickly changed but for a minute or two, the Daytona TurboZ was gagging GM and Ford with a spoon.
Granted, a lot of the performance spec-worthy power-to-weight ratio was due to the car weighing at most, 2,500 pounds, but that's like not giving a motorcycle snaps for being fast because it's so light. The lack of badging on this thign here leads me to believe it's the less powerful, non-turbo base model Daytona but who knows for sure. All I do know is it's been branded as, "Roadkill". Well, if the brake-shoe fits.
At the time I was oblivious to these cars; they were a punch line to a cliched, late-night joke. He-man over here believed all muscle cars should be rear-wheel-drive and powered by large, heavy and carburated V-8 engines. With dual exhausts too. With numb-handling and molar cracking rides. Meanwhile, over at Lee Iacocca's house, these things could keep up with anything "muscle" from GM and got twenty-five miles-per-gallon (or so). They had front-wheel-drive so you could drive them all year round if you lived in a snow-city too. Sigh. I wince at all the fun I could have had. The hell was the matter with me.
Well, before I completely eviscerate myself, I have to remind myself that these are still K-cars at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah. They labeled them "G-body", but they weren't kidding nobody. Take off the comely sheet metal, cladding and enclosed headlights and you got a Reliant K here. Who's up for a viewing of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"?
Right, wrong, or indifferent, the aura if not ethos of the K-car meant it was cheap and "krappy". As if any Camaro or Mustang was really that much different or better.
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