1 of 30 Made? 1990 Dodge Shadow Competition Package

There are cars that appear seemingly out of no where and knock your socks right off – and this is one of them. The Dodge Shadow, that humble, entry-level rental car built for the masses, apparently had the option of getting the motorsports treatment direct from the factory if you knew which box to check on the order sheet. Think of it like an ACR Neon before the letters ACR meant anything, just much rarer than those hopped-up Neons (which are already impossible to find). Check out this Dodge Shadow Competition Package here on Facebook Marketplace. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Rocco B. for the find.

The seller is asking $7,000 for this rare Shadow, and thanks goes to Barn Finds reader Rocco B. for the find. While it is well known that Carroll Shelby enjoyed messing with Chrysler’s lineup of econoboxes and giving them a serious upgrade in the performance department, little is known about the option to add the Competition Package to an otherwise ordinary Shadow. The Shelby CSX-VNT was Shelby’s crowning achievement among the cars he modified for Chrysler, and it used a heavily upgraded Shadow coupe to promote his novel Variable Nozzle Turbo technology. Apparently, if you knew about the Competition package, you could order that same high-performance engine in the plain vanilla wrapper of a standard Shadow.

While the CSX-VNT was by no means obnoxious, there was no denying it was a performance car. Gold-painted wheels, an aggressive factory body kit, lots of exterior color matching, and a lowered suspension left little doubt that it was breathed on by Shelby. If you were an enthusiast that wanted to fly below the radar, the Competition Package was an absolute home run. You still got these supportive sport seats, “Pumper” alloy wheels, bigger sway bars, and a boost gauge with none of the tell-tale signs that it was a performance car on the outside. Heck, most observers probably figured you just grabbed the wheels off of a Daytona and that was that.

The seller claims the Shadow weighs under 2,700 pounds, which likely makes this car feel quite light on its feet. With 174 horsepower and 205 lb-ft of torque, the get-up-and-go factor is strong with this one. The only downside to this Shadow is that it’s almost so obscure that it will be near impossible for anyone to know exactly what it is at your local car show or swap meet. In my opinion, this is a terrific option for a track day or autocross car that will likely fare quite well considering the VNT’s impressive top speed of nearly 160 miles per hour. Given it is rare but not obscenely valuable, a few dings from the cones or other drivers don’t spell the end of the world, either.