You’ve really got to give the Dodge team credit for keeping different incarnations of the Charger relevant to what buyers were looking for during their time periods. After the muscle car craze of the sixties and early seventies passed, Dodge marketed the Charger as more of a personal luxury car for the fourth generation from 1975-1978. And when economy vehicles were selling well in the early eighties, Dodge reintroduced the Charger as a sporty but practical car for its fifth generation, which was produced from 1982 through 1987. If you’ve been in the market for one of the smaller offerings, this 1983 Dodge Charger may be worth checking out. It’s located in beautiful Floral City, Florida, and can be spotted here on Craigslist with an asking price of $9,500.
Thanks go out to reader Pat L. for sending this one our way! For the first time in the car’s history, the fifth-generation Charger was riding on a front-wheel-drive platform and fell into the subcompact category. I was about 16 and truly car-crazy when these came out, and remember thinking they were pretty cool at the time, and still do! The seller’s Charger seems to be an overall nicely preserved original example, with a straight-looking body and original paint. The car is silver, and these were the days when this color was one of the worst for fading, but to be nearly 40 years old the finish still looks decent, as do the black details.
The owner says his Charger’s interior is practically in mint condition, and it certainly looks good in there from every area we get to see. We’re not provided with any photos of the back seat, but the front buckets aren’t showing any tears and not even much wear, and this one really does look the part of a well-cared-for car. It’s also well-equipped, with some driver comforts such as cruise control, a power reach hatch release, and an AM/FM/Cassette combo. It also comes with the original owner’s manual and warranty book.
Powering the Charger is a 2.2 liter single overhead cam 4-cylinder with 85,000 miles. There’s no word on whether or not it’s ever received attention other than maintenance, but the seller does say the car runs and drives great, plus everything on the car is stated to work as it should, It’s also still got the original factory 5-Speed manual transmission, which is definitely another plus. There haven’t been any upgrades or modifications either, making this one meet the criteria we like to see here at Barn Finds to deem it a survivor. What are your thoughts on this 1983 Dodge Charger, and its price tag of $9,500?
I say this everytime,,,oh, Charger, you were once so proud, look what they reduced you to. Even the dog has no interest. To be clear, I thought these were great cars, I had several, and don’t remember a bad one. The name was clearly a marketing ploy. I’ve been hassled, that this site would be bare without my high price comments,,,and this will be no different. $10 GRAND for this? Oy vey,,
10k is too high given you can get a decent GLHS in that range. But this is probably more rare, for what that’s worth. Most of these got trashed and used up a long time ago.
This was Chrysler’s first foray back into performance after the bailout, so it was kind of a big deal at the time. Those 0-50 advertisements were ubiquitous in car magazines of the day.
Lee Iacocca didn’t make the silk purse out of a sow’s ear with the L body compact. Nor did he avoid ruffling the feathers of fans of the RWD V8 1960s Chargers by applying the name to 1980s FWD 4 cylinder cars. But the styling is awesome for a cute sporty economy car. The mileage was vastly improved per CAFE mandates and consumer demands of the time. The 2.2 engine did its job well in a lightweight car in real world driving but not on NASCAR tracks. I would prefer an automatic but the gear grinding and clutching would use whatever power the small engine can muster to its best advantage. Would also like air conditioning.
Sure looks like an AC compressor in the engine bay…
These models were light and quick, they won me many races at the Titled Bridge track. One of mine was silver too just like this one.
Though I was 9 years old, I was an accomplished racer.
I miss my old Hot Wheels.
It was my favorite Hot Wheels too. The same exterior color scheme as this one, but with a red interior (molded in a single piece with the taillights). They did the same thing on their version of the Citation X-11.
They were pretty quick stoplight to stoplight .
If you’re racing against a kid trying to deliver newspapers on his Stingray.
Had several Rampage pickups from this era Loved them all wish I could find!
Do a search – I seem to remember that there was one
featured here a few days back.
Dodge should have just skipped this decade with the Charger name.
It’s frankly embarrassing. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I wish that you would have told that to Ford, before they used the name Mustang on that electric thing that they are selling!
Lol thats right Primo. The 4 door, awd, wagon suv battery 🔋 job lol.
When you think about, naming a battery powered Dodge a ‘Charger’ is really a perfect repurposing of the nameplate.
Charger is a better name for this car than “Omni 024” was, since these are different enough from the boxy regular Omni to be thought of as two different cars on the same platform rather than 2- and 4-door versions of the same car.
The only differences (lookswise) between this and the regular 024 two door, was the rear side window blankout panel, and the goofy fake vent on the front fenders.
An old girlfriend’s daddy bought her one of these brand new, for her to drive to the bar every night. And to drive at college. It got better gas milage than my LTD, so I drove this little thing a lot. A much better car than it got credit for. Handled good, was fairly sporty, and got close to 25-30 mpg.
I still have about 250 cassette tapes, this might be the car for me!! 😆
For 5K though, not anywhere near 9.5K.
i owned a 65 dart v-8 2 door and a 80 mirada… decent cars, but personally i think dodge built some of the ugliest cars ive ever seen… oh but the new charger is a 4 door… whatever… im a ford guy since 1994…
And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. At least Ford went with the Mustang II.
I had the 83 Shelby charger. No turbo yet and no FI. BIGGEST POS car ever Maybe my 80 TR7 was close
Nice car but in no way would I shell out $9500 for a carbureted 2.2 even with a 5-spd and 85,000 miles. Now if it were an 83 1/2 Shelby Charger 5-speed Silver over Blue with 85,000 miles I wouldn’t hesitate for half a second. Still a nice car though.
Very cool car and looks well taken care of. I love the 80s cars even accepting the small engines. Wouldn’t t mind having this car myself but $10k? …. meh…..
I bought one of these 1983 Charger 2.2 brand new. It was black with red stripes and red cloth interior, 5 speed/console, A/C, rally wheels with full size (rally wheel) spare, AM/FM. At the time when I compared it to the other four cylinder competition from Toyota, Nissan, Ford, GM, I thought it was the biggest bang for the buck. The anti-American magazine, Consumer Reports panned it in its comparison to three other makes. (Personally I dont buy foreign cars). I ended up driving it 240,000 miles and it would have gone further until it was totaled by another car. It was a fun, dependable great looking car. I still have the original paperwork/invoice somewhere. It was about $8,000 new. The one advertised here looks great. I think the price is top dollar but what do you get today for $9,500 from anyone selling a used car. 83,000 miles is nothing. I can’t believe 40 years has passed since I bought mine.
I bought an ‘84 charger (new) for my wife for something dependable while pregnant. The Holley 2 barrel was a problem in the Chevy Vega but the salesman convinced me it wasn’t the same. The car stalled many times leaving my wife stranded for hours. It was in the shop 13 times in the first year, they couldn’t fix it so I dumped it on a new Volvo. I didn’t get half this asking price as a trade in 1985 with less than 15,000 miles. Worst car Chrysler has ever produced from my experience. I have not bought a Chrysler product since.
So…….why didn’t u just change the carb?
My 83 Shelby wouldn’t start after it was run. Dodge fix was a fan. Unfortunately the fan fan for 10 minutes even if I only moved the car in the driveway. Eventually battery goes dead. The fab should have been on a thermostat not a timer
It was a brand new vehicle in warranty and I was not going to alter it. I was just as well selling it and getting a more reliable vehicle. this was my wife’s vehicle and she drove it through pregnancy. When she went to slow down and pushed in on the clutch to downshift the vehicle would die and would not start up sometimes for hours. this was before the days of cell phones and she would have to take the baby out of the car seat and walk across the service road from the highway to find a payphone. had no time to experiment or desire on a new vehicle. Just dumped it for something reliable.
Then the battery acid leak onto the clutch cable and ate through the plastic cover and then the clutch pedal would go to the floor