One of the more interesting dalliances I had with a project car was when I purchased a pickup similar to this one: a 1998 Dodge Dakota R/T, one of the few remaining muscle trucks you can still buy without spending a fortune. The Dakota R/T hails from a time when Chrysler Corporation was seemingly building high performance versions of any model it could get its hands on, as well as perhaps the peak of 1989s design for an American car manufacturer. The Dakota shown here on craigslist is fairly honest but does suffer from some cosmetic faults – with an asking price of just $3,800. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Tony P. for the find.

Don’t ask me why a guy who almost exclusively buys German cars and trucks suddenly had a hankering to own a Dakota R/T, but I did. In fact, I was so intent on owning one that I ignored all the tell-tale signs that the truck I had my eye on was perhaps a subpar example. When the used car dealer in Florida offers you free enclosed shipping if you wire the funds right now, it likely means they want said vehicle off of their lot as soon as possible. The truck was not terrible but it had plenty of undisclosed issues, the biggest of which was having a tendency to shut down randomly when hot (it was eventually traced to a bad ECU). This truck looks sharp in black with matching aftermarket wheels, but does suffer from typical Mopar clearcoat failure.

The seller of this Dakota R/T has performed a similar upgrade in his truck, which is to dump the God-awful stock bucket seats and swap in some aftermarket items with thicker side bolsters. The ones in this Dakota are slightly over the top for a pickup, but again, anything is an improvement over the flat-bottomed cushions that came from the factory. Dash plastics are pretty basic, as this was an era in which interior quality was not a top priority for the Big 3 automakers. Still, it’s cheap as chips to maintain and you can easily find replacement parts in any junkyard of your choice.

The real treat of the R/T is the performance package: the burly 5.9 V8 offers impressive acceleration and it came with a limited-slip from the factory. The transmission was updated with a cooler at some point, and it came standard on tow package trucks which made a huge difference in the long-term reliability of the transmission. As mentioned, clearcoat failure was common and this truck will need a proper paint job if you want it to shine once again. At one time, values on these hot rod pickups were on the upswing; lately, they seem to have dropped quite a bit and are easy to find for well under $10,000. I struggled to sell mine for $8,000, and it had a lot of repairs and improvements done. Don’t be like me and buy one that’s been maintained!