Carroll Shelby helped to make the 1980s more fun than they could have otherwise been with his work on Chrysler’s lineup of small front-wheel-drive cars. Cars like this 1985 Dodge Shelby Charger gave hope to a generation of young folks who thought that the days of owning a fun to drive car were gone forever. This one is listed here on eBay in Reading, Pennsylvania and there is an unmet opening bid of $1,500.
I can’t think of another vehicle model that has undergone such crazy 180-degree radical changes over the decades as the Dodge Charger has, can you? From the beautiful first-generation fastback to the red hot second-generation cars, and then the third-gen cars, the Charger could have just stopped there and it would have been a legendary car. But, then things got funky. Enter: the Cordoba lookalike Charger and then it got really funky with the tiny four-cylinder Dodge Omni 024. Did I mention the current four-door Charger yet? Sacrilege to some, a Godsend to others. The Charger has never failed to surprise us.
This car looks like the ultimate sleeper to me, I don’t know if I would change anything on the exterior. I would leave it rugged and faded and a bit rusty, it just adds to the appeal to me, as weird as that sounds for a guy who likes his vehicles to be jewel boxes. The seller does have replacement panels for the rough areas in case the next owner wanted to make it look like new again.
The seller says that this car needs work and not just cosmetic work as you can see from looking at the exterior photos. They say that the clutch broke last fall and I’m not quite sure what that means, hopefully just the clutch cable? The interior looks good even into the cargo compartment, and if there are only a few minor issues, this would be a fun project.
The Shelby Charger was a $2,000 upgrade over the regular Charger in 1985. This engine is Dodge’s turbocharged 2.2L inline-four which had 146 hp, quite an upgrade over the previous turbo cars in this lineup. Still, the Shelby Charger was more about handling, looks, and just being fun to drive and fun to own. I don’t know if they’ll ever be enormously valuable but for a few thousand bucks, it’s hard to argue with the value of this car for a family project. Have any of you owned one?
I like the price.. Would be cool to have
I had an 83, blue with silver stripes which is what I still consider my favorite combo. Bought in 87, I loved that car. The thing about these Dodge Shelbys (like anything in life) is to view them in context. We were coming out of a horrible era for performance. Chrysler Corp was doing the best they could, with what they had. I am intrigued by this, especially for the price.
Knew a guy a long time ago that had one of these, an 85 turbo – by 1992 it already had 140k on it and had the ever-loving bejeezus beaten out of it (looked worse than the one pictured lol) but darned if that motor still didn’t run like a top, it sure took a licking but kept on ticking!
Head gaskets blew out with reckless abandon on those 2.2 turbo motors. Got rid of my Daytona after the second time it happened.
Clutch cables were also a common issue. they loved to break or slip out of adjustment when slugging along in rush-hour stop-and-go-traffic, out in the middle of nowhere, etc..
My memory is bad but I think the battery had leaked on the cable and the acid ate thru the plastic shield on the clutch cable.
This is the ultimate sleeper, @ just over 1100KG and an easy swap to the Turbo III, THe main difference was Forged internals. Since the clutch is probebly the cable, they were notorious for that. A few easy up grades…
Mechanical Fuel Regulator
Super 60 Injectors
Cold Air Induction
Harder upgrades
New Racing Clutch
Ring the Head
Forged Internals
New Driver shaft Passenger side.
4 to 1 Exhaust Manifold
Replace all the suspension busings with Aluminum.
With all that, you can get about 235-250 to the wheels, its a go cart…
Always worries me when the brake pedal is marked red in any fashion. I agree completely with what 7speed said, re: context; these were a bright ray of light in that horrible era. I recall lusting after them and actually went to look at a previous non-turbo version (110hp iirc, blue with silver stripes) sometime in the early 90’s; it was already virtually a beater by then, but still miles better than the ’81 Horizon TC3 I had before with that awful 1.6l VW engine…. best thing I can say about that car is it was so slow that my stupid teen ass didn’t kill himself in it. Nice car. Would prefer a GLH or GLHS though. Even over the Abarth Ritmo I looked at in ’93; the guy didn’t have keys, it had been imported but the paperwork hadn’t been done on it, and it was already rusty…. very glad I walked (ran) away from that one. Still a cool car though. GLWTS!
I forgot about the time my clutch pedal went to the floor and stayed there. The plastic on the cable wore through at the firewall. Also really easy to disconnect the odometer on these cars. I don’t want to ruin this sale but these cars were junk. I don’t know which was worse, the 80 TR7 or the 83 Shelby Charger. I had em both.
Had the blue silver Combo of the same year. Did a few simple tricks and terrorized multiple cars at the street races with it. Beat the hell out of it and it just kept on ticking asking for more. Tons of fun. I got a lot of stories off of that car. At that price I might bid and start over again
In 2001 I bought an 87 Black with Silver stripe and found rear window louvers in a local junk yard. Started a TII conversion with MP +40% injectors, adj fpr, added an intercooler from a GLH-S and before I got it finished traded it off for an 88 CSX-T Shadow and miss both of those cars til this very day.
Being a diehard Mopar enthusiast when I got my first “real” job, I finally sold my ’71 Road Runner and bought my first brand new car, a 1982 Plymouth Turismo 2.2. This was the naturally aspirated Plymouth version of a rebaged Dodge Omni that preceeded the Shelby versions.
While I loved the car, it was a mechanical nightmare with exactly the kind of build quality you know Chrysler was struggling with at the time. Every mechanical malady known to happen to these cars happened to mine. In fairness, I was a field service technician back then, and I put 80k miles on her in 2 years before the transmission crapped out. But one thing I always enjoyed about that car was the reasonable punch from the measly 2.2 motor (84 hp) and surprisingly good handling.
I would have loved moving up to the Daytona Shelby Z that I lusted for. Like this Shelby Charger, I think it would have been a fantastic upgrade from my sorry little Turismo. Sadly, my wife at the time had just bought an RX7 and we needed an SUV so I was relegated to a Jeep Cherokee. What could have been….
Love these cars I have a Ford mustang GT turbo makes the same horsepower. Also a ball to drive. And the grandson of the car the GT Turbo GTCruiser making 200hsp
I had a 87 Dodge Charger GLHS #0782 with mopar stage2 logic module. It use to incinerate the tires in every gear and blew away mean mustang gt’s,IROCz and T/a’s back in the day. Sure miss that fun little ride.
I had one. Same colors plus a sunroof. I loved my little Charger. It was fun to drive and easy to own. Clutch cables fail regularly. 30 min fix. Still looking for a super-low mile car priced reasonably. I missed the bid on Shelby’s personal GLHS. Lotta fun in that car.
It can’t be from 1981. The Shelby models only were produced from 1983 to 1987.
Owned. A 1987 GLHS ,486, for 25 years. Loved the car and it sure suprised a lot of other brands. Sorry i sold it 5 years ago because of health reasons. I gotten much better so maybe another one or a 1991-1992 Sprit RT i had for five years. That was really Fast car that handled. Both were very reliable.