11 Fast Mopar/Shelby Collaborations Over the Years
Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca met back when Lee worked at Ford and Carol hot rodded Mustangs. They kept in touch, and eventually a new generation of Shelby tweaked Dodges were born. Here's a few you probably forgot as we look back on 2016 and everything that came before it.
1. 1983 Dodge Shelby Charger
Mopar had been building sleek fastback coupe versions of the Dodge Omni (called Omni 024) and Plymouth Horizon (called Horizon TC3) since the beginning of the L-body compacts, but they didn't have much power. Late in 1983 Carroll Shelby tuned up the new 2.2-liter 4 cylinder, which had debuted in 1981 with 84hp, to produce a much improved Dodge Shelby Charger with 107 hp. There were also improvements to the chassis, the addition of a 5-speed transmission, a special interior, and a new body kit. The performance wasn't great compared to the classic muscle cars, or the cars of the 21st century, but in 1983 a 0-50 mph time of 5.5 seconds was actually respectable, and not far off a V8 powered car like the Mustang or Camaro. Of course, getting it up to 60 mph would take several more seconds, but this was in the days of the 55 mph speed limit and draconian enforcement.
2. 1984 Dodge Omni GLH
The Dodge Charger was based on the same platform as the practical 4-door Omni hatchback, and VW had just introduced America to the joy of the GTI hot hatch, so the the Omni GLH was an obvious next step. Though the boxy Omni weighed less than the Charger, it was actually on a 3 inch longer wheelbase, so it was more stable at higher speeds. The 107 horsepower 2.2-liter motor was more than a match for the GTI with its lower powered 1.8-liter, so when the 2.2 turbo motor appeared in 1985 the Omni was suddenly one of the fastest cars on the road. Unofficially the letters stand for Goes Like Hell, and some people refer to the turbo version as the GLH-T.
3. 1985 Dodge Shelby Charger
You will be forgiven for forgetting the early 1983-84 Shelby Chargers, because things didn't really get interesting until 1985 when a Garrett turbocharger was added, for 32% more power! Zero-50 times were now stated to be just 5.3 seconds, which made it faster than the Camaro Z28 of the day. To save you having to do the math, the 2.3-liter motor was now putting out 146 hp, which made it the equal of a lot of the smog-choked V8s of the time. This really is one of the cars that invented the modern front wheel drive turbo performance car.
4. 1986 Shelby GLH-S
The Omni based GLH-S for 1986 was not officially a Dodge or even Chrysler product. According to the US government, and all legal paperwork, these cars were manufactured by Shelby, though they did carry a warranty and could be serviced at any Dodge dealer. Carroll took the last 500 GLH turbo cars to roll off the line, and shipped them to his shop in California, then swapped on all new suspension, special wheels, interior, and exterior trim. Under the hood, a new version of the turbo motor, with added intercooler, was tuned to put out 175 horsepower. The enthusiast magazines of the time literally lost their minds when testing this car, because though it looked like an economy car, it was faster in every way than just about anything including the famous Shelby GT 350 from the 1960s. You may think the S in GLH-S stands for Shelby, but he always claimed it stood for Some more".
5. 1987 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z
The Dodge Daytona had premiered a few years earlier, based on the slightly larger K-car platform (officially the G platform), with the Turbo Z at the top of the lineup featuring the 2.2-liter turbo motor. For 1986 there was a C/S (Carroll Shelby) package offered on these cars, including a stiffer suspension, wider tires, special wheels and larger sway bars. The big news for 1987 though was a full blown Shelby model, with the 174 hp intercooled Turbo II motor used on the GLH-S. The Shelby name, or sometimes C/S, would be on a Dodge Daytona from 1986 until 1991, and even a few 1992 Dodge Daytona IROC models were produced with Shelby decals, though Shelby no longer had anything to do with them.
6. 1987 Shelby GLH-S
With all 500 Omni based GLH-S gone, Shelby turned his sights on the Charger for 1987 and produced 1000 more GLH-S coupes based on the 2 door fastback body style, with the slightly shorter wheelbase. These were again all turned out at the California Shelby facility, and officially are not Dodges, but Shelby automobiles. Also, on both the Omni and Charger based GLH-S, though most of the graphics say GLHS with no hyphen, all of the official ads and brochures are spelled GLH-S.
7. 1987 Shelby Lancer
The new for 1985 Lancer sedan was not immune to the effects of turbocharging, and in 1987 Shelby made 800 of them under his own name in his Whittier, CA shop. Half of the production run had the full power, 174 hp intercooled turbo II motor and 5-speed manual transmission, the other half made do with the lesser 146 hp turbo but got a leather interior and automatic transmission. Though these were fairly innocuous looking sedans, they were some of the fastest 4-door cars for sale at the time, embarrassing more expensive German sport sedans. Chrysler would take production in house (and change the name to Dodge Lancer Shelby) for 1988 and 1989 but only turned out about 500 more over the two years.
8. 1987 Shelby CSX
Shelby must have been busy in 1987, because he also turned out a special version of the new Dodge Shadow, called the CSX. Just like the other Shelby vehicles, this one featured the turbo II motor in the new 2 door coupe body style, and plenty of chassis tweaks. These cars were also based on the original K-car platform, and used many of the tricks learned on the Laser, so they were much more refined than the crude but fast Omni based cars of a few years ago.
9. 1988 Shelby CSX-Thrifty
Taking a page from his old playbook, Shelby approached Thrifty Rental Cars in 1988 about producing a special edition of the Dodge Shadow based Shelby CSX. Just 1000 CSX-T cars were produced in 1988 and all of them went into rental fleets around the country. Unfortunately, for insurance reasons, these cars have the lower powered turbo I motor, and an automatic transmission. As rare as these cars are, and even with a plaque in each one to guaranty authenticity, there seems to be no premium on them today. They regularly sell for what you would expect a used car from 30 years ago to sell for, and not for the astronomical prices normally associated with a Shelby special.
10. 1989 Shelby Dakota
Perhaps the only traditional Shelby hot rod to come out in the 1980s is in some ways the least traditional. Many times home builders can fit an engine in a chassis the factory can't manage on the assembly line. The Dakota saw Shelby taking Dodge midsize pickup trucks, tossing out the 3.9 liter V6, and installing a 5.2 liter V8, also known as the classic 318 cubic inch Mopar small block. Even with just 175 hp (but 270 lb-ft of torque) this was one of the best performing trucks of the era. Less than 1500 of them were made, with most being red with black stripes, and 500 white with black stripes.
11. 1989 Shelby CSX-VNT
Shelby's swan song with Mopar was the Shelby CSX-VNT, with a variable nozzle turbo, unlike anything that a production car had used before. This piece of race car engineering allowed the turbo to spool up faster, reducing lag and increasing low-end torque, while still allowing it to deliver the top end you expected. The motor int eh CSX-VNT was dubbed turbo IV and produced the same 175 hp, but with 205 lb-ft of torque at just 2100 rpm, up 30 lb-ft, and peaking much lower in the powerband. Less than 500 of these cars were made, and only 236 with the rare Recaro seat option. These cars are still plenty fast these days, but you rarely see clean examples for sale as they all seem to have been used hard and destroyed.
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