If you like oddball cars...

[carmine]

I know there are a lot of car people here and maybe more so than other sites, there is an appreciation for the unusual, rather than just the "Cherry red convertible".

So for that reason, I'm posting a link I (getawaydriver) made to another site about an oddball SUV I just bought. If you are familiar with the Dodge Ramcharger, you know they disappeared with the coming of the totally new 1994 Dodge Ram. But what you might not know is that they reappeared for a 3rd generation in Mexico and South America.

Now more than a decade after they were sold, they're legal (although complicated) to register in the US. The issue was that Chrysler saw limited market for them here cicra 1999-02, so they never bothered to certify them for crash/emissions (it's all the same as a Ram 1500, but not to Uncle Sam).

The first photos in this thread are hosted on the Moparts server because I was posting during the road trip. You can't see them unless you're a member. However, the actual photos of the vehicle are further down and hosted remotely so anyone can see.

I'll post one here as a preview. Maybe this could be a "that looks familiar, but not quite" thread?

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board.moparts.org

 

[retropia]

Nice looking! It's too bad they didn't continue selling the Ramcharger here. This had to be expensive to produce. I wonder if they sold enough to amortize the tooling costs, especially since they didn't sell them in the US.

 

[wayupnorth]

Looks like a 2 door Durango. Not anything like an old Ramcharger.

 

[hydralique]

Very Interesting . . .

This is very much a subtle sleeper since it mostly looks like an ordinary US spec vehicle. I wonder if it was being sold with a California title in Phoenix because it wouldn't pass smog check, or there was some registration issue with it. Grey market cars can be a real PITA here. If the DMV doesn't like your paperwork they will not give you a new registration and therefore smog check stations won't even put the car on the dyno. I have some friends who went through hell with this on a car that was legally sold here. The first owner eventually put the car in storage and it dropped out of the registration system. My friends put it back on the road but had endless trouble with the DMV and finally sold the car out of state. It eventually came back here but since importing a car from another state is different from importing from another country the new owner didn't have any problems. One of the favorite tricks of the California DMV with grey market cars is to ask to see the US certification paperwork from the original manufacturer, ignoring the fact that if the car had been built to US specs in the first place it wouldn't be a grey market car, duh!

 

Good luck with it, is the engine identical to a US spec truck of the same year, and has it passed the Michigan smog check yet?

 

 

[d-jones]

"Looks like a 2 door Durango"

That's because the revised Dodge Ram(introduced in 94) sold so well that Dodge wanted to capitalize on the momentum, so in 97 they made the revised Dakota look like a scaled down version of the new Ram, and since the Durango is based on the Dakota, it stands to reason it would also resemble the Ram. I remember when the Durango was introduced along side the updated Dakota, and at the time there was a fair amount of speculation as to whether or not we'd see a Ramcharger to go along with it, but in the end we were disappointed. As for this version of the Ramcharger not looking anything like the old version, considering the dismal sales of the old ones prior to the Ram redesign I'd say that was the whole point. As an owner of the full sized Ram I recognized this as a Ramcharger immediately, and had a brief "what the hell" moment prior to reading Carmine's post. Had this been available in 98 with a Cummins engine I'd have bought it, though I doubt that would have been an option since if I recall correctly the Ramchargers were always based on the Ram 1500. Still, I always liked the look of the Ramcharger, and would have been seriously tempted by it.

[this post was last edited: 7/24/2014-01:00]

 

[carmine]

retropia...

Oddly enough, one of the others (I am told a total of 8) that has migrated north is in Port Clinton, OH so you might see one in person should you head up to Cedar Pointe, lol.

As for sales numbers, the info is very limited. I haven't been able to find it on. The web, so I might tap someone at work... If they'd still have the info around? Someone will probably at least remember if they flopped or sold well.

I know they kept costs as low as they could. Only the 1/4s floor and roof were unique major stampings, the largest cost. Interior parts and plastic are a lot cheaper. The liftgate is borrowed from a minivan, the pop out windows and front seats from a quad-cab ram. The tailights are oddballs, matching the minivan profile on one edge, and wider overall for the additional truck width. If I ever break one, aye carumba!

 

[carmine]

Oh yeah... Did anybody catch the vintage appliance being used in one of the clean-up photos? I had to do the carpets twice to get them clean.

...And I've already moved a washer.

 

[d-jones]

"Did anybody catch the vintage appliance being used in one of the clean-up photos?"

 

Yes I did. Like many older appliances those old Hoover floor machines just keep going, unlike the throwaway junk made today. And thanks for linking to that moparts forum. The ad for new dash panels in your thread  is going to be very helpful. My top dash panel cracked when my truck was rear ended a couple of years ago while parked in front of my place here in Burbank. I've been trying to track down a new one ever since.

 

By the way, based on the Ramcharger and the 300m in your photo, I guess it's safe to assume you're a mopar fan.

 

[swestoyz]

I have to say it - you've got something special there! I enjoyed reading your post on the Mopar site. Thanks for sharing with us. I've never heard of such a beast!

Ben

 

[philr]

Were they available with the Cummins engine?

A friend of mine can't resist buying every old Ram pickup that he finds with the Cummins and a manual transmission!

The tailgate looks a lot like the one I had on my '97 Caravan. Is it the same?

 

[carmine]

No Cummins engines (diesels only 2500+ level; this was built from the lighter duty 1500).

No 4x4 either, as their is no such thing as recreational 4x4 market in Mexico... Although you could build one with a parts-truck, it would be a matter of bolt-ons.

Yes, the tailgate is shared with '96-'00 minivans. A huge cost-save because closures (doors, liftgates, trunklids, hoods) are the most expensive panels on a vehicle.

 

[countryford]

Being in Arizona, I do see them from time to time with Mexico license plates. I had an 89 Ramcharger for a while, but would love to have one of these.

 

Another interesting vehicle that I would like to get as well, is a Bronco Centurion. They had two versions the half ton and the one ton. The half ton was just a Bronco that was lengthened but the one ton was actually a crew cab F-350 convereted into a four door Bronco. They were designated as either a C-150 of a C-350. They tried to compete with the Chevy Suburban. The Centurions were not produced by Ford but were made by a different company and sold by Ford delears.