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Car of the Day: March 11, 2016; Matchbox '87 Dodge Dakota
Topic Started: Mar 11 2016, 04:08 AM (568 Views)
Dean-o-mite
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Muscle Car

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Today's car truck of the day is Matchbox's 1987 Dodge Dakota.


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Wikipedia
 
The Dodge Dakota, known as the Ram Dakota for the final two years of production, is a mid-size pickup truck from Chrysler's Ram (formerly Dodge Truck) division. From its introduction through 2009, it was marketed by Dodge. The first Dakota was introduced in 1986 as a 1987 model alongside the redesigned Dodge Ram 50. The Dodge Dakota was developed by Chrysler as a mid-sized pickup. To keep investment low, many components were shared with existing Chrysler products and the manufacturing plant was shared with the full-sized Dodge D-Model. The Dakota has always been sized above the compact Ford Ranger and Chevrolet S-10, but below the full-sized pickups such as Dodge's own Ram. It is a conventional design with body-on-frame construction and a leaf spring/live axle rear end. The Dakota is the first mid-size pickup with an optional V8 engine. One notable feature was the Dakota's rack and pinion steering, a first for work trucks.



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For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Haval H2


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Matchbox's Dakota has been one of my favorite diecast pickups since its introduction. I had the red and green versions in my childhood collection. This blue version was an exclusive from a 30-car set which was only sold at Sam's Club for the holiday season in either 1991 or 1992. The red tail lights are a custom addition. I am still waiting for someone to make a small scale Dakota Convertible, and a Shelby Dakota would be cool, too. I had hoped Shelby Collectibles would venture into the Mopar-based Shelby cars, but their small scale line has been stagnant for so long that I fear they are finished putting effort into small scale. I know some of the talented folk here could customize this Matchbox to create the convertible and Shelby versions.


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Wikipedia
 
The first generation of the Dakota was produced from 1987 through 1996. It was slightly updated for the 1991 model year. Inline-four and V6 engines were offered along with either a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmission. Four-wheel drive was available only with the V6. Both six- and eight-foot beds were offered. The N-body platform was the result of operational efforts by Harold K. Sperlich, who was in charge of Chrysler's Product Planning in the early 1980s, in which Japanese-inspired compact pickups of the time lacked the size and features necessary to meet the demands of American buyers. In the late-1970s, Chrysler was still recovering from their near-bankruptcy and resources were in short supply. Sperlich challenged the N-Body team to search for all opportunities to reuse existing components to create the Dakota. The resulting highly investment-efficient program enabled Chrysler to create an all-new market segment at low cost.



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Ford1965
Microcar
Matchbox did a nice job with this model, I didn't know they did a Dakota
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zzziippyyy
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Drive it like you stole it!
I actually owned the 1:1 of this, it was red and white. With a big ugly Dakota Sport sticker that ran down the side, has it really been 30 years already??? Wow where does time go.
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pjedsel
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Muscle Car
:wave: I remember when the real Dakota pickup trucks came out - they did a bunch of promotions here in Dakota to play up on the name. :) I have had a number of them in my collection at one time - a pretty nice casting from Matchbox and I really like this blue version shown for COTD.
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Hobie-wan
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Nice model that looks great in blue.
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