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Car and Driver
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
Mid-Size Monster: 1990 Shelby Dakota Tested
From the July 1989 issue of Car and Driver. Just when we thought ex-racer and specialty-car builder Carroll Shelby had completed his ideological conversion to the Church of Four Cylinders, having built and sold a long string of potent little front-drivers like the Dodge Shadow-based CSX (C/D, April), we find he's switched back to V-8 power. "I guess I'm going to have to give up on my four-cylinder crusade," Shelby explained to us. "And on my affordable sports car. Everything is so expensive these days." There is a bleak tone to those words from the Cobra creator and Le Mans winner. But we suspect it's a cover. It's as if Shelby were saying, "Nope, can't make another economy sports car with good gas mileage. Shucks. Guess I got to start building V-8 hot rods again." View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The new Shelby V-8 on these pages is most certainly a hot rod, but it's no sports car. It's a truck—Shelby's first-ever production truck. And it goes. Shelby's latest creation is based on Dodge's steady-selling Dakota pickup. Introduced in the 1986 model year, the Dakota is the Mama Bear of the pickup world. It's bigger than Baby Bear mini-trucks, smaller than Papa Bear farm haulers. Its mid-size configuration is important: most mini-trucks—including Dodge's Mitsubishi-built Ram 50—hold only as many passengers as a Toyota MR2. In designing the Dakota, therefore, Dodge specified room for three and a bed big enough (on long-wheelbase versions) for a four-by-eight-foot sheet of drywall. The perfect pickup, in other words, for disciples of Bob Vila and Norm the carpenter. The regular Dakota is available with a choice of two powerplants: Chrysler's 100-hp 2.5-liter four-cylinder car engine or a 125-hp 3.9-liter V-6. The six is actually a pared-down version of Chrysler's 5.2-liter V-8, which is used in several Dodge pickups and in the Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Grand Fury sedans—the same big sedans you so often see lurking in highway medians with radar guns pointing through their windshields. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver To turn the V-8 into the Dakota's V-6, Chrysler had to offset the crankshaft throws—a move that's at best a compromise between strength and firing balance. The result: a relatively buzzy V-6. You-know-who wasn't about to settle for a buzzy, anemic V-6 in his latest concoction. Shelby never forgot about those two cast-off cylinders, so when he designed his Shelby Dakota he specified nothing less than the full V-8 for the engine bay. The throttle-body fuel-injected Shelby Dakota V-8 produces 175 hp at 4000 rpm—5 hp more than it develops in regular-size Dodge pickups and 35 hp more than in Officer Mike Rowave's Grand Fury. Space limitations, says Shelby Dakota project manager Joel Grewett, meant removing the 5.2-liter's cooling fan and mounting electric blowers on the Shelby's radiator. That single modification provides the extra 5 hp, Grewett says. Shelby Automobiles leaves the 5.2-liter engine otherwise stock, so no costly EPA-emissions certification work was required. Fitted with the V-8, this pickup suddenly has pickup. The Shelby Dakota hustles from 0 to 60 mph in 8.7 seconds, half a second quicker than the 4.3-liter V-6-equipped Chevy S-10 pickup. And if you really want to blow the grass clippings out of the load bed, the Shelby can punch a 113-mph hole in the air. That's only 4 mph slower than the nearly four-inchnarrower Chevy S-10 with the optional Cameo aero bodywork. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The Dakota V-8 sends its power through a four-speed automatic transmission (also available on V-6 Dakotas this year) to a leaf-sprung live axle in back. No manual transmission is offered with the V-8, nor is the Shelby Dakota available with four-wheel drive. What you do get for the $15,813 base price is a choice of colors—white or red—a Shelby-ized exterior and interior, and the same heavy-duty suspension found on the V-6-powered Dakota Sport. In fact, the Shelby Dakota is based on the two-wheel-drive, short-wheelbase Sport. A stock Dakota Sport equipped similarly to the Shelby costs $12,237. What the Dakota Sport doesn't offer is the Shelby's thrill ride. Response to the right pedal is instantaneous: the meek should wear a neck brace until they get used to this pickup's off-the-line punch. Project manager Grewett claims this spunky truck will keep up with a Corvette for the first hundred feet of a match race. We doubt that, but we agree that the Shelby Dakota might surprise Chevy's sports car for about the first five feet. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver With all 270 pound-feet of torque on tap at just 2000 rpm, the Shelby creates quite a spectacle off the line: the two seemingly weightless rear tires spin into clouds of smoke at anything more than a slight jab on the throttle. Tromp on the gas at anything under 20 mph, in fact, and the Shelby will leave two black stripes as long as the Texas Panhandle. Once moving, though, the 3626-pound Shelby put the power down and accelerates cleanly. Happily, all Shelby Dakotas are fitted with a standard limited-slip differential—a mandatory traction aid in such a high-powered pickup. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to drive with a full-time bed load of peat moss. The Shelby handles reasonably well for a pickup truck. We measured 0.75 g of grip on the skidpad, which compare favorably with the 0.76-g figure turned in by the Chevy S-10 we tested last September. We noticed one peculiarity during our skidpad tests, however: the column-mounted automatic shifter moved itself from second gear to drive, and we couldn't shift it back while cornering. The standard heavy-duty suspension is not a kidney jiggler on the highway, but the ride is noticeably bouncier than a car's. The steering uses a rack-and-pinion mechanism—unusual for a truck. Coupled to a Shelby leather-wrapped wheel, the steering system is light, quick, and as stable and direct as you'll feel on most cars. View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver Inside, two dash plaques (one with a serial number) fly the Shelby flag. There are also Shelby logos on the horn button, the floor mats, the seat upholstery, and the door panels. The three-person bench seat was obviously designed so passengers can ride with their tool belts on: it's flat, wide, and about as supportive as a scaffold plank. The Shelby Automobiles assembly center in California plans to turn out 1500 V-8 Dakotas annually; the first production models began rolling off the line early this year. That's the biggest yearly production run for the Shelby outfit since it built the GT350 in the 1960s. Why the sudden interest in pickups? When the Dakota was introduced in 1986, pickups sold at a rate of about one for every five passenger cars. Now that rate is one for every two cars. "I can't tell ya why they're so popular," Shelby admits with a puzzled tone. "I belong to the Bel-Air Country Club. About twenty of us play golf every month. Of that group there are three with daughters that have pickups. Not sports cars. It seems to be the in thing. Personally, I think it has a ton more character than driving around in a BMW." View Photos Dick Kelley | Car and Driver The trendy have discovered pickup trucks. It's new territory for enthusiasts too. The big-engine-in-a-small-car concept gave us the GTO, the Road Runner, the 442, and other factory hot rods of the sixties. And now we have the new Shelby Dakota, a truck born in exactly the same tradition. Because pickups by nature are limited in handling prowess, many makers are looking to improved engines for additional performance. Power is everything. The heavy-duty, full-size Dodge Ram pickup, for instance, is available with a 185-hp 5.9-liter V-8. And so we have the new Shelby Dakota: more food for the power hungry. Indeed, that hunger seems to be insatiable. We parked the Shelby Dakota at a large building-supply store, and the first comments we heard were: "What's it got? A 318? That's nothin'. Bet it'd run better with a 360 or a 440." Now that he's taken to V-8 worship again, we wouldn't be surprised if Carroll Shelby is experiencing exactly the same revelation. Specifications Specifications 1990 Shelby Dakota Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 3-passenger, 2-door pickup PRICE Base/As Tested: $16,498/$16,498 ENGINE pushrod V-8, iron block and heads, port fuel injection Displacement: 318 in3, 5210 cm3 Power: 175 hp @ 4000 rpm Torque: 270 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm TRANSMISSION 4-speed automatic CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle Brakes, F/R: 11.4-in vented disc/10.0-in drum Tires: Goodyear Eagle GT+4 M+S P225/70HR-15 DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 112.0 in Length: 189.9 in Width: 68.4 in Height: 64.2 in Curb Weight: 3626 lb C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 8.7 sec 1/4-Mile: 16.5 sec @ 82 mph 100 mph: 32.8 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.9 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 6.3 sec Top Speed: 113 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 213 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.75 g C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 13 mpg EPA FUEL ECONOMY City/Highway: 15/20 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Car and Driver
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
View Photos of the 1990 Shelby Dakota
Read the full review The Shelby Dakota marks ol' Carroll's return to the land of V-8s. Using a pickup truck as the base for a hot rod is an interesting decision, but it may eventually prove quite prescient.
