Dave, I can offer this information having owned Shelby Dakota #2 and servicing others when we delivered them new to customers and later for return service. This truck is not a Shelby Dakota just from the VIN alone. The '89 Shelbys had VIN's that showed the correct engine application that year and the 8th position of the VIN would have been the letter "Y" for a 318 V8 and not the "X" that's there for the 3.9 V^ the truck has. Cliff Ramsdell In a message dated 1/20/2008 11:05:08 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
A local friend of mine told me he spotted a 1989 Shelby Dakota in a local junkyard. He was able to grab a handful of unique parts that were left on it. I went out there with him today to check it out and what I found was quite unusual. First off the body was in excellent shape with the red paint still looking reasonably good. The Shelby decals (of which I'm quite familiar with :) were erased (or polished off) only leaving only a phantom image effect where they used to be on all the areas they should have been. The only decals that were not used or removed were the black overlay decals over the rear tailgate "Dodge" letters. The front grill, nose & foglights were was missing and the places on the bed where the light bar would be had holes where it was previously mounted. Here comes the unusual part, upon a closer look we discovered that red was not the original paint color, instead it was black. We found the original black paint on the inside of the doors (my friend got the damaged outer panels), under the upper section of a replacement bedliner and under scratched sections of the paint. Otherwise it gave the appearance of a "real" 1989 Shelby Dakota since traces of most of the unique items were still intact except the steering wheel which was replaced with a burgundy stock version. It has a badly faded windshield decal which was hard to say whether it was original due to it's heavy deterioration. Here's a couple more very unusual details. It did not have the special "modified by Shelby Automobiles" decal on the inner door jam next to the original one. The original one was pretty faded out so that I could only make out the manufacture date of 11-1988. The other main unique label (which I was hoping to cut off and keep) was the underhood emission/vacuum label. It wasn't the special Shelby Automobiles version (label #CS1282) that shows a 5.2 liter 318 engine. It read as a 1989 Chrysler label for a 5.9 (360 engine). Another huge surprise was under the hood. The engine was still intact and looks pretty original, but it was NOT the 318 V-8 that should have been there it was instead a stock Chrysler 3.0 V-6 instead. It was also using the regular V-6 radiator fan instead of the special low profile dual electric fans the Shelby Dakota used. There wasn't alot of paperwork left in the truck but it appeared to be used by someone that did house painting in Lakeland, Florida. I did write down the VIN number so someone could do check it with the list of numbered Whittier built vehicles for me. It reads 1B7FL66X7KS073267 I had someone run a CARFAX report and it spent most of it's life in Lakeland, Florida followed by Melbourne, FL before being retired here to the junkyard here in Jacksonville. It's pretty unusual (and expensive) for someone to replicate one and unless he bought a reproduction decal package from me since it's extremely hard to find a NOS bedside decal being they've went completely out of stock since before I opened in 1997. Most likely it was a well done clone, but I'm thinking that it could have been some kind of a Chrysler (Shelby) pilot or prototype vehicle. At Whittier they did alot of experimentation creating mocked up versions of upcoming models to try out paint & decal schemes. It would pretty unusual to see one this far from the west coast but it could happen. Anybody know anything about this unusual truck? David Salamone Positive Impressions PO Box 441761 Jacksonville, FL 32222 904-388-4040 www.unleashedbyshelby.com **************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489 ___________REMOVE-FOOTER-WHEN-REPLYING_________ ShelbyDodge mailing list ShelbyDodge@imagilist.com http://www.imagilist.com/mailman/listinfo/shelbydodge
