Junkyard 1983 Dodge Rampage has Franco-American roots
Mon, Jun 20 2016
The Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon were sold in the United States for the 1978 through 1990 model years, and variants included the 1983-1987 Dodge Charger and the Rampage, this well-worn example of which I spotted in a Denver self-service wrecking yard last week.
The early Omnirizons came with a Volkswagen-sourced 1.7-liter engine, but all of the Rampage pickups (and their near-identical Plymouth Scamp siblings) came from the factory with a 2.2-liter K-Car engine making 96 horses. This truck has a 4-speed manual transmission, which would have made it reasonably quick by Malaise Era standards.
This one had plenty of body filler and rust, even before the crash that sent it on that final tow-truck ride to this place, so it wouldn't have been worth restoring. Still, we can hope that some of its parts will live on in other L-body trucks.
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Featured Gallery Junked 1983 Dodge Rampage in Denver
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By Murilee Martin
See also: Rare Dodge Shelby Dakota is a very '80s sport truck, IIHS Crash-tests Expose American Muscle Cars' Weaknesses | Autoblog Minute, Brand new cars are being sold with defective Takata airbags.