Minneapolis Street Sighting: Dodge Shadow ES

The 1990s saw a slow resurgence for Chrysler; times were rather meek for the US auto industry; ho-hum styling, weak powerplants, and mixing up long-lasting paint treatments were a relatively new idea. Sporty cars were the "in" thing, and companies were doing all they could to make sure their bread-and-butter cars appealed to younger, possibly first-time buyers. GM experimented with bright colors, and graphics, and Ford tried its hand at bright colors, graphics and odd wheel choices. Chrysler took a more restrained approach-- the monochromatic approach.
As far as the early 1990s go, if one couldn't afford a Stealth, this--or a Daytona-- was the only sporting Dodge available at your local dealer. So, what did that monochromatic paintjob with matching wheels hide under the bulged hood? Honestly, better than I originally expected. It had the standard V6 found in the Dodge Stealth and Mitsubishi 3000GT-- the 6G72 3.0L built by Mitsubishi. In this application, it made 142 horses, and 171 ft/lbs of torque, which was enough to propel this semi-hot notchback to 60 in a rather decent 7.8 seconds and on to a top speed of 126 mph. Not too bad for a car that wasn't really considered a sports-anything when it was introduced. I supposed the lightness of the whole thing had an effect on performance, being weighed in at roughly 2600 pounds in manual guise.











As I was growing up, these things were everywhere; I recall at the age of five, I sort of fell in love with these at the Kansas City auto show. I liked (presumably) the wheel design and the styling of the front end. The bright colors over a relatively bland color didn't hurt either, and I've always liked monochromatic vehicles with off-color trim or badges. I don't know why, either.
This particular ES took me by surprise; I don't think I've ever seen one so nice--at least since my early childhood days, anyway. I was almost taken aback. I didn't think any still existed, much less in the rustbelt. The paint was fantastic; no evidence of rust, no peeling, and there were not even any dings disgracing the body panels. My favorite aspect of these cars were the wheels; I've always liked the '90s 5 "spokes" on these cars and their Daytona platform-mate. I think these were available on the vans, too, not sure. I didn't look inside, but I would imagine it was as mint as the exterior. I
f there was any Shadow worth a semi-premium price, this would be it. A well preserved ES is not really a collector-car perse, but it deffinitely would get noticed. Not many Shadows survived since the demise of the line in 1994, but a few remain. To date, I have seen maybe five or six ES in various states of decay. This was the nicest one I've seen in quite a long time, and posisbly the only extremely nice one I'll see--ever.