Dodge Dart Debuts in Detroit

Everyone speaks of the original Dart as if it was built like a fine swiss watch. Let's all be truthful. The original Dart had crappy build quality. Yes, they looked good, but QC was second to cost savings.

As for this being the next Neon or Caliber or whatever, maybe so.

I bought a brand new second year SOHC Neon 2 door for about $13k if memory serves me. I bought a Dynomax muffler, an open element (cone) air cleaner, and stuck a 50 shot of nitrous on it. I hammered it full of juice every weekend for years w/ no issues. 5.0 Liter Mustangs of all variety had a fit trying to keep up with it. It ran 14.90s at Houston Raceway park (tons of wheel hop included) until the trans exploded at 40,000 miles. They replaced it for free, no questions asked. The tech told me Chrysler wanted to see the trans in person and it was shipped off in a crate (my personal contribution to the SRT4 Neons). The car kept on going past 100k when I sold it. It used a quarter quart of oil every 3000k miles. Not too bad for a 13k kleenex car.

So, if they're going to build another Neon under a different name, that's a good thing. Some other young punk might be able to experience what I did... One hell of a good time!