For $16,000, Go On A Straight-Line Rampage

You can't just stick a two-story wing on any Mopar product and call it a Superbird, that dog won't hunt. Despite that, as today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe dragster Dodge proves, you can drop in a massive mill and call it a day. But will its price turn this 'bird' into a dog?

Buying yesterday's custom Bimmatsun tow truck would mean being on the hook for a cool seventy nine hundred bucks. According to 62% of you, that was too high a price to wrest that wrecker from its current owner's clutches, although most of you did find it to be a hoot and a half.

Despite its current guise as a participant in as intrinsically an American activity as baseball, apple pie, and fighting for the right not to be offered health care coverage, today's over the top Dodge Omni 024-based Rampage can actually trace its roots back to France. That's right, it started out more merde than 'merican, the L-car platform having been originally developed by Chrysler's French partner Simca.

Of course, there's no Simca still simmering in this Rampage, and while the French are frequently (and unfairly) besmirched as cowardly, the only thing yellow on this Dodge is its loud and proud – and be-flamed – paint. As a matter of fact, this mini-truck rampages from a whole different end as its transverse economy-class front-driving four has been replaced by what is described as a 650-bhp 500-CID big block V8 that now twists the fat meats in back like they were boys' nipples in junior high gym class.

That massive mill sticks so far out of the engine bay that if the car had a hood it would be rendered little more than a g-string's width to make room. Sitting atop, and looking uncomfortably like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit is a 850 CFM carb and filter-less two-runner ram making driving during dust storms ill advised. Extraction duties are handled by Hooker headers leading to four-port manifold side pipes.

The gearbox is a reverse-valve (slap down to shift up) 727, while the Art Morrison ladder bar rear suspension holds a cut-down rear end with 3:89 gears turning massive 31-18.50-15 Mickey Thompsons. Stopping is accomplished by four-wheel discs and should they prove less effective than hoped, the truck has been caged.

Slipping in around that pipe you'll plunk down in a pair of supermodel-thing racing buckets, into an equally sparse and business-like interior. The entire dash has been replaced with a broad swath of carbon fiber, into which Autometer gauges have been judiciously sunk. Sitting on top is a tach big enough that it could clock Flava flav spinning in his grave, were he not still among the living.

This isn't just a quarter mile queen as the seller says it's street able and – despite its being offered for sale in Maryland – does sport a Hoosier State plate. That means if you happen to work 1,320 feet from home, this bad boy will let you sleep-in an extra five minutes every single day.

Of course you might lose some sleep after having spent $16,000 on a car with what looks like the turning circle of a parade float and the fuel economy of of an Abrams M1. Those debbie downers may be ameliorated by the promise of stool-loosening acceleration, and that big-ass wing ensuring you'd never lose this Hot Wheels truck in a crowded parking lot.

One note about that wing and the ad. This being a Dodge – it says so right at the top of the tailgate – adding that bridge scraper does not make this a Superbird, Mr. Motivated Seller. That would be a Plymouth. The Dodge edition of those pointy-nosed NASCAR rules-pushers would be the Charger Daytona, a car that preceded the Plymouth by a full year.

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, it's time for you to get something off yours, and I'm not talking about your mom's bra. No, it's now time to weigh in on whether the seller of this dragster Dodge has set a price that's low enough to make you prematurely pop your chute. Or, if it's so high you'd need to stand on that wing to reach it.

You decide!

West Maryland Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Wes Barton for the hookup!

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