Any job worth doing is worth doing well, and today’s Nice Price or No Dice Dodge is a custom pickup that looks very well executed. Let’s see how well-priced it might also be.
The go-faster guys and gals at Ford have worked under a number of names over the years. For a long time, the company preferred cryptic acronyms for the team’s monikers, calling the Dearborn bedevilers at various times SVO or SVT. Today, the group goes by the less mysterious and more mundane Ford Performance, but their mandate—wringing more “scoot” out of Ford’s cars and trucks—remains the same. The 2002 Ford Focus SVT we looked at yesterday arrived before the big name change and, as such, is much cooler for its SVT roots. At $7,900, that unmolested and well-presented hot hatch iced the vote, too, coming in with a solid 74 percent Nice Price win.
One of the hallmarks of the hot hatch category is the mix of sporting capabilities matched with people and cargo-carrying utility. This naturally makes them the true “sport-utilities” despite that moniker having been usurped to describe tall, lugubrious truck-based wagons.
A case could be made that today’s 2008 Dodge “Recharger” could also be classified as a “Sport Utility.” After all, it’s based on a Dodge Charger with a 5.7-liter Hemi under the hood, has AWD, and has been modded to offer a reasonably commodious open bed in the back, in case someone needs to get something tall—say a baby giraffe—somewhere with great expediency.
Upon initial introductions, a couple of assumptions will naturally be made regarding this car. The first is that its existence results from some accident, and hence, it carries a salvage title. The second is that it was made via the “hold-my-beer” backyard hack job route. Neither of those conjectures, however, appears to be accurate.
According to the ad, the car does come with a clean title, and with a little investigating, it’s obvious that the “Ute” conversion is by way of a fairly well-engineered kit from a place called Smyth Kit Cars out of Tiverton, Rhode Island. That conversion results in a well-balanced design with a working tailgate and enough space in the cab that occupants don’t have to sit bolt-upright like they’re in a church pew.
The dealer offering the car doesn’t give any information regarding who undertook the conversion, nor when, in its reported 169,000 miles, the change was done. It does point out the “NICE AFTERMARKET WHEELS” and calls the car overall a “RARE FIND.”
Under the fake scoop on the hood lies Chrysler’s vaunted Hemi V8 in 5.7-liter displacement, and making a solid 340 horsepower and 390 lb-ft of torque. That’s matched with a five-speed automatic and AWD, both benefitting from the Daimler connection Chrysler enjoyed at the time of the Charger’s development.
Overall, this Recharger (hopefully, you’re OK with that name) looks to be in terrific condition. The custom paintwork appears well-executed, and, as the dealer notes, the wheels are pretty nice. Everything in the cabin looks perfectly serviceable, albeit a bit chintzy. That’s only because the interiors on these cars were a bit chintzy as Daimler-Chrysler put its money elsewhere during the model’s development. As noted, the title is clean, and the car comes with an asking price of $19,777.
Before we get into the brass tacks of that asking, we should acknowledge that the Smyth kit alone costs more than $7K to purchase. That’s not including its installation, the paint, or the Dodge Caravan tail lamp units that must be sourced separately. All that work, time, and expense has already been expended on this car, making it a turn-key custom, for whatever that is worth.
Is it worth that $19,777 asking? That’s up to you to decide. What do you say? Should someone pay that much for this brute of a Ute? Or is it just crazy enough not to work?
You decide!
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Don R. for the hookup!
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