Dodge was VERY different in the '90s compared to how they are today 

As a kid growing up throughout the '90s I remember how cool the '94 Dodge Ram looked when it hit the streets along with the '97 Dakota. Every other pickup was still boxy till the late '90s and the Viper was unforgettably the coolest. Especially the striped GTS. Everything else from Dodge was just another car.

I got the chance to drive a 91 Spirit R/T about 12 years ago. Was amazing how quick that thing was for the time period and it looked about as rental car boring as you could get!

Dodge's parent company Chrysler was owned by Mercedes in the early 2000s. Then Fiat bought Chrysler in the 2010s and now owned by Stellantis. The future of the Dodge brand is unknown and if they don't do well, Stellantis could cancel the Dodge brand

I’m very sympathetic to Dodge. They’d pulled themselves out of late 1970s and early 1980s bankruptcy. They changed the automotive landscape with both the K cars and the minivan. They dealt with the aftermath of a lot of poor 1970s market projections and product miscues, and they kept fighting to climb out from the shadow (pardon the pun) of the economically salvational universe of K car possibilities and explicit derivatives. They redefined the truck market in the 1990s and made some really interesting products. Nothing but respect.

The Differences between the Concorde, 300M and LHS were the length and who they were marketed to, the Concorde basically replaced the Newport as the entry level full size model with first gens having a length between 202.8 in for 92-94 and 201.5in for 94-97. Second gen had a length of 209.1in for 98-01. The 300M / Eagle vision were supposed to court the import buying crowd because of the sporter vehicle and it being exported to Europe, with a length of 197.8 in . And finally the LHS/ New Yorker being the top of the line flagship with all options as standard feature plus only being offered with 3.5v6 and the length of 207.4 for 94-97 and 207.7 in for 99-01

I love the Speak and Spell “Your keys are in the ignition K E Y spells key.”

My grandfather worked for Chrysler during the 80s and was retired in the 90s. However, we had his family discount. At least one person in my family owned one of the vehicles featured and mentioned here in at least one version at some time. The New Yorker and the Avenger are the only two that stand out as ones someone in my family didn't own. Spirit, Shadow, Charger, Intrepid (gen 1&2), Dodge Caravan, Eagle Premiere and Eagle Summit, Dodge Stratus and maybe something else.

I started my career as an auto technician at a Chrysler/Plymouth/Toyota dealership in 1991. The quality of the Chrysler vehicles was terrible back then. They are still the worst of the three domestics imo. I fix other peoples broken vehicles for a living. Chrysler products are a gold mine for me! The 3.6 liter V6 they use in almost everything is a good boat anchor after 100k. Timing issues, lifter failures, oil cooler leaks, and electrical gremlins are the norm. I drive Toyotas for a reason.

I still own a 1990 Daytona ES V6 with the 5 speed. This was and is still my favorite 80s Chrysler but I really loved about all of them! I so wanted a turbo but at the time the V6 was what I came across. It was a hoot to drive with the 5 speed and remains to this day a fun car. I've owned it for 23 years, second owner, bought it in Fairbanks, Alaska when i lived there. It has 101K miles on it, 44K of those I drove, its been all over, up and down the Alaska highway a couple times, as far south as California and as far north as the Arctic Circle, a great car. The Chrysler turbos were good fun at a good price and had a bunch of variations over the years. I remember being in love with the mid 80s Dodge 600 turbo sedan...a car with a pillow seat interior in red velour your gram would love but powered by a punchy 2.2L turbo! How weird/ cool! All that said, I have owned a 1990 Plymouth Sundance RS (non turbo) new in 1990; a 1985 Chrysler Laser XE turbo that I bought cheap in 2003 with 165K miles on it. It didn't last that much longer but 165K miles on a Laser with all that electronic stuff is respectable.

My mom had either a 93 or 95 Spirit and LOVED it. Had it until probably 2002 and I don't remember having a lot of trouble with it. Don't see many of them on the road anymore.

Chrysler's models were price based Concorde -Low price volume model LHS - Mid price luxury model 300M - High end sport/luxury model Before the 300M, the New Yorker was the mid price model and LHS was the high end model

In a decade that generally stunk stylistically and had a lot of cars that looked a lot cheaper than they were, Dodge really wasn't very bad. It did have some nice-looking cars - sort of plasticky, but not too bad. I think Dodge styling was probably in the upper third of cars being sold. Don't know about reliability and repairs, though.

They were OK cars for the era. Nothing earth shattering but they were affordable, roomy and got reasonable economy. The company was basically in survival mode and had to get as many models as could be built on one platform out to the public. The trucks were OK. Sturdy and basic with decades of engineering behind them (bullet proof 318's and 360's along with the Cummins diesel.

My girlfriend in high school had an rt intrepid and I had an all black lhs and both cars were really quick and floaty but mine was plagued with electrical issues where the wipers would come on and trunk would pop while car was off and parked I was able to trade it in for a Dodge Dakota rt and never looked back but I miss this era of cars for sure

It's a shame Chrysler didn't follow through with the Intrepid and it's sister cars. They truly had sharp body designs but it all went south just before the Mercedes partnership and after that it was done.

I had a friend in school when the Dodge Avenger was around in the late 90s. I remember always loving the car and thinking they were better than the Chevy’s my mom always had when I was growing up.

In 95 I needed to get a new car . My parents sent me to see one of their friends at the Toyota dealership . He was trying to get me to buy a bright purple Eagle summit . He kept going on about how great it was , I think they just couldn’t sell it . Thank god I drove away in a 91 Toyota Celica Gt .

The Shelby Daytona 2.2T and Spirit R/T were awesome sleepers. My grandma had a LeBaron that talked. "your door is ajar". I loved it as a kid. I think the Daytona got ugly with the facelift. They looked best with the pop up headlights.

My dad owned a 92 Plymouth Acclaim. I loved that car. (It was maroon like the one in your video) We got re-a-rended in a low speed accident, and pushed into the car in front of us. The persons car who hit us was a mess. the back of the person infront of us cars was damaged. Our Acclaim had a tail light cracked. THAT made me love that old acclaim. It had carbon problems, stalled out & died a lot near the end of its life. The steering wheel would shake... it was so old. But we had that car in the family from 94 to 06. I "bought" the car from my dad when he got a new car. Learned to drive in that car. It took me to my first job before the body rot was so bad that body filler couldn't help. We gave that car to a charity auction. Hell we named the car "Pete the Plymouth" I miss that old car... It was a tank.

I had an 89 Sprit ES White, great car but the v6 from mitsubishi had head gasket issues and the "ultra drive" 4spd overdrive auto trans had its issues as well.

I drove the Dynasty, Stratus, Intrepid, and 300M at various times in the 90's. They were all actually pretty good driving. The 300M was easily the most appealing for long drives at highway speed. I always thought the Avenger was actually pretty cool looking. Like a mini Charger. It would be a good sleeper I think with some upgrades and tuning.

Was definitely a dark time for Dodge . These days the Challenger & Charger are gorgeous , muscular looking & muscular driving & well built beasts . Back then , all the Chrysler group cars had that cab forward jellybean look of the Ford Taurus , & were built dreadfully plasticky cheap & were super unreliable (the ubiquitous V6 used throughout their range was renown for blowing head gaskets)

I enjoy your content and recall many of these cars as I owned a few, including two Colts, which you failed to mention. No one does, and it seems to be completely forgotten as well as ignored although marketed for almost 25 years, and the 89 GT Turbo version won Car and Drivers ten-best for that year. They were solid cars that got me through college and grad school. I wished they would get some recognition.

A friend of mine had a Shelby Daytona in the 90's and it was pretty quick. My other friend had a Plymouth Sundance 2.2 with turbo, and it was quick too but did not handle nearly as good as the Daytona.

my brother had a nice non-sporty Dodge Spirit in the early 90's and it was very comfy and i remember always enjoying riding in it. had multiple long trips with my broth in it. it was sort of a bluish purple with grey interior. then later as a teenager i had a 94 plymouth sundance. lasted me through a trip around the us at 18 before it just wouldn't crank anymore.

My mom absolutely loved her dodge spirit. I was too young to remember if they were decent cars but for the time they were at least good looking

1980s Daytona was a sharp looking car. Even for me.. that only loves European cars. That IROC did 150mph. My girlfriend had a Spirit LE, While I was driving a 1988 Alfa Spider Veloce, her car was faster, but driving in a beautiful convertible, a Boring sedan was.. well economical. Being in college. We had a great time! Great video!

Great content. I like seeing these videos on the history of car companies!

I had a first gen Avenger new off the lot in that same purple-gray paint. I loved it. My dad worked at the dealership and said they had to move it into the service garage at night before I took delivery because people kept pawing over it.

Funny our 1999 Dodge Dakota Sport went over 350,000 miles with the same motor and transmission. It was used and abused daily. We had a family run Farm Supply and Hardware store. Usually hauled 3/4 of ton or more roughly 6-8 times a day. I like to see the new ones hold up to that kind of abuse

I bought a '97 Concorde after driving my dad's Intrepid ES and loving it, and honestly, it was a very good car for me. Lots of room, super comfortable, remarkably competent in the snow, and the 3.5 V6 had great low end torque for the time. Bought it off lease and drove it for a decade with no serious issues until the very end. Traded it in on a Charger R/T - not so lucky on that one.

back in 2002 I bought a 1991 New Yorker with 90,000 miles on it for $1000 and it was such an amazing car, I had it for almost 3 years before I wrecked it (I had a reckless youth) and it never once left me on the side of the road. It was the most luxurious model available for the model, double padded leather seats, digital dash, sun roof, heated seats with memory position, Infinity stereo tons of room in it too. God I miss that car!!!

I had a Dodge Dynasty as a fleet car. It was reliable and had a roomy trunk. I miss that car it never failed to work & and you were never fatigued at the end of the day. Wish a new varent was hear.

I had a 95 Sebring coupe. V6 auto. The auto let it down a little, caravan transmission. Had a transmission dude rebuild it like he did for caravans that would tow a camper, couldn’t hurt it after that. That was a great highway car. Variable steering rack. It was an eclipse with head room!

Love your videos. So much nostalgia and love for mid cars of my youth. I'm a 90s car trivia nerd. I used to read the auto trader like kids red comics when i was young. Made a website on geocities about ford probe GT. First car was a 91 Tbird lx , second a 95 monte carlo Z 34 and third was a 91 integra. Keep these videos coming.

No joke though, I saw a turbo Spirit run a sub-10 second quarter mile a few years ago. Looked 100% stock on the outside and had an exhaust cutout so it sounded stock until he opened it up.

I owned a 91 Spirit. It was red with a red interior. It had the 2.5 liter engine. It was slow, but was otherwise a good car. My parents had a 92 Dynasty in black cherry with the 3 liter 6. The Dynasty was a comfortable riding car.The only problem was needing the transmission replaced at 45,000 miles. The thing I remember most about it was that it had a good sounding radio.

Glad i found the channel,great video man i had a 1991 dodge stealth RT

I’ve never heard of the Spirit RT. Crazy performance in that. Too bad they didn’t know how to market it.

My dad got a spirit es turbo in teal. It was awesome. He only had it for 1 year. From what I've learned of it that was a good thing!

Back in the 90's my buddy had a Dodge Rampage.

I owned a '91 Dodge Spirit. It was old (198,638 miles when I bought it) and was a 2.5 "4". It was NOTHING compared to 60s-73 MoPars, but ALWAYS "did the job"! This made it PRETTY DAMNED GOOD in my "book"!

I owned a number of the LH cars with the 3.5 and they are all at least "A" tier. All were superb and subtly different. My favorite is the LHS.

First Intrepid was the best looking one. And its variants.

great video!😀

Ahhh, the Daytona Shelby! What a fantastic car! I'd love to have one again!

This episode hit home for me!!! I wanted a Daytona badly back then but wasn’t impressed by the little power it offered! I owned a 94 Intrepid. In my opinion they were better than the 2nd gen models. The second gen had engine issues. Only problem i had was a bolt broke off in my transmission and I had to get it fixed. Aside from that it ran fine up until I got a new car in 07! I’m looking forward to seeing your nxt video!😎👍🏽👍🏽

I'm kind of nostalgic for "The New Dodge" (mid 90s to about 2001), as well as the tail end of the DaimlerChrysler era in the late 2000s. That Plymouth Reliant at 0:45 was the first car I actually remember my dad driving when I was little, but I think the story goes that he was still driving his Dodge Ram the day he took my mom to the hospital to have me delivered. Then he obviously had to switch to something with rear seats.

I loved riding in my uncle's Eagle Premiere

My second car was a '00 Intrepid w/ the dreaded 2.7 lol Put duals on it & had a nice sound system. It started overheating and i had to part with it. If i had the mechanical experience i have now, i wouldve kept it & swapped in the 3.2 or 3.5. Loved that car

I drove the Plymouth Acclaim many times back then. It had a good solid ride and it was comfortable. I also liked the looks of it.

My dad loved his Daytona and always tells me about it but I've literally never in my life seen one anywhere

Way back my Jeep got totaled and the settlement was enough to buy a ... used Dodge Spirit. I'd never owned a four door, or a car with a trunk. Velour seats, of course. Ya know what? I really liked it. Comfortable ride (once I replaced the non-working shocks it came with), adequate acceleration, fine brakes (that saved my bacon a few times), room for EVERYTHING. A surprisingly, and unexpectedly, nice car.

Very thoughtful and entertaining sir.

They made three different CSX's over the course of 3 years and they were all cool. You showed the Red but there was also a white with grey two tone and black with grey two tone.

The last Dodge that I will ever spend my money on was a 1990 Dodge Dynasty. It went back to the dealer 3 times for transmission problems. The dealer supposedly replaced it under warranty. Thankfully, I soon traded in for a Subaru.

Again, I just Love the background music!!

Shelby Chargers from mid to late 80s were very cool

I've truly never understood why anyone would buy a 1st-gen Avenger instead of an Eclipse/Talon. Or even why it was its own thing and not just a rebadge of the DSM siblings.

I would rather have one of the older dodges than the new stellantis products.

In 84 my folks ordered a new chrysler, a stretched k car called the E Class. I talked them into selecting the voice alerr option which was 66 dollars. It was a cool feature. At first it had 11 alerts, and around 86 or 87 the number of alerts was 24.

Keep the 90s stuff coming!

hands down my favorite generation of dodge/chrysler, idk what it is about it, but there's just so much charm to the cars

As an owner of many extended K (EEK) cars. They had a great advantage for someone like me that would get parts from the pull-a-part salvage yards as most all the (Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth) cars had interchangeable parts. BTW the Dodge Spirit RT was available from 1989-1995

Yup I love my dads 91 Shelby. We put a lot of work into it but I think it’s one of the cleanest ones left.

as a broke person that got his license in 2001, most of my cars were the K-Car variants, drove my moms 88 new yorker, then had a 91 spirit, then an 89 spirit, then a 90 dynasty, then an 85 lebaron, then 92 spirit, then an 89 acclaim, and a 92 acclaim, (almost all cars were near end of life, but most still ran and drove before i got rid of them, headgasket, thrown rod, blown a604, blown gasket and warped head, car accident, caught fire daily (had to throw snow balls at engine after stopping), and blown motor after sending through a flooded highway onramp most of my issues were self induced, and if i drove most of them like i do today they would have probably lasted longer, loved how easy they were to work on. - basically cheap, reliable, comfortable, and safe transportation. then i got stuck driving a lot of fords and chevys just due to price and avalaibility, those were always a having issues or was a complete pain to work on. Although now i drive a 2013 honda and i love it as its still all those things, easy to work on, cheap and reliable.

I am a new subscriber to your channel, and I like what I've seen so far. This is the second video of your that I have watched. Would you explain the criteria that you use for your tier system? Is it based on the original prices of the car, the number of sales, or something else?

Love your videos

Just found your channel. Great video. I like the Daytona. At that time I drove a 280ZX and didn’t want to trade

Dodge was dope in the 90's

There were a few shinning lights in the 90s for Dodge. I had a Shelby Z that we put a modified 2.2 turbo class 4 and 5 speed. That thing was a monster. It was Dyno'd at around 400 bhp at the front wheels. It was a Ferrari killer

My sister was a Dodge and Plymouth car fan. Her cars lasted for years. Dodge Charger, Plymouth Champ, Plymouth Volare, and Plymouth Reliant K, Dodge Shadow, they were good cars I liked the Charger, Champ and Reliant K the best. The reliant K car was a small reliable sedan and is what is needed today.

If memory serves me , the Concorde had a longer wheel base than the 300 and was the less sporty model.

I always had this fetish for spirits and acclaims because it was pretty much a top-of-the-line version of a K car, just with the early caravan engines. Most of those vehicles before they became DaimlerChrysler were kind of bulletproof if you just wanted a car to get from point a to point B. I was quite shocked by its durability. To this very day, I’m still on the hunt for a 94 Chrysler LeBaron sedan, done in the shape of a spirit/acclaim

a funny fact here in argentina on the 90s the federal police (policia federal) bought several dodge spirit and convert them to patrol cars marked and unmarked. nowdays is really hard to find one in good shape. weird enough some dodge shadows sedans also entered the country, also really hard to find one in good shape.

In 1984, I took my Chevy truck drag racing. The engine started knocking, so I parked it. My brother was there with a 84 Plymouth Breeze rental. I borrowed it and won Street ET.

The Shadow Shelby was a beast of a little car

The RT model was offered in 1990, I was a Dodge dealer in 1990 and sold at least three of these.

Dodges in the 90s were good but nothing tops the lugshurry of passing the grey pupon in a early 80s landow roofed Crysler LaBarron. Plus with a 90hp four banger doing 0-60 in just over 100 seconds its also a sleeper.

1:20 brilliant better than most dashes of today

Currently I own a 1996 Dodge Stratus, 4-door, 2.4 with automatic, that has just over 106,160 original miles. The interior is almost like new (the driver's seat and floor show some wear). The single lady before us as well as my late wife and I didn't put many miles on it. I see no reason to get rid of it. It's low maintenance, decent mileage and has plenty of 'zip' for me. I had a 1985 Lebaron with a 2.2. Slightly underpowered for a sedan. But I got it cheap. I've liked the look of Lebaron and Dodge 600 convertibles from the mid 1980s. I thought the somewhat boxy style worked nicely for convertibles.

In the mid 90's you could scoop these things up for 300-500 all day. Ive owned 2 Lebarons, dynasty, acclaim and numerous Aries vehicles. The NA 2.2/2.5 I4's were the worst vehicles I've ever owned in my life. I don't think I owned a single one that didn't experience some for head/gasket failure. I've owned a 77 Aspen with a 225/6 and a 93 Lebaron landau with a 3.3 v6 and those are both cars I loved and regret selling/trading. My mother had a LHS. Cant speak mechanically on it but it floated like a yacht and had some surprising acceleration for a car of its size.

The New Yorker even had an LH car

The Dodge Spirit looks like an early Mitsubishi Lancer.

I love this stuff

The Dodge shadow came in different engine trims with a naturally aspirated 2.2L, the 2.2L turbo, the 2.5L naturally aspirated (which mine has), the 2.5L turbo and a 3.0L V6 in 1994

Granny had a turbo spirit. After she passed I pulled it out of the garage and did a tune up….laugh my balls off thinking of my very proper grandma cutting rug on people in her lil turbo spirit

The 93 and earlier rams were solid .

I've only ridden in a few Dodge vehicles. The Intrepid had a smooth ride as did the Neon but that's about it. I wouldn't mind having a cab forward car as a beater.

I had a 92 Lebanon ,I got it in 95 an old man had broken it in ,4 door 3 litre,got 40 mpg to Disneyland and back,,loved this car and it seated all 6 of us wife and I and 4 kids,,,m

I had two Daytonas in my early car days. Besides the fact they weren't very reliable for me, I do have fond memories of the cars. I do remember my '91 ES and I think it was probably the 3rd coolest looking car in the high school parking lot, albeit nowhere near fast with it's 100hp 2.5L.

Got a '92 Shadow America that's still on the road. 2.2 NA, Auto. Not sure why, it hasn't even rusted all that bad in this Northern climate. I try to maintain it, but not religious at it. It does share mileage with a couple of other vehicles, and has 175K on it. Biggest problem is the paint's all peeled off of it.

You mentioned the 90s Avenger being odd it shared drivetrains with the Eclipses and its clones. The Avenger mechanically was pretty much a Eclispe. It even used the same doors ( always thought they looked a little short on the Avenger because of this). Great channel BTW!

The Monaco and the others on that platform seem to be modeled from the Audi 5000. Then, with the "cab forward" cars, they most definitely did copy Audi with the longitudinally mounted FWD based platform. Those cars, most Audis and most Subarus, use that same long mounted FWD based setup. Those are weird since the engine is in front of the front hub, just look under the hood at where the strut towers are mounted in relation to the motor. Nose heavy and a lot of understeer, though Subaru is the better setup.

Suprised the dodge stealth didn't make the list, then again it is just a re badged mitsubishi 3000gt

Would love to see the Stratus again.

Never heard of the CSX but damn it looks cool

That thumbnail though... Ooh Weee!!

Dodge might not have been as exciting in the 90's, but they made a whole line of cars for every day people that were practical, dependable and affordable. I would live to be able to buy a base model Dodge Spirit these days. There just are not any plain transportation cars on the market anymore.

I own an intrepid with a 2.7 and is my daily driver I just stay in top of the oil change and use only synthetic oil recently I did check the engine inside and is incredibly clean