Dodge Colt

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Drove one as DD for a while.....what a pile-o-crap. Got tired of the pos and hammered it to death. Its final ride was a ghost drive of sorts.....involved a floor jack, a stick wedging the gas pedal down and a very big dirt pile......use your imagination.....
 
inkjunkie said:
Drove one as DD for a while.....what a pile-o-crap. Got tired of the pos and hammered it to death. Its final ride was a ghost drive of sorts.....involved a floor jack, a stick wedging the gas pedal down and a very big dirt pile......use your imagination.....
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PLEASE tell me you have video of that!!! Lol!!
 
Dodge Colt was the partnership of Chrysler and Mitsubishi.
Damn things would run forever, they just rotted around you.
Plymouth also had Colts, mostly Vista's and the D-50's, Raiders and Stealth's were lumped in with that group to.
All Mitsubishi's with Dodge name plates. Put ear rings on a pig, all you got is a pretty pig.
Cheaply made, cheaply sold disposable cars. Nothing good about them. Glad they're gone.
 
Pintos Vegas, Gremlins they were all a moment in time.
Colts were not the best, but far from the worst.
And all this crap about death trap race cars is PURE BS.
Hell I have seen Hemi Barracudas and Darts on their roofs too!
NHRA outlawed them, MORE BS.
You ever buy a V8 Vega? But they let grumpiest race one.
They were afraid of a Hemi in a Colt would rule just like the Barracudas did.
Carlton died because he just drove like a machine and that day the machine broke. Not the car.
Tell me you would not have one of these in your garage!
 

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Pretty fun to see all these pics and hear stories. I personally think of this car as an underdog, one that gets overlooked and could be fun to drive.
 
Personally watched a 372 small block Pro Street Arrow,go together.Car ,still is a hoot to ride in.He chose it ,over the hand built 440 6pak 71 Pro Street Cuda.(this was last year).Fun car.
 
I've got three of them. A 74 GT a 75 and a 76. The GT has a cage installed and was road raced and will be rebuilt in time. The other two are rusty parts cars. My wife had one in 1983 as a daily driver. It had electrical issues so we sold it. It was a decent cheap car back then. Now they are something different and unique. I'll snatch up any I can find in the midwest just for spare parts. All the ones I find are way out west or on the east coast. Here is my project 74 GT
 

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famous bob said:
for those of u that weren`t around, there was a guy named don carlton, used to drive prostockers for chrysler back in the day,was a test driver for chrysler. hemi powered colt got loose and killed him. they are very squirly w/ big power-------------- --bob
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This is not true ....The launch was perfect and then it seemed like his foot just slipped off the gas pedal as it just throttled down......investigation believed he just passed out from dehydration as it was over 90 degrees for 4 straight days in July when they were testing at the track all four days....Then from being unconscious the car swerved and dug in and rolled....anyway, I think mopar muscle or mopar action did an article on him...see if I can find it.....


"We had just come off about four or five days of intense testing in Milan, Michigan," Oldfield recalled. "It was Tuesday afternoon, July 5, 1977. We'd been running that Colt all day, and the temperature was well above 90-degrees-it had been for about four days in a row. It was a normal test run. Don launched the car and everything looked perfect until it sounded like his foot came off the pedal; the car just started coasting. Then it started to swerve and it dug in. The car rolled, and he sustained a serious head injury."
Carlton, who was only 36 years old, never regained consciousness following the crash. A thorough investigation of the car he was driving did not identify any mechanical problems that would have contributed to the crash. Crewmembers who were at the track that day believe he simply passed out from dehydration and the stifling heat. Following the investigation, the wrecked '76 Dodge Colt was buried in a landfill


Read more: http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/...rag_racing_history/viewall.html#ixzz2XQoScN4G
 
Colts? One of Mopar's last attempts at P/S. IIRC the "death trap" thing is only partially true. Between the track being as narrow as it was & the wheelbase so short, and the number of crashes, even by pros, NHRA decided to increase wheelbase minimum & limit engine size. What you got then were stretched Colts (look at some mid 70s pics) & a limit of, IIRC, 396 cu. ins in these cars. Still the technology back then didn't produce results fast enough & Mopar went back to the A-body ("titanium car") but by then it was too late---NHRA choked out Mopar too badly, the company was in trouble & had to discontinue their support of many good teams.
IIRC, S&M, Mr. Norm's, Ronnie Lyles, Billy Stepp, Nelson De Champs, The Rod Shop, wre the front runners, I'm sure there were others, but even these guys had problems, so it kinda made sense to back-off on the program. I often saw the cars "duck walk" on the big end & that's spooky in any car much less something that powerful & tiny.
Still, I'd love to find one to trade my Altered for & do some nostalgia P/S racing........

Re-reading the description of Carlton's crash, it sounds like the duck-walk thing started, the chassis unloaded & there 'ya go! You didn't see this with the Fords or Chevys as they were a bit longer & their track was wider.
 
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