Junkyard Find: 1987 Dodge Raider
Remember the Raider? No, you don’t. Nobody remembers the Raider, because this one that I found yesterday at a self-service wrecking yard near Denver was the only Raider Dodge ever sold.
All right, Chrysler probably moved a few more rebadged first-gen Mitsubishi Monteros out of the showrooms, but it’s hard to think of an example of Japan/Detroit badge engineering that vanished into more complete obscurity than this one. Maybe the Toyota Cavalier comes close, but supposedly there are (dozens of) avid fans of the Cavalier in Japan.
Anecdotal evidence (from everyone I’ve ever known who has owned or worked on a Montero) suggests that these trucks weren’t quite as reliable as, say, Blazers and Broncos. In fact, the expletive-heavy anecdotes that I’ve heard about the first-gen Montero suggest that the world would be a better place if they’d all been driven directly from the assembly line into the jaws of The Crusher. Members of the Pajero Jihad, feel free to tell us about your 900,000-trouble-free-mile Raiders.
This truck was powered by the 2.6 liter Astron engine, the same one used in the Plymouth Arrow and (in turbocharged form) the Mitsubishi Starion.
My shot of the odometer didn’t come out, but this truck’s life ended with about 175,000 miles on the clock.
Such a macho name!
It seemed appropriate that F-16s from nearby Buckley AFB were screaming low overhead as I contemplated the warlike name of this piece of automotive history.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I always thought it'd be cool to own a Dodge Raider or a Daihatsu Rocky (remember those?). Both were rugged-looking little trucks with badass names and were uncommon enough to stand out from the crowd. The downside would have to be parts availability, especially now that it's been over 20 years since they quit making them.
I have an 87 Dodge Raider (non-running)that my family would like to send out to scrap. I grew up with this car, purchased new from the dealership and it was awesome to drive. The main reason I don't want to scrap it is that it was in a movie with Claude Skins called Pushed Too Far. While he didn't drive it, the main family drove it across the Greenfield, Indiana courthouse lawn. We have a VHS tape of the movie somewhere. It was a B film if you ever saw one. Quite possibly C quality. If you know of anyone interested, this is free to a good home, provided you pick it up. We are located outside of Columbia, SC. Please let me know if you are interested, or if there is a better website for this. Thanks, Dylan