Chrysler’s answer to the Chevrolet El Camino, Ford Ranchero, VW Rabbit and the Suburu Brat. Two doors, two bucket seats, a 2.2 Liter 4 and a 4 speed manual transmission. It could haul an honest ¼ ton, tow a small trailer and the bed was long enough for me to sleep in when it was too wet to pitch a tent.
By early 1982 I was thinking that it might be time to replace the Charger. Chrysler under Lee Iacocca was looking like it might survive and had some interesting cars Sometime between the 24 Hour Pepsi Challenge and the Daytona 500 I test drove a Rampage at the Dodge dealership across from the Daytona International Speedway. Not counting 5 minutes in a Datsun 210 wagon when I was 13 it was the first time I’d driven a manual transmission. That car was black and if I recall correctly was not equipped with air conditioning. Neither a good choice in Florida.
After the scare on Daytona Beach I was ready to sell the Charger. By this point I was an E-5 earning $731 / month with a little more than 5 years left on my enlistment contract. I was 18 and had no credit history so the loan officer at the credit union turned down my initial application. I appealed to the credit committee and they approved my loan.
On April 7th, 1982 I drove off the lot of Orlando Dodge with my first new car. In January of 1983 it tried to kill me twice in the same day. By February, 1984 I no longer owned it. The last I knew it was registered in Virginia. If someone wants to run the VIN, 1B7EZ44B5CD192706, I’d love to know if it still exists.
The pickup bed proved useful. I used it to recover the motorcycle of Navy buddy who’d been in accident, collect presents for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots drive, accomplish two do it yourself change of station moves and haul firewood for a friends elderly parents (they were probably in their late 50’s like I am now) when there was an early cold snap (I believe it was Columbus Day weekend of 1982).
January 1983 I had just transferred to the Navy’s Nuclear Prototype training unit (NPTU) in West Milton, NY. The day before we were scheduled to start training there was a big snowfall and I lost control on a stretch of black ice. After a 360° spin on street that was only a couple of feet wider than the length of the Rampage I continued on my way. That evening a couple of my classmates who’d rented a house near the top of one the nearby mountains called to say that their driveway was snowed in. I went up the mountain to retrieve them. Creeping back down the mountain in first gear I either clipped a snow bank or, more likely, snow fell from an overhanging branch. Either way instantly I couldn’t see anything. Before I could stop the road curved to the left and I didn’t. 100 or so feet down the ravine we were rapidly approaching a very wide tree when suddenly we stopped. When the snow melted in the Spring I got to see the boulder that had snagged the transmission and dragged it into the front of the bed. Surprisingly the insurance company did not total the vehicle although it was a couple of months before it was back on the road again.
A couple of weeks before that accident I’d bought a 1946 CJ2A off a transferring sailor that couldn’t afford to take it with him. That’ll be the subject of my next post. Winter in a soft top Jeep was fun 🥶
When I got the Rampage back it didn’t handle the same. The repaired unibody seemed to flex more. It was still reliable and reasonably fun to drive, but had lost that new car feel. I finished my training at the NPTU and joined the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Mediterranean Sea in July. We came back to the states in December and shortly thereafter I traded the Rampage for a 1983 CJ7
Some company needs to bring this type of vehicle back. El amino/Ranchero was a great idea that should have never stopped being produced. SUV’s and electric cars are so boring, but are pushed really hard, but I’m not interested in either..
Ford Maverick? FWD (AWD available w/Ecoboost), small, cheap, unibody, fuel efficient with the hybrid or quick with the Ecoboost, 2000 lb payload. Only things its missing is a manual!
Or being able to find one… I’m at over 1 year, 3 mo wait for mine…
Given their take rate, the unique parts and procedures needed for production, and that they’d require their own expensive emission certification, the manual transmission is a no go for most vehicles.
After a year and 3 months, I’d be looking elsewhere.
But there is nothing else with 40+ mpg, seats 5, heated seats, has a truck bed, and is <30k. Until someone releases a competitor, it stands alone
The biggest problem (for me) is that the Maverick is only available in a crew cab configuration with a 4.5 foot cargo bed. I haven’t had enough passengers to utilize a second seat for a decade, so it would be wasted space… Sure, it’s handy to use as lockable storage for tools, but I’d rather have more bed space and a shorter wheelbase.
Can’t say that I agree. The Rampage (and its Plymouth sister, the Scamp) seemed like a good idea, but in actual practice, aren’t too great. It’s in the same league as the old Studebaker Wagonaire and it’s updated version, the GMC Envoy XUV.
I mean, these came out when gas was at a very high price, so a small, quasi-pickup-El Camino ‘should’ have sold like gangbusters, but the fact that it didn’t says volumes. For most, I think the choice went to one of the myriad compact pickups available at the time. I can only surmise that one of the big factors that turned people away was that the Rampage was FWD while all the compact pickups were RWD. The Rabbit pickup didn’t exactly set any sales records, either.
Which may have been the problem all along. The Rampage/Scamp might have had nearly the same capability as a compact pickup but it didn’t ‘look’ like a unique, upright, compact pickup. IIRC, it didn’t last long.
One of the casualties of the death of Pontiac was the Holden Monaro ‘ute’ that was supposedly going to be the next vehicle from that GM division. It was essentially the final generation GTO with a Rampage-like pickup bed, effectively the return of the old SS396 El Camino. For some reason, those utes are very popular in Australia, even having their own racing class. A shame it didn’t make it to market as it would have been interesting to see how it sold here in the states.
Ah yes, it even had a name – Pontiac G8 ST, or Sport Truck. It was shown at the New York Auto Show, but didn’t make it here before Pontiac was axed (and a few years later, Holden was axed too). But now the good news: you can actually buy one of these in the USA! A Colorado-based company called Left Hand Utes (https://lefthandutes.com/) imports late-model Holden utes from Australia, then strips them almost bare to their bodies, then reassembles them using federalized G8, SS, GTO, or Caprice PPV OEM parts, including the dashboards and components to convert them to LHD. I’m not clear on whether they are VINned as the parts donor car or as a federalized Holden, but they’re street legal in all 50 states and will pass emissions tests. Not as expensive as I would have guessed either, starting at $30K.
A quick look at their page shows the vehicles they claim are fully US-legal…aren’t. And when there’s obvious noncompliance I can see at a glance, it makes me pretty sure there’s also less-obvious noncompliance…and probably other corners cut where regulations don’t apply.
It’s a pity that a factory-built G8 ST never made it to the US. It doesn’t seem like it would have sold all that much better than any of its similar predecessors, but it would have been interesting to see how it did, anyway.
In fact, if it bombed (which seemed more likely than not), I would have guessed it ‘really’ would have been the last nail in the Pontiac coffin.
Hint regarding non-compliance, please? I’m too distracted by the cUTEness.
If they come back with this you can be sure that they will add a very high and useless hood like all the present suv & socal ”mini” pick-up like the Maverick .I liked this time when aerodynamics was selling. Today the mechanics are more efficient but the result is reduced by the offer of the manufacturers who sell us high-legged bricks.
I think you’re confusing ‘aerodymics’ with ‘a sloped hood’. While that wedge shaped front end may look like it will ‘cut’ through the air, that’s simply not the case. In fact, the most aerodynamic shape is actually a teardrop shape- going round end forward. Most modern vehicles have a lower Cd than old cars- and things like the Mav’s fuel mileage (even from the Ecoboost) reflect that.
I know that , that why some semi try big balloon attach to the rear end of 53′ trailer . Just imagine a lower Maverick with a front end à la Escape* . Manufacturers only offer aggressive fronts end that do not cut the wind.Most of the time you lift the hood and it is empty for 6” above the engine cladding .Anyway a pickup with an open rear box only acts as a big spoon.But …
with the entire car fleet of a country, that’s a lot of gallons lost with all these fronts that look like vertical 4x8s . *and the poor Escape just had a refresh to make it more aggressive & to make it more attractive in the eyes of consumer’s childish taste for Tonka.
I once joklngly said that these new trucks have front ends that appear to be 6 feet tall, and now you’ve confirmed it! I’m 6′ 4″, which means that I would be below eye level w/ the edge of the F150/250 trucks’ hoods!! 🙂
Small unit body pickups are still common in South America and to a lesser extent Asia. The departure of the Golf Caddy has left the European market short on small car based pickups but they prefer vans like the Transit Connect or Berlingo anyway.
and it is still a more effective alternative than all those NA contractors who buy the biggest HD pick-up to attach a 6-wheel trailer to it . Not to mention that in the evening they blind you cause the back being crushing,the lights points to the sky
These became so rare that by the time I became a licensed driver in the late 90s, they were entirely gone; I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one in the flesh, though I’ve seen the Rampage written up here in a few different iterations.
I can see one of these or a Brat or El Camino having appeal to a young, single man. Have kids, though, and forget about it.
Carfax recognizes your VIN as valid, but has no records on this car. It probably met its maker decades ago from what you described above about it being damaged goods after its accident.
Given the legendary Chrysler reliability and low sales volume it’s not surprising they became rare. A low mileage Scamp was auctioned off a couple of years ago. It went for more then I’d be willing to spend. I didn’t bid because it didn’t have air conditioning.
My only hope is that a subsequent owner didn’t expire with it. The OEM Firestone tires were like rocks when they were cold, inflexible with no traction. I’ve never been willing to buy Firestone tires since.
My goodness – what a story. Great looking little Rampage, but after almost dying in it in an experience like that, I would also probably be ready to move on. I’ll admit that I wasn’t keen on this type of vehicle back when they were new, but I really like them now. The Rampage (and one-year ’83 Plymouth Scamp) were sporty, little machines and based on what I’ve read, had a reasonable amount of utility.
I’d be curious about bed loading, I’d expect anything approaching 500# in the bed would render both traction and steering a bit squirrely.
Would be interesting to see how it would do. From the side profile, it doesn’t look like you’ve got much load area ahead of the rear axle, but I think the shape of the rear cab pillar might be making it look like the load floor is more rear biased than it actually is. The mid 1970’s Datsun pickup I drove in high school suffered rather badly when loaded, and the front tires would skid and plow if you even hinted that you’d like to turn a corner on snow or ice. This even occurred to a certain extent if all of the weight was at the front of the bed.
A brief gander online puts the payload of Rampage at just under 1150 pounds.
My grandfather bought one of these when he retired to the Sierra Nevada mountains to tow his small fishing boat. And then traded it almost immediately for a Ford Ranger because it struggled so badly up steep grades. Left such an impression on my grandmother that (even thirty years later, a decade after my grandfather died) she still adamantly refused to consider buying any car with fewer than six cylinders. There was no point explaining how gutsy smaller engines had gotten because she would just tell you again about that Rampage.
As a not-young (and not-single) man I find this kind of vehicle as attractive now, just as I did when when was young and single and could have bought one new, at VW, Mopar, or Chevy/GMC dealers. At the time, they didn’t quite fit my needs as an only vehicle, and I owned multiple motorcycles and was just getting interested in a 4wd pickup as the one do-it-all vehicle for me. If I didn’t still feel the need for off-road capable 4wd, I’d be very interested in the Hyundai Santa Cruz, which hits that car/truck visual sweetspot better than the Maverick, for me. When Hyundai offers such a vehicle on the Ioniq 5 platform I might be convinced to abandon my 4wd …
I saw a Santa Cruz a couple of days ago. Very cute. I had considered a Ranger before I settled on my base F150. The Ranger cost about the same, only got a bit better mileage, and was nowhere near as comfortable in the cab, or useful compared to my 8 ft. bed. Never buy a truck too small to do what you need it to do.
Car pickups are a vehicle class that has never particularly met my needs/wants.
I could see this being very appealing for an avid mountain biker, keeping the dirty bike and
gear out of the cabin.
I always found it curious that Chrysler based these on the L body coupes rather than the Omni/Horizon sedans. Basing the Rampage on the Omni 4-door hatchback would have given it a taller roof, shorter hood, and potentially longer bed, as well as a more angular, trucky appearance. Essentially, it would have looked like the Volkswagen Pickup which is more what a truck is expected to look like, although VW should have extended the cab a bit as legroom was less than in a Rabbit (it was never officially called “Rabbit Pickup”, just “Pickup” although just about everyone called it a Rabbit Pickup anyway. In some markets it was called the Volkswagen Caddy, a name that wouldn’t go over well with a certain GM division.)
This was one of those vehicles that I always liked but could never really justify based on my needs. Looking back, this could have been a fun extra car with a combination of sport and utility. There were probably a lot of people like me who said “Yes . . . but” before buying something else.
Even more than back in the day, these now remind me of the Subaru Brat. Albeit without the death seats and with fwd vs awd. I do think that awd probably made the Brat somewhat more practical than the Rampage.
It’s an interesting-looking vehicle, but very much from a time far away. It is interesting though to ponder why utes that look like cars (versus ones that look like trucks) have never sold well here in the US…and to also wonder why they do sell well in Australia.
We had several variants of these come through Dad’s repo lot when they were first released. I remember the fit and finish being garbage and I dreaded having to pull the doors apart to replace the lock barrels – all the edges were razor sharp and I remember seeing surface rust across the interior sheet metal. They disappeared about as fast as they were introduced, and I don’t remember many people coming to pay them out of storage.
Exterior decal package, I have not seen on the Rampage before. Reminds me of how Dodge handled the faux wood on the fuselage Dodge Monaco wagons. With borders on the ‘wood panelling’.
There were at least a couple magazine road tests from 1982, that compare the Rampage to sports cars, in the peppiness the 2.2 litre engine provided. Over the earlier Omni/Horizon 1.7 litre four.
I used to see a Rampage every morning, on my school bus ride to high school. I believe a retired couple owned it. Similar bed cap to yours.
It was actually a custom paint job that the dealership put on it. IIRC they also had a brown Rampage and a black Rampage with similar (but matched to accent the base color) paint jobs.
Wow, nicely done!
My mother bought the hatchback version (1981 Plymouth TC3) when she retired. It was orange with the 2.2 with a 4 speed and was a peppy and fun car. The 2.2 made all the difference. It was also reliable and she kept it until 1996 when she stopped driving.
These have always had a fair amount of appeal to me. I’m one of the few for whom the old school mini truck was really able to handle the majority of my day-to-day transportation and hauling needs without a ton of compromise. Right now, I honestly could use an economy car to cover the long distances to and from work, but the fact that I’m often hauling ladders, lumber, appliances and other construction materials, takes a standard econocar off the table.
My favorite is Rampage is the 1984, which earned an extra thumb up for the switch to the quad headlamp schnozz. While I’m dreaming… The fact that the 2.2 was to be found in 31 flavors of factory turbo makes the notion of a power upgrade not too far a reach. That would alleviate my biggest letdown with most small haulers. I’m still slightly jarred by memories of watching the tachometer needle on my Li’l Hustler slowly winding around as I jammed gears on freeway onramps, only to merge into 80mph traffic at 55mph praying that the tailgate wouldn’t end up in the cab with me.
A car, indeed a type of car, Europe just doesn’t do, and perhaps the most intriguing Omnirizon derivative.
And a very long handbrake (parking brake) lever!
Never had a Rampage, but this seems to parallel my world 41 years or so ago.
My Dad bought a new Dodge Omni 024 (the coupe version of your Rampage). Probably the closest thing he got to a “midlife crisis” vehicle, it was a bit out of character for him, but as a 20 something year old, it was right up my alley. I put a tape deck into it for him as a surprise when he was taking an old school friend up to Montreal for the weekend (he lived near Burlington so it was a short trip but they stayed the weekend).
In 1981, I hit a patch of black ice on I89 near White River Junction one evening on my way from where I lived at the time driving up to Burlington for the weekend, and smashed the front end of my ’74 Datsun 710 which I’d had all 4 years of undergraduate study that I’d brought to my 1st job out of school. The Datsun was a lightweight RWD car and really wasn’t good with traction, though I did have snow tires, didn’t have studs or anything to help on ice. I decided to fix up the Datsun but planned to sell it right away (sold it myself, it was a comical test drive..metal trim piece fell off the car during the drive but cars that got pretty good gas mileage were popular a few years after the 2nd gas shortage…so the guy bought it despite the test drive). Originally I’d planned to buy an Omni just like my Dad’s, actually test drove one a guy had around Montpelier or Barre, but then I found a ’78 Scirocco Champagne Edition at a used car lot near where I lived.
I was new at work, but joined the local credit union within days of starting, maybe partly because my manager was president of that credit union (our jobs had nothing to do with credit union or finance, the president was a voluntary job without pay, it was kind of the thing a “fast tracker” would do, since they encouraged people to volunteer…funny thing was after I left the company and got a job at another large company with a credit union, it was the opposite, you could still be involved with volunteering there but it was almost discouraged as a distraction from your main job). Well, in 1981 inflation was high, and since I’d only been member of the credit union 6 months I only qualified for a certain amount for a car loan (it was based on membership tenure)…but my manager found out I’d applied for the loan and got an extra $500 added to the amount I could finance, which made the difference so I could swing the Scirocco. My note was 14.5% which is actually low for 1981, particularly for a used (vs new)…a friend of mine had a 24% loan on a used Pontiac Sunbird at that time. The weird thing…41 years later, I’m visiting my Mom (we live in same town, but it is almost 2000 miles from the Northeast) and her next door neighbor who recently relocated here told me his father-in-law had something to do with the same credit union I belonged to in the Northeast (he’s from that town too)…I kind of recognized the name, but I’d only worked there a few years, 40 years before, I did a search of old mailings on the web, and found a picture from 1986, 4 years after I’d moved from that area to my current city, where they were building a new credit union building, and they had the “ceremonial” shot with shovels where they scoop a symbolic amount of soil to start the construction…his relative was the (then current) credit union president, and my ex-manager (42 years before) was standing right behind him in the same picture, as ex-credit union president.
Anyhow, the Scirocco was a neat car for a young 20 something single man up there, it had FWD which was just starting to become more common, very little outside of some AMC, Jeep and a couple Subarus offered AWD or 4WD back then. The problem didn’t show up until I’d moved to the sunbelt a couple years later and was the same thing that doomed the Omni…didn’t have air conditioning. Yes, I could have added it, but it was already a used car and aftermarket air conditioning could be more expensive than just ordering a car with factory air (or buying a used car that had A/C). I liked the car and kept it another 4 years until I replaced it with an ’86 GTi that had A/C…the city I live in was about 1/10 the current population, and even with few traffic jams, I could usually drive at a decent constant rate so with windows open I was OK in the morning, and could change out of my sweaty clothes once I got home in the evening.
My Dad also got another car in 1986, a new Dodge 600, which was more in keeping with non-midlife crisis car, which also had air conditioning. I think 1986 was the last year you could deduct car loan interest on your taxes if you weren’t a business owner which we weren’t, so that was a draw. And the Omni had it’s issues…first, it was a manual, and only my Dad and I could comfortable drive it, though my mother and sisters have at times driven manual, they never really ever were comfortable with it (my mom stopped driving altogether 2 years ago, and my dad passed away 7 years ago, even then he had stopped driving a few years prior). Mostly not an issue for my Dad who drove it to work as a 2nd car, but like me I think the heat finally wore him down and he decided to give it up for another car but this time with air conditioning. His “main” family car had air conditioning since we bought a ’73 Ranch Wagon, but after 1986 both his cars always had A/C either standard or bought as an option.
Me? I’ve owned nothing but VW as my only car since 1981; but only 3 of them including my current almost 23 year old 00 Golf. Yes, all with a manual, but as I’m getting up in age, and no one in my family or friends drives manual, my next car will reluctantly need to be some sort of automatic.
The Rampage was pretty rare car, but being a pickup, it was much like a sporty version of the VW pickup…though FWD is nice for passenger car, it is less nice for a pickup if you regularly carry much weight…it was good if you only needed 2 person seating and sometime had to haul bulky stuff, but that’s a pretty limited audience. Even the Omni could seat 4 people (albeit the back seat wasn’t great)…believe it or not, I used my Scirocco in a 3 person carpool back then, people would now chuckle since 2 door cars are pretty rare, but the other 2 people in my carpool also had 2 door cars (actually hatchbacks) only slightly bigger than the Scirocco. Plus…we were younger then and didn’t seem to mind the scrambling to get into the back seat (of a low car at that)..Ah…youth!