the m80 is pretty cool....kinda like an old powerwagon...

 

The M80 is sweet, but I want to see that Wrangler pickup with a turbodiesel. Decent mpg but you give up absolutely NOTHING to get it. Thats the only way to go.

I do dig the look of that little toyota, but Ill bet its based on rav4 or highlander fwd garbage tho.

 

I live here on the border with Mexico and Ford and Chevy have these really cool small "trucks". Chevy has theMontana and Ford has the Courier. I see them all over the place here. I'm thinking if Chryco and Toy!@# are looking into small trucks as a future market, I would hazard to guess others are as well. Ford and Chevy have these two things that would take next to nothing to import (half of "American" cars are assembled in Mexico anyway). I think the M80 would be more like a real truck than these two, since these are based off the Ford Fiesta (Mexico) and the Chevy Corsa. The Ford is @ http://www.ford.com.mx/vehicles/home...sp?idModel=COU The Chevy is @ http://www.chevrolet.com.br/montana/index.shtm. I'm almost positive that this is the size that the Chryco Vice Chairman is referring to.
One final thought, the Dakota is tanking because they are over-priced. Yes, they can do more than most pickups in the midsize category, but when the Tucson Dodge dealer is advertizing 2008
1500 4 doorwith the base 8 cylinder and fairly nicely equipped (if you like manual shiftng like me) for $1000 less than the EXACTLY same equipped Dakota, you know Dodge has really screwed up the formula.

 

Id rather walk if I had to drive anything like the Montana or Courier. Those are a sorry excuse for a truck.They remindme of a Festiva/Aspire or Metro that happens to have a truck bed attached. If those are what we are looking forward too; than Im happy with my 15-21mpg in my Dakota.

 

I do love my Dakota, but you nailed that dead on. I have said before I think they should produce the wrangler pickup / JT / Gladiator.... offer a 4 and 6 cylinder plus the diesel, and then offer a dodge version. It wouldn't cost them much since the chassis is already there in the Wrangler unlimited. Jeep didn't produce it the first time because they thought it would compete too much with Dakota, but if it had its own Dakota version that wouldn't be a problem...

 

there has always been a market for small fuel efficient trucks, but somewhere down the line all the manus have gone to the SUVs and "power" trucks. Fact is back when the s-10 and the nissan hardbody and mini max and other small trucks were out you saw alot more companies using them for work vehicles. Every small business in town that needed the bed of a truck but the efficiency of a small car had them. Pool companies, couriers, coca-cola, you name it, the list goes on, theyall had little trucks for running around in. Now most of those comapnies have been forced to go with suv's, small 5 door hatchbacks or the mid-sized pickups of today... which dont touch the gas mileage that the older compact trucks got. They all need to go back to an S-10 sized truck with a economical 4 banger, yeh its got no power but who cares, they were cheap, reliable and damn good little trucks.

 

One last thing, the reason I called them neat is the concept. Dodge had the Rampage (and they are almost the same size) and they got 25-30 mpg then. If Dodge can produce another Rampage, which most small truck buyers would find adequate, then folks like me (98 Ram 1500 QC) can continue to buy what we need by Chrysler meeting the Cafe standard for trucks. Can you visualize a 2010 Rampage built on the caliber platform, getting 30-35 mpg and how much that would help Chryco beat cafe?

p.s. They need to get the Dakota back down to the size of the original-and cut the price.

 

The power of the food chain explains it all

Tacoma>Dakota

then there's that marketing problem

 

The JT is a no-brainer. And a dodge version using Nitro sheetmetal would be real similar to that M-80. Offer the v-6, a turbodiesel and the flex fuel 4.7 and you'd have it nailed down.

And someone mentioned a rampage revival. Id like to see that myself, those were pretty neat little cars. The caliber's sheetmetal would play to that REAL well and it already has the awd option which would likely be a necessary option. That toyota thing was cool but a caliber based version would be even better. Think how cool an SRT-4 version would be!