The ‘California’ Shelby Rampage Is The Extremely Rare Dodge Street-Pickup You Never Knew Existed: Holy Grails

In the 1980s, Mopar fans had plenty of Shelby-branded performance models to gorge themselves on. You probably already know about the Dodge Shelby Charger, and the Dodge Omni GLH is a fabled little car. It didn’t end there, as the Shelby name ended up slapped on the Dodge Daytona, the Lancer, and even the Shadow. Truck fans may point out that Shelby graced the Dakota and an experimental Ram pickup, but there’s one more Shelby-branded product out there that you may have never heard of. The Dodge California Shelby Rampage is a little pickup that’s so rare, information about it almost doesn’t exist. However, around 250 of them were sold by Dodge dealers in California and they’re the closest thing you’ll get to a Shelby ute.

This story takes us back to the early 1980s. It’s the end of the Malaise Era and cars are recovering from a dark period of emissions-choked power, oil crisis worries, and abysmal quality. The Mustang is making respectable power again and soon, Japan would crank out cars the enthusiasts of today fawn over. Sadly, bringing power back into the equation could not save the American coupé utility (or “ute” as they call them in Australia). The Ford Ranchero died in 1979, and the dealership special Ford Durango lasted just a couple of years longer. Subaru brought in its BRAT and Volkswagen tossed in the Rabbit Pickup. General Motors also gave the El Camino another generation.

Over at Chrysler, 1982 kicked off the Dodge Rampage, an L-platform front-wheel-drive car-based truck. A year later, it would be joined by a badge mate in the Plymouth Scamp. These cute utes would be built until just 1984 before the program was ended. For a couple of hundred people in California, the Rampage went out with a rare special edition, and it started with Shelby’s own idea for a sport truck:

The single-year 1984 Dodge California Shelby Rampage is a little truck with some extra street cred, but it barely existed, to the point where you’ll find practically no information on it.

Starting A Rampage

Chrysler was a late entry into the American coupé utility. In December 1956, Ford launched the Ranchero, sparking a new truck segment in America. The coupé utility was not a new concept and the Ranchero wasn’t the first, but the Ranchero helped popularize the type of truck for Americans. Chevrolet entered its El Camino into the car-based truck space in 1959. While Ford was the first out of the gate for mid-century American coupé utilities, the Chevy proved to be more popular.

You’d think, then, that Chrysler would be quick to toss its own hat into the ring. That didn’t happen, at least, not in America. Over in Australia, the coupé utility concept had taken its own path. In 1934, Ford Australia answered the calls of farmers who wanted a vehicle for both work and for going to town. Ford Geelong plant engineer Lewis Bandt created a two-door body with a tray in the back that rode on a Ford Model A chassis. The Model 40 was born. Some argue that this wasn’t the true first-ever ute and that technically, the concept goes as far back as 1903. Either way, the ute really took off in Australia in the 1930s, and companies and coachbuilders both large and small were happy to sell you one.

By 1935, you could buy a ute with Dodge, Fargo, or Plymouth chassis. This would kick off the production of a variety of Chrysler and Chrysler-brand utes for decades. It’s incredible to look at the coupé utilities sold in Australia because if it weren’t for the steering wheel on the right side, so many of them could have passed for what we now consider to be American classics today.

However, those sweet rides never made it over to our shores. That changed when small Japanese pickup trucks and Volkswagen’s Rabbit Pickup began landing on American shores. As Popular Mechanics wrote in 1981, Chrysler decided to compete with these trucks by making a coupé utility for America.

To achieve this goal, Chrysler decided to raid the front-wheel-drive L platform’s parts bin. You may better know the Rampage’s platform mates, the Dodge Omni and the Plymouth Horizon. The Rampage borrows its unibody and front end from the Omni 024 coupe, a vehicle that we would later be renamed the Charger. The Rampage steals the front end of the 024, but becomes a truck from behind the cab and back. The 024 also gave up its struts up front, but the Rampage got unique leaf springs in the rear.

Power came from a 2.2-liter carbureted inline-four rated for 84 HP to 99 HP depending on model year. Despite the meager horsepower, Popular Mechanics sang high praises in its review:

The Rampage really belongs in a sports car teat since it’s more fun to drive than just about any two-seater you can buy for under $20,000— its performance will simply blow you away. If you need a truck for driving rather than hauling, this is the one.

The 2,2-1iter* front- wheel -drive Rampage is by far the fastest of this group in the quarter~mile* not to mention faster than most two-liter GTs. It has the second-best brakes and, at least when shod with sticky Firestone HPRs. will daw its way around a skid pad and through a slalom course as fast as any vehicle you care to name, Porsches and Ferraris included. Lining it up against these mini-pickups was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Popular Mechanics notes that part of the reason behind the truck’s great performance was its Omni 024/Charger bones, but also the fact that to accommodate a 5.5-foot bed, the Rampage got a wheelbase 7.6 inches longer than the donor vehicle. Dodge also didn’t half-bake the little truck, either. It has a double-wall steel bed and a true half-ton truck payload rating of 1,145 pounds. Popular Mechanics concluded that you really wouldn’t buy a Rampage for heavy-duty truck work. You couldn’t even fit a motorcycle in its bed. But what you could do is put some lumber in the back and race home while making sports car owners sweat. Or, at least, that’s how Popular Mechanics saw it.

Sadly, good handling, a svelte 2,293-pound curb weight, and good looks didn’t bring people into showrooms. Just 17,636 examples went home in 1982, with 8,033 leaving dealerships the year after. Sales perked up to just 11,732 in the final year of 1984. For just a single year, the Rampage got a sibling in the form of the Plymouth Scamp. Just 3,564 of those were sold in total. For most people, the Plymouth utes seem like the rarest of the bunch.

After 1984, these cars were taken off of the market, but not before a special edition was made.

The Grail

In 1983, Carroll Shelby reportedly got an idea to build a slick street version of the Rampage. Information about this build is few and far in-between, and the folks of Allpar have done a lot of sleuthing on the Dodge California Shelby Rampage. I’ve been able to back Allpar‘s story up with findings of my own.

Allpar cites Carroll Shelby from a 1983 issue of Car Exchange as saying: “We are going to do a Rampage or a Shelby Street-Fighter version of the Rampage. That is the first thing we are going to do.”

Sometime that year, a Rampage was spotted at the Shelby “Skunkworks” facility in California. This “Parts Chaser,” as it was reportedly called by Shelby employees, was a Rampage with some of the decal kit and body kit of the Shelby Charger. In February, attendees of the Chicago Auto Show would see something epic. Located in a display of trucks was the “Shelby Street Fighter Rampage Pickup.” It was accompanied by a press release:

Shelby Street Fighter Rampage Pickup is based on the new 1983 Rampage 2.2 pickup. This concept vehicle features air dam, ground effect skirts, spoiler, and unique paint and tape treatment. A special four-color version of the Dodge Truck’s Ram’s head logo dominates the hood scoop. The design concept is an adaptation of the 1983½ Dodge Shelby Charger, a new sports car inspired by world-famed sports car driver, designer and builder Carroll Shelby.

The Street Fighter Rampage featured a new front end featuring aluminum panels, pop-up headlights, and ground effects treatments. Apparently, the concept truck was a joint effort between a California design firm and Shelby Automobiles. According to an article by Popular Mechanics in 1983, the concept truck was powered by a turbocharged 2.2-liter that would later find a home in the Dodge Daytona. The truck would never go into production. Instead, it would end up sold to a designer. Later, it would end up in a junkyard.

This didn’t dissuade Dodge’s marketing and product planning departments. As shown in archived documents, these departments wanted to drum up interest in both the Rampage and the Direct Connection parts catalog while creating “buff book” material by launching a special edition Rampage.

These California Shelby Rampage trucks, which were called the Direct Connection Rampage by Dodge, would be built in Belvidere, Illinois with other Rampages, shipped to Santa Fe, and fitted with a mix of Direct Connection and Shelby parts. It was made for the Rampage’s closing year, 1984, and just for California dealerships. The documents from Dodge claim that 250 were ordered. This is the car that contributor Mark Tucker says is the Holy Grail of the Rampage and Scamp. He dropped a picture into our Discord and essentially challenged me to find anything on it. Challenge accepted!

The California Shelby Rampage starts with a body kit and stripes, which help give the vehicle a nod to the Shelby Charger. Under the hood is the 99 HP 2.2-liter four. No turbo is present like there was on the Street Fighter concept, but there is a performance exhaust. So, actual output is probably a few ticks over stock.

Inside, you sat in the base model Rampage’s seats, but otherwise were given high options as standard, including quick-ratio power steering, air-conditioning, Shelby-branded pedals, an armrest, a center console, and more. In other words, the California Shelby Rampage looked like a Shelby Charger but was for the most part a high-spec Rampage with a manual transaxle and a bunch of parts from the Direct Connection catalog. Some of these have Shelby-branded seats and it’s unclear if those were an option or aftermarket.

The California Shelby Rampage was sold just through dealerships in California, so if you lived even just across the border in another state, chances are you had no idea they even existed. Once again, the California Shelby Rampage is another example of a rare, possibly best version of a neat vehicle, but that doesn’t translate to value. I’ve found zero of these for sale, but I have found archived ads with asking prices as low as $750. So, this is a Grail almost anyone can afford.

By the close of the 1980s, the traditional coupe utility met its end in America. The car-based pickup was part of American car culture for decades. Now, some examples of these trucks are becoming forgotten history. Even modern car-based trucks aren’t like how old utes like the Rampage and El Camino were. There’s barely anything out there about the California Shelby Dakota. Some publications even doubt if the concept Shelby Street Fighter truck even existed. That’s a sad end to what sounded like a fun little ute. If you own one of these, how is it? What’s it like owning a truck nobody knows exists?

Do you know of or own a car, bus, motorcycle, or something else worthy of being called a ‘holy grail’? Send me an email at mercedes@theautopian.com or drop it down in the comments!

(Top Photo: Shelby American)