Anyone have an answer for this?!

[G-man]

Has anyone else contacted the major MOPAR magazines about doing articles on the Chrysler FWD performance models from 1984-1993?

If you didn't know it, you'd be lead to believe that Chrysler only made RWD, fuel guzzling V8's and V10's. This does no justice to the younger generation who might never find out about these cars at the newstands or libraries!

By the way, I've contacted MOPAR COLLECTOR's GUIDE several times. I e-mailed them and left voice mails with the editor. Guess what? No response. Last message: "You guys take advertising for 2.2 liter turbo stuff in the classifieds, yet run no stories regarding them. How fair is that? I've got a bunch of turbo cars I purchased new and kept. In fact, built a house and shrine around them. Come and do a story on them so others can learn about these things. It's like Stephen Juliano but with 1980's and 1990's turbo stuff!"

I went on to say the MOPAR world is not just decade old, ill braking, ill handing, gas guzzling Roadrunners, 'Cuda's, Super Bees, Superbirds and the like. HMMMM. They never, ever return my calls or mailings. Anyone else get the same thing?


It's obvious if they visited sites like this there IS a loyal following. In fact once someone posts a new project it reaches fever pitch. Many like to toss in their opinions or help. Do they actually think Carroll Shelby only worked at Ford Motor Company? I don't have any "Rodney Dangerfield" limited editions!

Every Mopar magazine looks and reads the same. Really tired of the FWD stuff getting no respect. Even though in most EVERY case they were faster, handled better, looked just as good, and many times were just as rare. I mean what's it gonna take to get coverage. They don't even take pictures of them at the major meets to put in for magazine coverage. Ugh.

I appreciate your kind words regarding my collection and efforts to keep these cars preserved.

I encourage all of you to get hold of the magazines. Just doesn't seem right they ignore these cars. BTW, when someone contacted a magazine devoted to Mustangs about my collection, my phone rang off the hook trying to do a story. Trust me, the Chryslers are just important to me and you. Keep hounding them, perhaps we'll get results. Man doesn't live by old technology RWD fuel pigs!

Regards, Gerry

Caretaker of:

'84 Mustang SVO, bought new, 8162 miles
'84 Mustang SVO, Detroit Grand Prix Pace car, 9975 miles
'85.5 Mustang SVO, Comp Prep model, 1 of 11, 548 miles
'86 Mustang SVO, last one buiult, unprepped, 3 miles
'95 Mustang Cobra R, bought new, unprepped, 5 miles
'99 Saleen Mustang, S-351, last one built, speedster, 7900 miles
'00 Saleen Mustang, Speedlab yellow S-281 S/C speedster, one of one
'03 Saleen Mustang, S281 Extreme, Lizstick red, one of one, last '03 built
'03 Mustang Mach 1, Azure blue, bought new, 30 miles
'87 Porsche 944 Turbo, red, 18,000 miles
'01 Porsche 911 Carrera 4, one of one, paint to sample, interior to sample, aerokit, GT package
'87 Charger GLH-S, bought new, 5210 miles
'87 Shadow CSX, bought new, 8300 miles
'87 Shelby Lancer, leather/automatic
'89 Shadow CSX-VNT, bought new, both options, 774 miles
'90 Shelby Daytona VNT, white with louvers and bordeuax cloth
'92 Daytona Shelby?IROC, 2.5 turbo, stick, sunroof, executice car
'93 Daytona IROC/RT, Emerald green, last G-body made, nine miles, bought new, unprepped

Dailr driver? '03 Ford SVT Focus

'93 Daytona IROC

[168glhs1986]

Hey Gerry, good for you. Keep up the respect fight. I don't think it will ever change but can't hurt to try.

Have you added more cars to your collection in the last few years?

Could I come visit and take a tour someday? It would be my honor.

LMK.

[Tbird232ci]

I'd love to gawk over the SVO's.

[BoostedDrummer]

The last time I've ever read a full article on one of our cars was James Reeves' Omni in Modified Magazine. Other than that, it's only been in magazines like Shelby around the time he passed away.

[Pat]

Grassroots Motorsports has shown the turbo mopar world some love. Many times.

[moparman76_69]

The last time I've ever read a full article on one of our cars was James Reeves' Omni in Modified Magazine. Other than that, it's only been in magazines like Shelby around the time he passed away.

That article was in "street & tuner milestones" which was a auto trader publication.

Grassroots Motorsports has shown the turbo mopar world some love. Many times.

Yeah, but the coverage is just you winning....

[Lotashelbys]

I feel for you Gerry. The last few times I was at Carlisle we had 3 of the 8 Blue Iroc R/Ts there. I tried very hard to get a magazine to photograph us or even mention us. I tried telling them how we had some of the rarest cars there and they didnt care. If you ever get anywhere and they do an Iroc R/T article I would love to help out with it at anyway I could.

P.S. I would love to see some more pics of your green one or any cool info you have for it. There are still some pics of it on the R/T site but more would be better! Have a good one!

[tommyturbo]

I share your frustration Gerry, and it's not just magazines, Chrysler them selves seems to not really acknowledge the FWD era too much. If you go to a big auto show like the LA or North American, etc in the past Chrysler will have a wall with each decade. It is filled with pics and info in every one but the 80's. Even the Chrysler museum was not too informative of the Shelby an turbo years.

But That doesn't stop me from loving my cars, and every so often a person will surprise me and come up and talk to me about my cars. One day it was a guy who works at my local grocery, was all excited pointing out my 89 GTC conv to younger employee. We talked about turbo mopars for a few minutes. Just yesterday neighbor kid, who seems to be into BMW's came by and talked to me about my Shelby Z, said he thought it was cool and did some research online about them. He was also into my SHO.

Like you I love the Fords of the same era. Have a few SHO's, and a Super Coupe to go with my turbo mopars. Would love to ride in a SVO sometime.

[contraption22]

When you have to explain to an editor why a car is special, it's a tough sell to them, and to their readers. Pat Culkin, James Reeves and others go out and demand attention by putting their cars in situations where they cannot be ignored. They go out and kick ---.

Typical Classic Mopar owners are only concerned with production numbers, date codes and option codes. If not that, then it better have appeared in some sort of movie or tv series to be special.

Our cars are not particularly thrilling for the general populous to see sitting on a show field. They only shine when in motion.

Want attention, go out and win some races. Then they can't ignore you.

"When you got 'em by the bawls, their hearts and minds will follow." -unknown

[83scamp]

When you have to explain to an editor why a car is special, it's a tough sell to them, and to their readers. Pat Culkin, James Reeves and others go out and demand attention by putting their cars in situations where they cannot be ignored. They go out and kick ---.

Typical Classic Mopar owners are only concerned with production numbers, date codes and option codes. If not that, then it better have appeared in some sort of movie or tv series to be special.

Our cars are not particularly thrilling for the general populous to see sitting on a show field. They only shine when in motion.

Want attention, go out and win some races. Then they can't ignore you.

"When you got 'em by the bawls, their hearts and minds will follow." -unknown

You hit that one right on the head. The whole "K car" era gets no respect. Most people don't "get it" when it comes to our cars. As much as I would love for our vehicles to be more popular, maybe it's OK they aren't. After all, we've all seen what muscle car prices have done in the last 10 years. I like being able to buy these cars cheap. Finding parts can be frustrating, but that is the case with a lot of vehicles.

I like being able to go to a show, and I'm the only one there with this vehicle. I mean, you can go to any car show and find a dozen Mustangs, or Camaros, or Novas. I went to Mopars at the Red Barns last July , and there was one Scamp pickup there... and I was floored to see it! Lots of Calibers & Neons, but there were 3 L-body pickups, one K car, and one Daytona. That was it, and this was at a show with at least 300 cars!!!

You won't see any of the main Mopar magazines running articles on our cars. I used to subscribe to Mopar Muscle, and sent in letters a couple of times defending our vehicles, but it never got anywhere. One guy even sent in a picture of his Daytona for the readers rides section. He caught some crap for it, and I sent in a note thanking him for his sweet ride.

We do what we can, enjoy our rides, and to h#ll with everybody else!!!

[2.216VTurbo]

For me personally, the way my cars(our cars) are different and 'underappreciated' adds to their appeal for me. Kind of like the saying,if I have to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand it anyway...

[banger68]

There have been several articles in High Performance Mopar and Mopar Muscle, but some time ago. There are scans of some on the OSDAC website.

[francois]

It reminds me of a Mopar show that we went the past summer.

We were 6 TD cars (3x GLHT, 1x '86 GLHS, 1x '87 GLHS and one '90 Shelby Daytona)
We all came in at once. The first two cars found a spot around others already parked and the organiser started to made them move toward the fartest in the parking lot so we did follow the first two.

Once parked, I can tell you that we did gather a lot of attention and I would bet that we did gather the most attention at the show then all the rest of what is considered MOPAR car.
People, young and old, woman or man were asking questions, taking pictures, etc. Some never knew turbo were available in an Omni...

I love Dodge cars. I love Muscle cars of any type. Don`t get me wrong. But when they (owners) considered their Challenger (The new gen) a Mopar and our FWD don't belong with them, it makes me mad.
We probably have the last fun cars that Chrysler did produce which was closely related to the 60-70's era.
The new Challenger, is mostly an old E-serie 'Benz. Dodge badged but that's about it.
Newer one are Fiat derived or influenced.
Not saying it`s bad...just that when THEY say they have a REAL MOPAR when MOPAR was making cars, I could say the same of mine.

At least 11 new Challenger were at that show!

Chrysler always had to prove the world that they could build good cars. How come we have to prove to ourself that we have a Mopar car?
Oh well!

[ajakeski]

Mopar car magazines are geared more toward guys with cars.
Not car guys.

[Vigo]

Yeah, but the coverage is just you winning....

GRM has given coverage to a bunch of turbo mopars over the years. As far as i know there's been at least 1 turbo mopar at every GRM challenge since they started it and every entrant gets a little bit of a mag blurb.

[jonnyb]

Gerry - try Hemmings. They have featured a lot of our cars and the writers seem pretty enthusiastic about them (I had one of my GLHS's in there back in 2009 - google "Cageless Shelby" if you want to see the article).

A lot of us New England/New York guys have been approached by them at Lebanon Valley Raceway in New York. We used to have an annual fwd bracket race there on the day before Mopars at the Valley, and Hemmings usually had a writer or two there who came early for the Sunday Mopar race/show. I sure wish we had been able to make that event take off, as I know it would have lead to many more of our cars being shown in that magazine. Unfortunately, due to lack of participation, we stopped doing that event 3 or 4 years ago.

Jon

[glhs571]

Well maybe the reason Mopar Muscle won't cover any of cars is just that, they cover muscle. But hey this should be someone's call to create a magazine for the rest of us...call it "Fast Four's" or something and it would cover any platform FWD, RWD or AWD so long as it's a turbo charged four cylinder.

[Reaper1]

Gerry, it is very unfortunate that the MOPAR magazines don't want to cover our cars. Hell, even "MOPAR" guys such as Don Garlits don't care! I was standing next to the man when he was basically BEGGED to do a short blurb on our cars, which he did reluctantly and even then he knew NOTHING about them! Everything he said about the cars on that show he was told by the owners of the cars and he even got stuff VERY wrong!

The technical editor of most of the MOPAR magazines, Richard Ehrenburg (not Jr.) is a complete @ss when it comes to our cars. I had a very heated email exchange with him back in 1999/2000 or so about our cars.

Turbo Magazine did an article on an IROC R/T back in around 1997/98 (I have that magazine in storage somewhere). Of course that magazine is defunct as far as I know.

As already stated Grassroots Motorsports is our biggest supporter and voice to the rest of the world. The reason is that the magazine is owned and written BY car guys FOR car guys! I've personally met most of the editors, the owner, and a couple of the photographers. Hell, I've used their corner weight scales! Not only do they know about or cars, they are fans and they've owned them! GRM is my absolute favorite magazine! If you want a full article done on your IROC R/T or even your whole collection, these are the guys to call! I seem to remember them actually mentioning your collection at some point I think.

I'm not holding my breath for any of the major mainstream MOPAR magazines to really ever do any kind of real article on our cars. They simply don't care. Their loss....

[moparman76_69]

GRM has given coverage to a bunch of turbo mopars over the years. As far as i know there's been at least 1 turbo mopar at every GRM challenge since they started it and every entrant gets a little bit of a mag blurb.

I know, I have a copy from 2003 with a full article about these cars. I'm just giving Pat some grief.

[2.216VTurbo]

Lets not forget March '97 issue of Sport Compact Car, they gave three pages of sweet loving to an 87 Red GLHS