1988 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z review from North America

This Daytona Shelby Z was purchased by me from a local salvage yard. Everything was wrong with it, It was an absolute mess. That's to be expected from 151K hard driven miles, and a stint in the junk yard. The car is currently undergoing a full restoration, and is completely disassembled. I am rebuilding everything to new specifications. I am rebuilding / upgrading a 2.2 Turbo II from a donor car to 20 PSI boost and 300HP status just for good measure. The good thing is I found no rust holes anywhere on the body, even the floors were solid.

I owned a Daytona Shelby Z that I bought brand new back in 1988. I really loved it, However I had to sell it in 1992. This one is its replacement. I loved the first one and will never sell this one.

The Daytona Shelby Z with the inter cooled turbo ll and 5 speed is pretty darn fast. Even with a stock unmodified Turbo II it surprises many V8 cars at the stoplights.

The interior and enthusiast bucket seat for the driver make it possible for you to taylor fit the seat just the way you like it.

Good thing is there were a lot of base model daytonas made, and many of the parts interchange, like glass, interior trims and sheet metal parts.

Plastic interior trim pieces are cheesy and break easily, especially the hatch area plastic panels. Good thing theres many base model donor cars to get trim pieces off of.

Shelby Z specific parts can be expensive and hard to find new. You may want to hit the salvage yards and pack rat spare parts for one of these cars if you decide to buy one.

There is a small aftermarket for these cars since it is a niche market vehicle. Most of these places that cater to these turbo mopars can be found on the net.

There are many clubs around the country dedicated to turbo Mopars, including the Daytona Shelby Z.

The interior of the 1988 Shelby Z is very well laid out, and very comfortable. It looks as modern to Me today as it did back in 1988.

The rear seats however are only usable for small children, and the rear cargo plastics creak and squeak. I plan on fixing this by using foam backed tape at all the overlapping plastic panels in the hatch area to quiet this problem down.

I have no intentions of ever selling this car.