This is all about my 1980 Dodge D-50 named Geronimo. I bought him on August 2, 1980 as a protest to American made Mopar vehicles as well as needing a truck for the line of work I was doing. I traded in a 1979 SuperBowl edition Plymonth Volare Duster that was cursed; a stack of repairs under warranty that was 1/2" thick dealing with nearly every part of the vehicle multiple times. The tranny had failed for the 4th time in 18,000 miles and the dealer nor Chrysler would fix it under warranty, because it was out of the 12 / 12 warranty, despite it failing 3 previous times and assurance from the dealer that if it failed again it would be fixed under warranty. My Dad and I doctored the tranny, and I traded the turd in; it was my first new car and had paid it off in 3 months, but got rid of it in 11 months because I was fed up with the thing. This is where the sig line "The best Dodge that Dodge never made" came from. Here is a picture of Geronimo when he was only a few months old at a campground in Mercer, PA:
His name came from the combination of his colorful factory paint and the way that everyone wanted to race him at every stoplight. Geronimo the Indian chief, was a great warrior; Geronimo the D-50 was an urban street warrior. Most cars at that time ran poorly due to the pollution equipment thrown at them at the factory, but the 2.6 MCA-Jet engine with swirl-port technology (the first production engine to use swirl port) would make short order of most of the usual challangers. As time progressed, I started to modify him to my liking; a Weber carb was installed to replace the Mikuni stock carb that was leaking fuel down the throat and had a bad choke that could not be replaced; a Cyclone anti-reversionary header and 2 1/4 exhaust to make him breathe better, and a new set of high performance shocks for improved handling and ride. At this point in time, he was my daily driver / work vehicle. The first week I owned him, I put over 1,000 miles on him; in 3 years, the odometer read 70k.
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