Here's to the story of a very unique Dodge product of the 80's.
The fourth member of my LeBaron (and now 600) collection is a 1986 Dodge 600 ES Turbo convertible, and like the other members of my collection, he has a name.
I'm calling him "Dextin Rush" (or "Dex" for short), which contains all of the letters from "Six Hundred", with the exception of a "T" instead of the second "D".
He is one of only 4,759 600 ES Turbo convertibles produced in 86, and he is in great shape.
His story begins in the United States.
The original owner bought this car from a little old lady. She and her husband bought it while living in Kansas City, Kansas. They bought it new from the Dodge dealership. The car was a special order and the owner of the dealership liked it so much he insisted on driving it as a demonstrator. The original owner spied it on the lot and inquired about it. The dealer/owner said it was his wife’s car and did not have a title. They made the deal and it was purchased with a little over 2000 miles on September 16th 1986 for $15,385.50. They had installed on September 24th 1986 factory mud flaps and a factory luggage rack. That was customized as you weren’t supposed to have a luggage rack installed with the high mounted center brake light. The couple moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1989 so the car saw good weather and still no rain or snow. From there they moved to Greenville, Kentucky in 1996 where the car continued to stay garaged as always, and driven only in the warm and dry days of the spring and summer. The husband passed away in the early 2000's and she kept it and drove it very little until the second owner purchased it in 2005. During the second owner’s visit with her when he picked up the car, she said her husband babied the car so much it drove her crazy. The car is in near mint shape interior and body wise. The interior is a strong 8 of 10. The seats have some cracks on the leather, but no holes or tears except for one on the drivers right bottom bolster. The rear seat has faded a little at the top edge, not significant, but there. The carpets and original floor mats are in real good shape, but could use a good detailing. However they have no wear, rips or holes. The dash and door panels are real nice with no fading or cracks of any kind.
The exterior is all original and the paint is very glossy. Even so, it does have some small nicks and parking lot dings scattered throughout, but the car is still a strong 7 of 10 on outside appearance. It has the special order black paint with gold pin striping and special order gold alloy wheels with chrome dish lip. It’s a very sharp colour combination.
The tan convertible top is a 9 out of 10. It’s original, has a real glass rear window, and is full power. It works flawlessly and still has the factory tonneau cover. All of the seals and trim are nice and pliable with no dryness or pre-mature wear.
I can't describe the "rush" I get driving Dex. He feels like an 80's Daytona in a LeBaron convertible skin, to be honest. And unless I'm mistaken, this car was the last sport convertible that Dodge ever branded, although the Shadow had nice lines in the early 90's.
The rims are what sold me however. I've seen 600's all over E-bay and many other places, and I have yet to see another one with those special edition Daytona C/S rims. I actually found another 600 identical to this one on E-bay... same year, outside colour, inside colour, options, you name it, everything was exactly the same... except for the rims. For this car to roll off the assembly line with those rims must have been a VERY rare occurence. Put it this way... before I found this car, I didn't even know that a person could order those rims on a 600.
I'll finish and tweek this write-up very soon... and add more pics too!!
Here's two pictures that I took with both ES's together... the 600 and the Caravan.

UPDATE: Here's Dex in his first car show held on July 24th.