Dodge Stealth

The story

The Stealth was what happened when Chrysler and Mitsubishi shared a single, very ambitious car. Mitsubishi supplied the chassis, the 3.0-liter V6 and, in the top R/T Turbo, the twin turbochargers, all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering. Chrysler drew its own face with a cross-hair grille and fixed headlamps, reshaped the pillars and quarter windows, added a crescent-shaped spoiler and left the Mitsubishi's moving aerodynamics out entirely. The result looked like an American muscle coupe that had spent a semester abroad, and Car and Driver, flinging an R/T Turbo around Chrysler's own track, found it leaping between bends with startling force.

Its brush with fame came in 1991. A Stealth was lined up to pace the Indianapolis 500 until the United Auto Workers objected to a Japanese-built car leading the field, and a Viper prototype took the job; Dodge sold pace-car replica Stealths anyway. The Stealth ran 6 model years and 65,303 cars for the US and Canada before bowing out after 1996, 3 seasons ahead of its Mitsubishi twin. Today it is the sibling fewer people recognize, carrying the same remarkable hardware underneath.