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Carroll Shelby's name is stitched into Cobras and Mustangs, so it's easy to forget that in the 1980s he spent years turning Dodge's front-wheel-drive economy cars into tire-smoking little weapons. The 1987 Shelby Lancer is the one that slipped through the cracks, and a 1,100-mile example is live on Bring a Trailer with a bid of $5,200. The auction ends Tuesday, November 3, at 1:47 p.m. Eastern.
What a Shelby Lancer Actually Was
The Dodge Lancer was Chrysler's roomy front-drive hatchback sedan, a sibling to the LeBaron GTS. For 1987, Shelby Automobiles took 800 of them into its Whittier, California, facility and sent them back out in one color only: Graphic Red. Per the Shelby Lancer's production history, 400 got the three-speed TorqueFlite automatic with leather, and the other 400 got a five-speed manual with cloth.
Under the hood sat the intercooled 2.2-liter Turbo II four, rated at 175 horsepower and 175 lb-ft of torque. Shelby added a sport-tuned suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, a front air dam, body-color ground effects and 15-inch basketweave wheels. Period figures put 0-60 mph at roughly 7.2 to 8.0 seconds, and the car's advertised skidpad number of 0.85 g was reportedly better than a Porsche 928's.
It was the latest chapter in a partnership that gave us the cars in our look at the Shelby Charger and Omni GLH, sold under the line "powered by Dodge, unleashed by Shelby." If you want Shelby's wider catalog, there is also our story on the restoration of his De Tomaso Pantera.
Why Nobody Remembers It
There were only 800 of the Shelby-built cars. For 1988 and 1989, Chrysler took over with the Dodge Lancer Shelby, built at Sterling Heights alongside regular Lancers. Those cars were unnumbered, skipped some Shelby-specific parts, and totaled just 487 (279 in 1988 and 208 in 1989). The Lancer itself was gone after 1989.
The deck was stacked against it. Enthusiasts picture a Shelby as a V8 rear-drive car, and a turbo hatchback sedan doesn't fit that picture. The smaller Omni GLH-S and Shadow CSX got the attention, and the name is easy to confuse with the unrelated Mitsubishi Lancer. Add a few hundred sales over three years and the car mostly vanished from memory.
The Car in the Listing
This one wears plaque number 590 on the passenger-side dash and shows just 1,100 miles. It's finished in Graphic Red over gray leather and uses the optional automatic, and the steering wheel carries a Carroll Shelby signature. The window sticker lists a total of $18,660 and shows delivery to Gesswein Motors in Milbank, South Dakota. The sale also includes a Certificate of Origin, 1988-dated documentation, manufacturer's literature and a clean Carfax report. The car is offered on dealer consignment from SullivanAutoHouse in Wichita, Kansas, and the title is Kansas, branded "Antique."
The seller says the original owner's father bought the Lancer new and traded in a 1960s Shelby Mustang to do it, which makes a great footnote to the whole story. The listing is upfront about flaws: cracks in the paint on the hood, splitting weatherstripping on the rear quarter windows, and a Pioneer head unit that works intermittently.
Why It's Worth Watching
This is a bargain-bin Shelby with a lot of story. Recent 1987 Shelby Lancer results on BaT have ranged from $3,500 to $10,000, so a 1,100-mile car with its paperwork could be interesting to see finish. It's also a good reminder of how many oddball Chrysler products from this era have faded away, like the AMG-powered Crossfire SRT-6 we flagged earlier.
You can see the photos, the bid history and the comments in the original Bring a Trailer listing. The auction ends Tuesday, November 3.
