The Dodge 400 is a 2-door coupe / 2-door convertible (car) / convertible / 4-door sedan (car) / sedan from Dodge, built from 1981 to 1983, in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management. Under the bonnet: 2.2 L K I4.
How it came about
The Dodge 400 is a mid-size car that was sold by Dodge for the 1982 and 1983 model years. The Dodge counterpart of the Chrysler LeBaron, the 400 bridged the gap between the Dodge Aries and the larger Dodge 600. Marketed as a personal luxury vehicle, the 400 was sold as a two-door coupe and convertible and a four-door sedan.
Alongside its Chrysler counterpart, the model line marked the return of American-brand convertibles to mass production. Sharing the Chrysler K platform with the Dodge Aries, the 400 was known both internally and externally as a "Super K" car, developed as premium-content variants. For its production, Chrysler assembled the Dodge 400 alongside the Chrysler LeBaron, Dodge Aries, and Plymouth Reliant at its Saint Louis Assembly facility (Fenton, Missouri). One of the shortest-lived model lines ever produced by Chrysler, the Dodge 400 was discontinued for 1984 with its coupe and convertible variants becoming part of the Dodge 600 line.
The hardware
Power comes from 2.2 L K I4; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 2465 -. It shifts through a 4-speed Manual transmission / manual / 5-speed manual / 3-speed Chrysler A-404 transmission#A-413 / A413 automatic transmission / automatic / 3-speed Chrysler A-404 transmission#A4. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 100.3 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Dodge Diplomat; its successor was the Coupe, convertible: Dodge 600; assembly was at Fenton, Missouri (Saint Louis Assembly), United States. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Mitsubishi Pajero, the DeLorean Motor Company DeLorean DMC-12, the Porsche 944 — show what else the money bought that year. Its Dodge stablemates include the Dodge 1500 and the 1955 Dodge.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Dodge 400 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.