The Dakota is available in either Standard Cab or Club Cab, in 2- or 4-wheel drive. Either short (6.5 ft.) or long (8 ft.) cargo beds are available. The Dakota Sport model we drove was the Standard Cab with the short bed.
This combination provides enough room for driver and passengers, but there isn?t much leftover space with the seat extended to the end of its travel. Only the tiniest of drivers will have any storage room behind the seat of a Standard Cab.
Beyond that, the Dakota?s interior is rather standard fare. The basic driving controls are easy enough to find, but this somewhat dated design isn?t setting any new ergonomic standards. Instruments and materials are average. Chrysler could take a few lessons from Toyota on this score.
However, here, as elsewhere, Chrysler continues to take a leadership role in passive safety. This is one of the very few pickups that includes a driver?s airbag.
The seats are softish and a bench means three people could squeeze in, assuming the middle person is willing to share legroom with the gear-shift lever on a manual.
On the road, our Dakota made it abundantly clear that it is not trying to be a car. The steering has a trucklike, loose, vague feeling when the Dakota is pointed straight down the highway, and it doesn?t track back to on-center after the driver has made a minor maneuver.
Part of this is due to excessive assist in the power steering, part of it is due to suspension geometry. Excess power assist, which tends to diminish steering feel, is common to a good many trucks and sport/utility vehicles.
The good news in this connection is that the Dakota is easy to manage at low speeds in other words, it can be maneuvered around parking lots without feeling like a Nautilus machine on wheels. The bad news is the disconnected feeling may make some drivers slightly uneasy. But this is a sensation that quickly fades once you?ve put a few miles behind you.
The Dakota is fairly tall and so there is a substantial amount of body lean even in modestly hard cornering. There is also a slight choppiness to the ride, and on an uneven surface the upward body motions become extravagant, requiring several bouncy cycles before it settles down.
Another of the Dakota?s dynamic traits is a lightness to the tail under moderately hard cornering, particularly when the cargo bed is empty and the road surface is slippery. The driver gets the sense that the truck doesn?t really care too much about which end goes through the corner first, front or rear.
This isn?t surprising, because as with other pickups there is hardly any weight in the back, which means no weight on the rear wheels, which in turn means reduced traction. This heavy forward weight bias when there?s no load is one of the basic pickup truck compromises.
Even so, we think the Dakota?s suspension could use some updating. Even if you accept the Dakota?s truckish ride, it takes a backseat to some of the more contemporary trucks when it comes to handling.
On the other had, the Dakota does have one chassis option 4-wheel anti-lock brakes (ABS) that a good many pickups still lack. Most are still equipped with systems that work on the rear wheels only because the forward weight bias of an unloaded pickup could easily result in rear-wheel lockup.
ABS on all four wheels makes emergency stops much easier and safer because the system not only tries to keep the back of the truck in the back, but the driver maintains control of the steering as well. A system in which ABS does not work on the front wheels could mean a loss of steering if the front wheels lock up. Not good.
We were also impressed with the performance of the Dakota?s V8 engine. Acceleration was fairly brisk. Dakota V8 owners should have no trouble merging with interstate traffic or making a pass on a two-lane road.
More important, the low-rpm power and all-around flexibility of the V8 make it well suited to towing and other heavy chores.