Raider

This nameplate appeared in the U.S. market for the 1987 model year as Dodge’s rebadged version of Mitsubishi’s first-generation compact SUV, giving the brand a small, truck-like 4x4 just as sport-utility vehicles were beginning to expand beyond traditional full-size utility rigs. It shared its basic underpinnings with the Mitsubishi Montero/Pajero family, but wore Dodge badges and trim, making it a classic captive-import era vehicle. Contemporary coverage from the period describes it as the Montero’s twin and places it squarely in the late-1980s wave of Japanese-built SUVs sold through American domestic nameplates. The model was offered only briefly, with documented U.S. model years from 1987 through 1989, and it disappeared after that short run rather than evolving into a longer Dodge SUV lineage. Today it is remembered as an uncommon and somewhat quirky chapter in Dodge history: a rugged off-roader imported for a few seasons, closely related to a globally important Mitsubishi 4x4, and notable for arriving before the modern boom in compact SUVs and crossovers.