..And I say to myself, What a wonderful ride...

My parents bought a brand-new 1996 Dodge Dakota Club Cab Sport because we needed something to replace our veteran 1987 Nissan pickup, because it just couldn't carry 4 people anymore, now that my brother and I are older. The truck was a 5-speed, with a 3.9 liter V-6 under the hood.
This truck was what I learned to drive on, and I love it to death. The engine is powerful enough to forgive a kid who pops the clutch too quick, and the transmission was durable enough to take a few gear-grinding shifts until I got the hang of it. And now I love to drive it even more. The engine has buckets of stump-pulling torque, and passing power no matter how fast you're going. I've done 85 on the freeway with this thing, and all you need to do is step on the pedal to pass someone, even at that speed. This truck has great get up and go.
The 4-wheel-drive works wonderfully, pulling the truck through numerous Maine snowstorms, and then our unique and deadly mud season each spring. It's also hauled numerous cars (and several other trucks) out of snow-filled ditches.
The Bed in this beast is large enough to haul anything we need to, and we've used it to haul a lot of stuff, believe me. Everything from mulch to manure to furniture(but not until after a trip to the car wash)
The brakes are excellent, grabbing and hauling the truck to a stop quickly, even at high speeds (as I've found out during a few run-in's with deer at night). The handling is superb, for a truck, yanking you from one side of the road to the other and back again without losing control.
My only con to this truck is the engine Whine at low speeds. Remember the slant six that Dodge used to make? That engine was downright quiet compared to this one at low speeds, but once you hit around 20 MPH it quiets down.