Here's the stock cowl area on any '97-'99 Dodge Dakota. Nothing really special about it--it doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look good either; it's just there.
There's no doubt that Dodge Dakotas are awesome-looking trucks. In fact, from the factory there's darn little to change, from a styling perspective. Sure, just about every truck benefits from the installation of a rear roll pan and a bit of lowering, and we've done both on our Emerald Green '97 Dakota. In fact, roll pans are so aesthetically pleasing, Chrysler offers its own for the trucks.
One thing we never even noticed on our truck was the large open space on the cowl area of the Dakota. We'd seen it, picked leaves out of it, changed wiper arms over it and all that, but we never paid any attention to it at all. What's to see? It's just a part of the truck that's as natural, and interesting, as a doorjamb--until we saw another truck with Street Scene's cowl cover. All of the sudden, that never-before-noticed space between the back edge of the hood and the windshield looked like something was missing.
The Street Scene cover is a bolt-on body panel that fills the area, continuing the flat plane of the hood all the way back to the windshield. Simply put, it makes the truck look finished. The cowl cover is made of fiberglass, comes ready to paint with all the holes drilled, and includes excellent instructions. The installation time is all of 20 minutes. The factory cowl panel can be taken off by popping six plastic push-in-style fasteners, which are normally found in vehicle interiors. Once these plastic fasteners are out, removal is simply a matter of disconnecting the windshield washer hoses. Street Scene's cover goes right in place, using four fasteners--supplied in the kit--to hold it.
The only problem we encountered was that the new cover didn't rest perfectly flush against the windshield on the passenger side; it had a slight warp from having stood in the corner of our garage for six months. This was easily fixed by replacing the push-in fasteners in the lower corners with sheetmetal screws in the existing holes. We also popped about $20 for new weatherstripping. Each corner of the hood is sealed to the cowl with a piece of J-shaped, self-adhesive foam. The main piece of weatherstripping in the center of the cowl slips on and off the cowl/firewall flange, and is not glued down, so it can be reused. We could have used some adhesive-releasing agent on the original corner pieces and glued them in place on the new cowl cover, but it was easier to just replace them with fresh ones. It will probably look better in the long run, too.
Take a look, and see if you don't agree that while the truck looked fine before, after seeing the Street Scene cover in place, it just doesn't look finished without it.
