The Forgotten Cars Thread
- Thread starter el fayce
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I think there should just be a discussion page on K-cars because this is getting out of hand.
And let's face it, we probably forgot about how this looked compared to the final...it's the 1989 Dodge Viper RT/10, the only 1980's Dodge that can stay just the way it is.
And let's face it, we probably forgot about how this looked compared to the final...it's the 1989 Dodge Viper RT/10, the only 1980's Dodge that can stay just the way it is.
I'd take a used Mirada over a new 1984 Chrsyler E-Class tho
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- That_sneaky_azN
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- HamiltonMP427
Well he didn't say it, but he did post an image of Obama riding a unicorn and that's just not true at all, clearly Obama would ride a dragon firing rainbows out his eyes and not his fingers.
To be serious though, other than your asinine love for a company that wont ever pay your bills...yes he's about spot on with how wrong you are.
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- Peruibe, SP
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In buying AMC, Chrysler got:
- A brand new, bleeding edge state of the art humongous factory staffed with a trained workforce. This was the factory the Cloud cars were built in.
- A brand new, bleeding edge state of the art automobile with development already paid for by Renault to build in that factory. This was the car the Cloud cars were designed to improve upon.
- The best automotive engineering team in North America, tirelessly trained, staffed and funded by Renault for the previous 5 years to design the above automobile to build in the above factory. It effectively replaced Chrysler's own engineering staff.
- AMC's management team, which had spent 20 years spinning up mostly competitive products with no money far more effective than Chrysler had done to that point in the 1980s. They were immediately promoted high up the chain in Chrysler's own management heirarchy
- One of the most valuable automotive brands in the world that has continued to be basically the only thing that Chrysler can consistently rely on, even through the bad old days of the Daimler rape and pillaging
- All of the new products for one of the most valuable automotive brands in the world already developed for them until basically 1999, and all of which was easily class leading upon launch since they had all been designed by the above engineering team.
- Whatever else there was of AMC that they bothered to keep (mostly just some engines and transmissions that Renault had spent to update, but also a couple other factories mostly for building Jeeps).
They got all of this for the cost of buying the one factory would have been. Renault spent way more money than that. Iacocca only really wanted Jeep (the Grand Cherokee specifically), and he way overspent for just that; but in the process he basically accidentally bought everything in one swoop that made Chrysler the huge success that it was in the 1990s.
In 1987 Iacocca also bought Lamborghini, and that was a complete waste; but he at least barely spent anything on it, it was briefly profitable and ultimately Bob Lutz jettisoned it as soon as Iacocca was out the door without too much of a loss.
So far all of the facts you've tried to correct me on were things that I wasn't actually wrong about, including things that you were hopelessly incorrect about.
We'll play a little game. Call it "Spot the risk". I'll post the original, "safe" model of something. Then I'll post the "risky" model that Chrysler took a "gamble" on:
The amount of investment capital and potential losses (ie. "risk") involved with putting "Laser" badges on a Dodge Daytona, having Alejandro de Tomaso design a K-Car for tennis players in addition to the one Chrysler made themselves, and extending the landau top past the rear doors on a Fifth Avenue (when all 6 of them are on fundamentally the same platform) are all certainly well in line with what GM and Ford went through with the Taurus or X-Body.
If they did not buy AMC they wouldn't have lasted long enough for Daimler to buy the company and strip mine it. No less than Bob Lutz said as much. Are you more of an authority on Chrysler in the 1980s than 1980s Chrysler executives?
That's strange, because I could have sworn the Eldorado in the picture doesn't scream performance because it is a DeVille. Not that the Eldorado was any less of a performance car than the Seville it shared nearly everything with, though since I specifically said that it was a DeVille and you still claimed it was something else at this point I'm starting to legit wonder if there is some sort of reading problem at play here.
My car is the final, best year of a nameplate two generations removed from the piece of garbage Cadillac debuted in 1986. It has over double the horsepower, dramatically better performance across the board and a design philosophy far far far far more in line with what BMW and Mercedes were doing at the time than what was essentially an enlarged 1984 Grand Am was in 1986 (the STS package didn't even exist until 1989); and still by 1998 the formula that was hugely acclaimed in 1992 when Cadillac first tried it was already outdated, nevermind 2003. My car is pretty good for what it is, but I still have to question why the person who bought it new didn't buy a 540i. I would probably be happier with a 540i.
Any of them, actually.
Kind of easy when at the time Dodge was selling more Caravans then every other manufacturer combined, nevermind just how many GM was selling of just Dustbusters. If 75% of the Caravans blew their transmissions or started burning oil faster than you could refill it, there would still be more Caravans on the road than Lumina APVs.
I think it's quite tough to just pretend the Ultradrive didn't exist just like it is for Honda Odysseys with their automatics.
Because Chrysler had no such engine in the first place, nor did they have an engine that could be made to do that. Pretty sure I already mentioned this. The E-Class was also a stretched version of a compact transverse engine FWD car, and no one had engines that pumped out that much power that would fit in such a car.
Cars of the 1980s were affected by it. Because of the long timetable with designing new cars, Ford and Chrysler and GM were all left holding the bag with brand new cars that they were introducing that people didn't want.
Chrysler escaped it without issue because their cars were incredibly cheap to make because they had whittled down so much, but they were still getting so many orders for the big Diplomat and Fifth Avenue that they couldn't meet demand for it and had to contract AMC to build some for them. Ford and GM both had popular, extremely profitable nameplates halve in sales when they downsized past what people wanted them to be. GM had to keep selling the G-Body half a decade after they wanted to replace it because people just wouldn't buy the intended replacements, and reintroduce the B-Body at Pontiac because people were outraged that they couldn't buy one anymore. Ford and GM lost untold amounts of money when they were trying to design FWD sporty cars to replace RWD sporty cars and people rejected them outright. VW lost so much money when gasoline prices collapsed and people decided they didn't want small cars anymore that they had to close their US assembly plant and almost left the United States entirely.
The reason you can't buy a cheap car like an Aveo in beige-ish gold with wire rims is because no one is still devoid of taste in the exact way required to pretend having a car painted gold with wire hubcaps makes it a luxury car.
Of course, this is ignoring the elephant in the room that the E-Class (and Lebaron and New Yorker and etc.) were cheap cars that you could get in tacky 1970s colors with fake wire wheels.
You need to actually come up with a reason. The only reason you bothered with so far was to claim the Cutlass Ciera was a substantially smaller car, which it wasn't.
So that's it? You scoured Chrysler's official documentation that I provided for you to point out differences between a 600 and an E-Class and the only thing you could come up with differentiating them was something I told you (that you could get in the 600 anyway)?
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- 3,023
- Peruibe, SP
Eventually I feel like you two should be having a private talk but, I guess that's too late about that. I'be been basically going "TL;DR" on these massive posts a.k.a not caring at all so, let me just make a little detour again...
Where was we...oh, yes. Another old car I seen often int he past when I was young, hardly see it nowadays. I can see a few Opala's if lucky, but, I never seen this one anymore.
That's right, Opala, had a caravan option, which is equally the wagon variant of it. The 1978 one, still remained my favourite and in this color, even better.
Where was we...oh, yes. Another old car I seen often int he past when I was young, hardly see it nowadays. I can see a few Opala's if lucky, but, I never seen this one anymore.
That's right, Opala, had a caravan option, which is equally the wagon variant of it. The 1978 one, still remained my favourite and in this color, even better.
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I think what's lost in the discussion is that the Chrysler New Yorker was luxurious if your choices were: 1) Only considering American cars 2) Couldn't afford a Cadillac or a Lincoln. So yes, it ticks those boxes, if only by pencil...and they sold quite a few thousand of them because of the strong boundaries of those criteria.
I think most of them have now rotted away to the point were the "luxury" is completely missing from the equation.
Cars with extra pillars (without doors) bother my design senses. I recall a Ford Pinto wagon some years ago like that, and currently, Mercedes-Benz E-class coupes. They look like imbalanced afterthoughts, as if it's going to crack open in two when traveling over a speed bump.
I think most of them have now rotted away to the point were the "luxury" is completely missing from the equation.
That's right, Opala, had a caravan option, which is equally the wagon variant of it. The 1978 one, still remained my favourite and in this color, even better.
Cars with extra pillars (without doors) bother my design senses. I recall a Ford Pinto wagon some years ago like that, and currently, Mercedes-Benz E-class coupes. They look like imbalanced afterthoughts, as if it's going to crack open in two when traveling over a speed bump.
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- That_sneaky_azN
It's like they intended the car to be a 4 door but completely forgot the door.Eventually I feel like you two should be having a private talk but, I guess that's too late about that. I'be been basically going "TL;DR" on these massive posts a.k.a not caring at all so, let me just make a little detour again...
Where was we...oh, yes. Another old car I seen often int he past when I was young, hardly see it nowadays. I can see a few Opala's if lucky, but, I never seen this one anymore.
That's right, Opala, had a caravan option, which is equally the wagon variant of it. The 1978 one, still remained my favourite and in this color, even better.
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- Peruibe, SP
True. But there has been other caravan models with four doors, like the nomad cars had. Here's an example of a four door, but not same generation.
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There was a also conventional wisdom thing going on in the pre-carseat days, at least in the US, that two doors were better for family hauling than four doors. My dad once told me about the big fuselage Monaco wagon his parents owned that his father disabled the interior door handles on because you couldn't buy a full size or intermediate two door wagon anymore at that point.
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- GTP_daan
Just for you.
It was known as a Xedos here. And @Famine hasn't forgotten they existed.You just made me remember the Mazda Millenia (or Eunos 800 in other markets) and its Miller Cycle V6. I totally forgot those even existed, as did pretty much everyone else even when they were sold new.
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- GranTurismo0517
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Fricken Carbon Motors!
and this thing.
and this thing.
The87Dodge
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Do you have no idea why they called it a K-car or no idea why they called it a Dynasty?
The87Dodge
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I just said it. "K-car" isn't a term for 80's and 90's Mopar sedans. K-cars are cars built on the K platform, and those cars are the Aries/Reliant/LeBaron, 400, 600/Caravelle/E-Class/New Yorker ('83-'88), and the Executive Limousine. The Dynasty was built on the C platform, so there's no way it can be a K-car.
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The87Dodge
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Many Chryslers are based off of the K platform, but I just mentioned the "true" k-cars in my post. I wouldn't consider the C and Y body to be considered a K-car even though they are based off that platform.
Anyway, I've forgotten about the Mazda Navajo, a rebadged first generation Ford Explorer.
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- Peruibe, SP
If there's an infiniti I'd get, would be that. I know it just looks like a plain boring 2-door but...I somehow like it and don't know why.
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It was basically a R31 with a body that looked 10 years out of date when they finally sold them in the US. Never understood why they so supremely extremely half assed it, either. Stopgap model or not, it always seemed strange that they went through the trouble of getting it certified for the US Market and giving it a LHD interior and then just let it sit there for three years without even updating the engine.
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