There might be dozens and dozens of K-cars plying the streets of Oregon and Washington state, but here in the heartland they are a much rarer affair these days. They used to be everywhere, but those pesky little rust mites got most of them (Ooh, another K-car! Munch munch crunch…burp!).
image: imcdb.org
You all know the K-car story, so suffice it to say it played a prominent role in saving Chrysler’s bacon in the early ’80s, before finally going out of production in 1989. But I will always remember the facelifted 1985-89 Reliant as the wheels of Principal Ed Rooney in the classic movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I think the light metallic blue Reliant K was a perfect match to the character.
So I was walking back to the car with a friend after attending a car show when we walked right by this pastel yellow survivor, and I just had to peel off a few shots. Yes, there’s some rust, but this could be considered near-mint for a nearly thirty old Illinois car. We do get salt up here, dontcha know!
I know this is at least a 1986 with the CHMSL, but with the aftermarket wheel covers, I can’t pin down the year any more than that.
They may not have been beautiful, but I always liked them for their honesty and practicality–something seen much less frequently in today’s cars. Roll on, little Reliant!
Related reading: CC 1983 Dodge Aries – The K Car Saves Chrysler
In the Red Green Show, K-cars were used for several duct-tape projects, such as a budget Zamboni.
“If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”
The Red Green Show used to be the highlight of my Saturday night (if that gives you any indication of my social life). One can never go wrong by remembering the Possum Lodge oath, “Quando omni flunkus moritati”.
Remember, I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.
I’m a man, but I can change, If I have to, I guess….
K cars were the right car at the right time, fall 1980, when it seemed like gas would be a luxury item.
”
They may not have been beautiful, but I always liked them for their honesty and practicality”
_THIS_ .
Hi , I’m Nate a K-Carholic , I don’t need no stinkin’ meetings ! .
-Nate
I always thought these were pretty good fending off the rust munchers. IIRC, Chrysler used galvanized steel in the lower panels of its cars in the 80s. I always thought that it was engine woes that took most of these away. I have never owned a 2.2, but did not understand them to be a paragon of durability like some of Chrysler’s other efforts.
Especially in turbo format.
Yeah they are gone from the streets of the Seattle area and it isn’t because of rust.
They eat head gaskets for lunch. Bearing fail, especially camshafts. After 140,000 km or less a K Car is a money pit.
I had an ’83 Aries with the 2.2 that I got used and it was still going at 168,000 miles. The engine still pulled hard and the Torqueflite tranny worked as good as new! Only problem was it had low compression when the engine was cold and it had real bad vapor lock when it was hot. Apparently, there was a technical service bulletin to replace the mechanical fuel pump with an electric one. I guess the previous owner (s) never got that letter from Chrysler! All in all it was a smooth ride and fun to drive. It was the first FWD car that I owned and I was impressed with the “pull” of front wheel drive!
Awesome. This is the quintessential color for the K car.
Maybe they were good cars for the time, but what a depressing time.
(I do appreciate certain K-variants… the Lancer GTS and the last Imperial, admittedly opposite ends of the spectrum!)
Anyway, while I do respect Chrysler for designing a car that was–on paper–right for the time, I can’t help but compare it to the much more refined French cars of the era: great space utilization and fuel economy combined with a superior ride. Their style, while not to everyone’s taste, wasn’t just a shadow of former glory. French durability is (was) simply unacceptable, but if they had at least achieved Chrysler’s level of dependability (I’m not asking for a Honda!), they truly would’ve had the right car for the time.
Has CC ever done a poll to find out everyone’s favorite K-car variant?
+1
I think a Favorite K-Car Variant Poll/QOTD is a great suggestion. If no one else has called dibs, I’ll get to work on a quick post for later this week.
This car needs one of those “You park like an Asshole” stickers!
Eh, it’s not over the yellow line, that’s good enough.
Almost bought one when I was broke and bankrupted from my first marriage. As usual the one that attracted me was a 4 cyl, stick, wagon. Didn’t buy it and unlike my typical reaction I didn’t regret it much till the Honda I bought turned into a lemon.
It was a bit of a depressing time actually.
My dad’s friend bought one, he was so proud of his ‘great American car’
I was 16 when the K-car came out, and I visited Silver Chrysler-Plymouth to check it out.
I like manual trans, and there was a 2-door Reliant 4-spd, bench seat. So I sat in it and went to ‘row’ thru the gears, but couldn’t find the clutch. So I look down–it was collapsed on the floor. I pointed it out to the salesman, who shrugged it off–“it’ll get fixed”.
It made our Fairmont (which proved to be a good car) look like the epitome of quality, with it’s crooked “f” hood emblem, and numerous paint flaws.
I guess in the end the K-cars proved to be good also. Our friends still had their Aries 10 years later. In hindsight, considering how GM launched the brilliant X-car with numerous quality glitches, and how Chrysler 5 years earlier launched defect-ridden Aspen/Volare, it is impressive that Chrylser “successfully” launched the K-car. The K-car never acquired the negative perception that dogged X-cars and Aspens.
No one is perfect Lee. The 1st car my younger brother ever bought was 3 year old Honda Prelude Si with 30k miles. I don’t think he will ever buy another Honda, lot’s of issues. After 2 years, replace it with a Probe GT V6. Was a good car till about 70k miles.
In my family, we still have an 88 Reliant, dark blue, light blue interior, that was my Mom’s last car. She drove it for 10 years and after she passed, my brother took it over as his daily driver, which it still is. It still passes NJ state inspection every year and people ask him to let them know if he ever wants to sell it. When Mom had it, it was garaged, but since then it’s been outside and the paint on the roof is looking a bit thing. The interior, except for carpet right by the driver’s door, still looks like new.
One of my grad school profs referred to his K-car as the Lee Iococca Special.
Great lines from the Barenaked Ladies’ song…
“If I had a million dollars, I’d buy you a K-car.
Yep. A nice Reliant automobile.”
You mean like this? https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake-if-i-had-a-million-dollars/
My mother had an ’84 Aries, which was the pre-facelifted version. She bought it used in ’86. It was dark grey with a red interior. I have an identical AM/FM radio to what was in that car. It was so cool in the late ’80s to have a digital display and buttons.
That car worked well with minimal issues until she traded it for a new Escort in ’90.
I like the earlier ones with the hood ornament. However, I had an 88 Reliant that was loaded except for power windows with red velour interior. I remember it as being rather peppy (for the time), took it everywhere. Was actually a pretty nice car that got me where I needed to go. Everything worked. Fairly reliable (Reliant…ha ha) until the very end..but it had close to 180,000. One thing that surprised me was that it had a floor/console mounted automatic. All the other K Cars I had experienced had column mounted shifters.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of K car variants….an 83 LeBaron, an 87 New Yorker Turbo, 88 Reliant, a 91 New Yorker, a 92 Acclaim and a 94 Voyager. All but the 94 Voyager treated me well and were reliable comfortable cars.
My mom had a ’85 Dodge Aries wagon in the same awful powder blue color.
Ive been told it was a miserable car from Day 1 to its eventually ending, when it was totalled by a ’80s Caprice. (which drove away with a bent bumper while the Aries was DOA)
I understand they saved Chrysler’s ass back in the day, but I don’t understand how, aside from possibly fuel economy, people would willingly buy these, including my mom.
“but I don’t understand how, aside from possibly fuel economy, people would willingly buy these”
Easy. In 1981-82, gas was more expensive than anyone could remember and everyone was telling us that it was only going to get worse. The K car was good on gas, roomy for its size, styled in tune with its times and was built better than almost anything that Chrysler had put out in the 70s. Plus, its FWD was “modern”, unlike comparable offerings from Ford and even some of the Japanese companies. There was also still a lot of “Buy American” mentality in large areas of the country, and there were still some people rooting for Chrysler after it’s big turnaround. If these things had better engines, they would still be around in large numbers. But for all of the challenges at Chrysler during these cars’ gestation, they were actually pretty impressive.
About 5 years into the K-car run, it seems that Chrysler just gave up and just started offering the most basic versions, I remember when they first came out there were all sorts of different options you could get, consoles, alloy wheels, vinyl tops, but it seems that by 1985 they were all the “Ed Rooney” specials.
Were those the ‘America’ cars? I thought Iacocca did a nice job of putting a good dose of standard equipment on those for a quite reasonable price. Don’t know about the K-cars, but the Omnirizon had a version that came with the 2.2L engine and a pretty nice interior.
K-cars were “….the right car at the right time” because they managed to go Ford’s Fairmont just one step better. More economical than a Fairmont in 4 cylinder guise, the Fairmont was a “also-ran” in space efficiency as well. At GM, dealers were about to get the replacement for the Nova….the Citiation.
I came close to buying a post-facelift Aries wagon. Yes, in that medium blue metallic color but the big attraction was a floor mounted shifter…it had the manual 5 speed. If I had know how widespread aftermarket support for the 2.2 and 2.5 was, I would have bought it.
It was a pale metallic green 4-speed 1979 or 1980 Reliant that got us started buying Honda Accords, after we test-drove it just before a test drive of a maroon 1980 5-speed Accord sedan.
I’ll post a shot of our 1981 Reliant again, just for grins. Stripper all the way – not even a radio! 2.2L 4-speed. That car was a real blast to drive, especially in winter as it would run rings around most other cars because they were RWD.
Unfortunately, our car came with rust from the factory! It appeared Chrysler had a shipment of defective steel somewhere and both rain gutters were rusty, not to mention a rusted-out HOLE that appeared just above the upper left corner of the back glass!
Our Chrysler/Plymouth dealership repaired everything and we had no more issues with rust. I think they knew just how high the stakes were to the company and making the car a success.
I sold the car 7 years later, in 1988.
I never realized how much the first K-Car sedans looked like a shrunken R-Body until I saw the pic of this car below the red ’79 New Yorker. I find it odd that Chrysler, which could have styled them however they wanted, decided to go with a shrunken R-body look. They must have been in a big hurry.
I read somewhere that it was Lido’s habit to show up in the design studio and tell the designers what he wanted: shoe boxes, size 8.5, please.
An affordable classic.
If you can find a better car, buy it!
Principal Rooney had an interesting personalized IL license plate: 4FBDO.
There were other personalized plates appearing in the movie, but I could never figure out what they meant.
The K car was probably one of the most boring car designs in modern history. It was a transportation pod for people who could care less about cars.
I remember the plate on Ferris’ sisters Fiero was TBC, which stood for another John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club. The 4FBDO, was Ferris Buellers Day Off, the other plates had something to do with other Hughes movies as well, Ferris’ moms LeBaron T&C has VCTN, for Vacation, which was written by Hughes, and appropriate for a woodie wagon, MMOM on Ferris’ dads Audi 5000, for Mr.Mom, another Hughes movie.
The Ferrari’s tag read NRVOUS.
Cool!
This is the sort of car that was everywhere but I didn’t quite notice that they were gone. They had such a square box like design.
Back in high school around 1996 I knew a guy who had 2 of these cars in his family at the time. His parents drove a light blue 4 door Chrysler Reliant and a black 2 door Dodge Aries. He told me that they had purchased them for $1500 and $500 if I remember correctly. His dad would also tinker around with cars so they must have been cheap wheels to own.
I knew another family that owned a light coloured Chrysler Reliant and a brown Sundance for a while. I think one day the Reliant was rear ended and it was left with a dent in the rear quarter panel.
Later on during the end of high school I also remember a senior student driving around in a dark blue Reliant with a noticeably dented in rear quarter panel and bumper on the driver’s side. I assumed that he got it cheap in that condition.
Plymouth Reliant. The biggest oxymoron car I ever owned! Bought one 1984 model in 1989. Spent 5 times worth I paid for to get it to work. Never did. Junked it for $50.00 a week after getting new tires for it. This car poisoned me from any Chrysler products until I’m worm food.
Both of my grandfathers owned K-cars–my paternal grandfather’s, a pre-facelift Aries K in brown, and my maternal grandfather’s an ’85 or ’86 Reliant K that looked quite a lot like the featured car here. Same colors, even.
The Aries, I didn’t know well–my grandfather on that side passed away in 1985, so it was his last car, but they lived several states away and I was quite young at the time. I know my Aunt inherited it (replacing her metallic green Gran Torino–how’s that for a change in size) but do not know the rest of its story.
The Reliant I know a little better–I remember when Grandpa bought it, as that was when he gave us the Malibu which would eventually become mine. I also remember him showing me the interval wipers, which I thought were the coolest thing ever (had never seen them before despite them not being exactly an uncommon feature). However, the transition from a V8 Malibu to an I4 Reliant didn’t suit him too well–after only two years, he traded it in on a V6 Voyager. That one was his last car, and he liked it far better than the Reliant it replaced.
Definitely a rarity to see one today, and glad to see this one is still rolling along in relatively good shape.
A old Youtube classic…..
Definition of “the right car, for the right time”.
I can’t tell from the photos of this one, but one thing I’ve noticed is that nearly every K-car I’ve seen the past few years has been a post-facelift Reliant LE. I know the Reliant sold better, so that makes sense, but I feel like the majority of the K-cars produced were stripper base models, not the top trim level available. Any ideas to why so many LEs? Or just an odd coincidence?
Well the last year the Aries/Reliant K offered a SE model was in 1986 and interestingly enough the LE was the top of the line Aries/Reliant. It went Base, SE, Custom(later called LE)
In 1987 The SE was dropped and the base began being called America.
My folks had a 1986 Aries LE wagon in white and it ran fine from 86(they bought it new) to 1995 when it started to have problems such as a blown head gasket and transmission issue. It was dumped in 1996.
It was a white wagon with blood red cloth seats and a floor shifter for the automatic trans.
I still remember its distinctive engine start up.
The Reliant K was the first car I bought on my own, with my own money. No parental help or guidance. I bought it from an local bank. It was “off lease.” The person who leased it did not buy it, and they bank ended up with it. This was back in 1991. My Reliant was a 1987 model. It looked exactly like the picture above. The interior was the same as the car above. I remember that I had something called a MAP (?) sensor replaced twice. That was the only problem that I had with mine. I had that car for about 3 years, when I traded it in for a brand new 1994 Chevrolet Corsica. When I purchased mine, it had about 45,000 miles, and when I traded it in, it was at around 98,000 miles.
I used it to commute to college. It was a cheap car for a college student to own and maintain. It probably wasn’t the coolest car, but I wasn’t really interested in a cool car at the time. I was putting myself through college. It also got decent gas milage, if I remember correctly.
My eye was drawn to the Royal Midtown Chrysler sticker…tiny little dealership on South Kingshighway in South St Louis, one block south of Chippewa. I was working at Kriegshauser South Mortuary in the late 80s, and bought an 85 Escort from that dealership, not long before they closed. The dealership was right across the street from the mortuary.
Matching this car to Ed Rooney was one of the greatest car castings ever. I hope its driver has a pair of those flippy sunglasses!
…and a powder blue suit.
My parents managed to buy three K-cars in the span of three years: A blue ’83 Reliant SE sedan – blue vinyl interior, no vinyl roof, an ’85 LeBaron Town and Country, beige over brown cloth, and an ’86 Reliant LE wagon, maroon over maroon cloth. IIRC, all had the Mitsubishi 2.5L fuel injected engine; I definitely know non had a turbo.
As everyone says, they were what they were and they did what they did – not the least of which was saving Chrysler Corporation (for the time being). I don’t remember any significant problems, and my sister and I shared the LeBaron T&C into the nineties as a spare car. But I do know that after my folks moved from import-shunning Pittsburgh to Connecticut in ’86, my dad started to notice his coworkers seemed to spend less time back at the dealership, and his next car was an ’88 Accord sedan.
And from my one visit to the W.P. Chrysler museum, the raw K-platform, spawn of so many variations.
I was a sales rep for Champion Spark Plug in the 80s and the Reliant K (same color as Principal Romney’s) was my company car. This featured car in this article is actually part of an interesting story that signaled sales trouble for Champion.
Champion always provided Chrysler products to their reps. But when I joined Champion, they’d just gone through a budget Day of Reckoning (old timers told the story that there was no such thing as budget until that time).
And well they should have had that reckoning: while they’d never had to worry about competition for decades, Champion experienced what GM did decades later -hemorrhaging market erosion. With the dramatic increase in Honda and Nissan sales in the U.S., that meant that NGK spark plugs suddenly took all of the import plug business.
Add to that fact that in many areas of the country, repair shops replaced your plugs with what came from the factory (AC, and Motorcraft/Autolite), that meant that Champion was increasingly depending on Chrysler market share for their aftermarket plug sales. So when this Newport was experiencing tanking product sales, it directly impacted Champion’s aftermarket sales.
Add to that the fact all cars ran HEI ignitions (requiring far less maintenance), and plugs weren’t even changed as often. Then there was GM’s 1980s introduction of diesel engines and spark plug market share was also impacted. And thus began the annual pink slips. I was cut loose by 1990.
The Reliant I had was as dependable as they come. And many reps elected to drive only their company cars (a perk of the time that allowed them to save on car payments, insurance and gas). I, however, was single during that time and my ego would have nothing to do with the K-car as my only vehicle; picking up dates in a K-car? In Texas Truck Country? Nah.
K-Cars had been very appreciated and affordable 4 cylinder North-American automobile by the eastern-european drivers during the transitional years in the early ’90’s before the signings of questionable trade agreements and joining the e.u. decreasing the U.S. private car imports. There were years when they could be seen on the roads almost daily…but as nothing lasts forever…they were almost all gone…probably to the scrapyards…
I mentioned in the Aries write-up that neighbors when I was growing up had a red ’86 and tan (in the above color) ’82 Reliant K. Just a nice, genuine, compact car, what you see is what you get; a clear purpose and function.
I always thought they looked best in red or sky blue. I remember seeing them everywhere, very often in front of a small cape or ranch house, in the 80s and early 90s. Suddenly, sometime around or just before 9/11, they all vanished in Connecticut. I haven’t seen one in years.
My first car I bought from my mom was an ’82 Reliant wagon in that same cream color. It was a fine first car with plenty of room, adequate power, and it was a great make out car! lol By the time I got it it had a decent AM/FM/cassette stereo with speakers in back. Ours had a light brown interior with a bench seat and a four-speed floor shift. I masked off the grille and trim and painted it flat black and added some cheap plastic grey wheelcovers and some BFG blackwalls. The only trouble I had with it was when the timing belt jumped the gear and I really didn’t have the money to fix it so I traded it in at around 135,000 and got an ’87 Sentra which I also really liked. I’d love to find another wagon to maybe play around with!