Photos from the CC Cohort by Richard Mm
Car-wise speaking, one of the oddest feelings of my 1980s teen years was to see how automotive design had gone rational, and yet find many vehicles clinging to classic cues, often with clashing results. Cars had certainly gone clean and aerodynamic by mid-decade, shredding the neoclassical themes that had defined their styling during the 1970s. But a certain public wasn’t quite ready to move past all that, something carmakers and aftermarket providers were well aware of.
And this aftermarket Dodge 400 with a Continental Kit speaks volumes about that not-intended transitional period. You wanted a Continental Kit on your modern, clean, and efficient 1980s Chrysler product? Boy (said Mr. Aftermarker Provider), have we got you covered!
Yes, lots of car details spoke to decades past: From the vinyl tops in Regals and Supremes to the cursive letters that festooned their badges, to wire-wheel hubcaps, and razor-edged bustlebacks.
So the boxy uncluttered lines may have been 1980s modern, but classicism clung fiercely one way or another. In many unsuspecting places.
Carmaker’s actions aside, aftermarket providers were the main suppliers to this market. And say what you will of this 1980s Dodge, this take on the Continental Kit idea is just bold. No demure approach on this one.
Don’t deny it, it’s a treatment that would put any 1940s Lincoln Continental to shame.
Other than the rear end, everything in this find looks factory spec. And while this more upmarket Dodge version of the K-Car still had a generic ’80s car vibe all over, the droptop did provide the vehicle with distinction.
That said, clearly not distinctive enough for this Dodge’s owner, who truly needed those Continental Kit vibes.
Now, onto the interior. Once again, not a single piece seems out of place with what came from the factory.
This unique ride was spotted at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center. In the words of the original uploader the car’s owner “appeared to be a trim and healthy fellow in his 90s. Looked like he’d had a good life & was perfectly happy with his car, didn’t need anything else.”
True that. This car may not be my cup of tea, but who would need anything else when owning such a unique car? And with such bold style, that told the world who you are, with such unabashed pride?
Related CC reading:
CC Capsule: 1982 Dodge 400 Convertible – Pepperoni Wheels Make Everything Better
Curbside Capsule: 1983 Dodge 600 – E-Class With Less Class
CC Capsule: 1984 Dodge 600 ES Turbo Convertible – Wait… Which Brother Are You, Again?
CC Capsule: 1986 Dodge 600 Convertible – Last Of The K ‘Verts
Sorry, but it’s UGH!
Yup!
Thanks. Now I’ll have this image dancing around in my head all day! YIKES! a continental kit?!! I’m sorry, but that’s just poor taste. It’s going to kill the sale chances down the road.
Well… There’s something to be said for a rear bumper that you can comfortably sit on.
I own it’s cousin, a 1986 Lebaron convertible. I am in agreement, the Continental kit really doesn’t go with a K car. even the “super K” which was the term for the Dodge 400 and 600 and the Chrysler Lebaron models.
Positives about Continental kits: more trunk space
Negatives about Continental kits: you can’t reach the trunk anymore anyway.
This is a 1983 model; the ’82 had two silvery square gauges where the ’83 uses one black rectangular one. Silver gauges were a circa-1980 fad that briefly affected Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chrysler, Dodge, Mercury, and Lincoln before quickly reverting to black.
Thanks for confirming what I’d thought about the 600 convertible’s gauges. IIRC, the LeBaron convertible had the ‘good’ gauge cluster right from the start.
And, FWIW, I quite like the old-school, Bakelite shiny plastic steering wheel. For 1984, it was changed-up for the lesser (to me) soft-touch plastic A-frame steering wheel. But the trade-off was getting quarter windows and a glass rear window.
Every online shot I see of an ’82 LeBaron droptop has the same silver square gauges the 400 used that year (not sure which ones you consider the “good” ones). Chrysler mucked with the K and related gauge cluster a few times, later using several small round black gauges. I can’t keep them straight.
Agreed about the steering wheel. Not only was the ’84 A-frame wheel unattractive, but it gave you no spokes placed where you could rest your fingers or hands on them. Never occurred to me that the original K wheel design may have been the last of the hard-plastic Bakelite wheels in an American car; certainly GM had long moved to grippy textured plastic. Ford still used Bakelite (or something like it) on that ubiquious late-70s delta-spoke wheel on those not covered with leather, but not sure about the four-spoker that debuted in the Fairmont.
The ‘good’ instrument cluster is the one with the larger, rectangular speedometer front and center, with the other, much smaller gauges for temperature and fuel beneath.
The ‘bad’ one is the one with two, square, same-sized silver background gauges, one for speedometer and the other for fuel. It’s a take on the original K-car cluster and has a distinct, cheap GM feel to it, where the 2nd year version seems more upscale and ‘Chrysler-like’.
Thankfully nobody I have heard of has ever done one of these kits on a Voyager or Caravan. This is bad enough.
Please don’t give anyone that idea. Over-sized grills, fake spare tires and “continental kits” and gold emblems do NOT belong on anything. haha
Oh man, please don’t give anyone any ideas!! haha.
I have seen Caravans chopped up enough already.
This one was just bad.
These are actually kinda nice cars, my neighbor had one and it was a fun car to drive but the continental kit just looks wrong on it…leave it the way it came from the factory…
Reading about the spotting of the owner made this entry for me. He loves his fancified Dodge 400 convertible. That’s enough!
The car Ok, the Continental Kit speechless…
If the owner bought it new, he would’ve been his 50s, prime midlife crisis time. I guess he was of the “I want what I wanted when I was 16” school of thought rather than wanting to look younger, or he’d have spent the money upgrading from the wire covers to salt-shaker alloys rather than at JC Whitney.
Jay-sus, that is B-A-D. Aftermarket Continental kits were bad enough back when cars were big and had non-5mph bumpers, but that’s just horrible. I’d go so far as to say the only Continental kit that looked even remotely good was the one Ford installed at the factory on the original, 1st gen forties’ Lincoln.
How awful. I don’t care if it’s a Cadillac, Lincoln, Chrysler or a Chevy Chevette. That ugly junk doesn’t belong on any car. Period.
Maybe he goes golfing and wants to bring his and his friend’s bags in the trunk, and whalah! No need for space for the spare tire!
I actually think it looks good. Novelty is something to cherish, sometimes. Driving the thing must make the owner smile, and other people at least giggle a little as it goes by. That’s a net positive.
It made me smile.
Reminded me a bit of a 1950s Metropolitan.
I like the 400 convertible, it’s a trim and modern design. It’s a good size for a convertible and the turbo fours were strong runners. I considered getting one, I dubbed it the modern “shoebox” and thought that they could be customized like an old Ford. This Continental kit does it no favors, but maybe an Exner type “toilet seat” would fit the nostalgia bill?
Possibly this Is an attempt of irony? I just can’t imagine anyone agreeing to purchase this s a dealer accessory no matter how good the salesman was.And I can’t help thinking someone found a similar K-Car bumper, rigged up a couple support beams and had someone sew up an old tire with vinyl. Doesn’t look level, but could have been damaged. I like the dual antenas.
But then Cadillacs often had those fake conveertable top and Rolls Royce grills during this era. Who knows?
Florida.
Someone else remarked on the dual exhausts. I’m now also thinking maybe this is meant as irony or parody. Something that might be used as a clown car in a parade? I didn’t chat up the owner as it must’ve been a long day for him as it was for me (I’m the photog. & had been waiting for about two hours for the person I brought; this car was there all along). Was a little bit afraid of insulting the guy. Maybe, though, he was as in on the joke as the rest of us.
I think it MIGHT look better if that shelf in the back tapered in of course on both sides to the tire….
I got a fever, and the only prescription
is more bumper!
You know, there’s really no accounting for taste.
I could kind of see a handful of folks out there who saw something like this, thought it was cool, and then ordered one up for their car.
Stranger things have happened. Like the somewhat earlier interest in turning VW Bugs into Rolls Royce-ish things.
I have a fever, and the only prescription is
more bumper!
What mph rating is that bumper now?
5 mph X 2?
2.5 mph X 2?
2.5 mph ÷ 2?
5 mph ÷2?
Zero mph because all the foam cracked and fell out?
How much weight onto the bumper would it take to lift the front wheels off the ground?
Does the caulk help or hinder bumper function?
An ordinary K-car would not invite such questions, so I am glad it exists as it is.
+1 I don’t want it, but I like it and I’m glad it exists. The Continental kit goes nicely with the hubcaps.
The only thing left to do is ship it to Europe and actually drive it on the continent. Road trip to Monaco or Cannes anyone?
It’s really the Proto-Chrysler TC if you think about it with its convertible K car body with 56 T-bird inspired appengages(in this case the spare rather than port holes) It’s godawful but in a weird way I like it, I tend to admire stubbornness and clinging to old world automotive anachronisms in the efficiency era is certainly a statement to that effect. Actually paying be car prices with the premium of this accessory attached is absurd however.
This is a very nice car, and just so my comment can stay positive, it would be very easy to replace that, that, thing with a factory piece, and include the wire wheel covers and the 2 ?
exhaust tips and aerials in the trash pile.
There’s a huge difference between the original Continental, where the bodywork was shaped in such a way as to provide a place to mount the spare in a sort of semi-integrated fashion, and the ‘Continental Kit’, where the bumper is just mounted further back and the gap filled with sheet metal or plastic. However well-executed, that rarely looks right.
It was certainly an idea whose time was dead and gone by 1982 (heck, dead by 1962 surely?), and yet people will hang onto what they think of as ‘luxury’ cues from previous generations, and stick them in the most dissonant places. Take that far enough, and you get Retro…
I’m just going to go ahead and say it, no aftermarket continental kit ever looks good on it’s intended victim. Factory optional kits from the ’50’s look nearly as bad. I watch the classic car auctions on TV and from what you see there you would think that every stock ’58 Impala or ’57 Belair automatically came with one of these monstrosities.
Yes, this! Many of the mentioned Chevrolets didn’t even have radios, let alone Continental spares.
The automotive equivalent of the statue with a clock in its belly…….
I want a return to Continental kits, everywhere! Prius’s Escalades, Tesla’s SL’s Phantoms Bugatti’s and that touch of class…the Landau top!
Continental kits never really went away on SUVs, look at any wrangler, heck the RAV4 had one up until 2015s and the aftermarket makes them as accessories for numerous models as well.
It’s the same thing and nobody will convince me otherwise.
I am impressed that the rear bumper shows no signs of ever hitting anything.
A 90-something owner having to back up a car with such a long caboose would be an exceptionally cognizant driver.
Instead of a golf match, maybe our presidential candidates should challenge each other to parallel park this thing in downtown Manhattan.
Eye bleach material. I don’t know what continent the concept came from but it needs to be deported back there.
I have seen a RT 104 Corona thus afflicted. With wide white walls.
I never liked the Continental look. Even on the cars of the 50s when they were fairly common. My dad always liked them. He had a black 57 Ford Fairlane 500, was a beautiful car, and he had the Continental Kit added. The K car saved Chrysler, and we can thank Lee Iaccoca for that. He was an automotive styling genius. While at Ford, ir was Iaccoca that brought us the Mustang. It was Iaccoca that gave us the beautiful Lincoln Mark lll. Iaccoca, like John Z DeLorean, knew what the US car buying public wanted. I love American cars, many of my family members worked in the Detroit Big Three so I have American cars in my blood. One has to consider that the 70s was a very dark time for Detroit. The oil crisis of 1973 almost killed the Big Three, and America as well. Iaccoca knew that if he put traditional American styling in front of the buyers they would much rather have that vs an import from Japan that was small ugly and plastic, but they git good mpg and that’s what America needed.The K car was designed to give us an American car that did what the imports did. Up until then, Americans didn’t buy cars based on mpg, when gas was less than 50 cents per gallon, they didn’t have to. The K car was a good American car that served as a platform used on every Chrysler and it worked. Remove the Continental Kit and the K car was just what we needed at the time, including the traditional dash. You kids that weren’t around can’t possibly know what it was like living through the American 70s. But I do.I was in my 20s at the time, I was raised in the back seat of the 50s, 60s and 70s Chryslers and Fords.then the muscle cars. After the oil crisis took all that away and we needed something to make us feel American again! Today I’m greatful to guys like Iaccoca and DeLorean, they helped us survive albeit it was a new normal. I ask myself where would the US Big Three be had there never been the 73 oil crisis. Clearly what we wanted in our cars was not sustainable for ever. And think about this, there never was a real oil shortage. It was a political move by the oil producing countries to let the US know they didn’t like our involvement with Israel. But with the Israeli US population, the US had no choice but to back Israel. And for that, we paid for it through our wonderful US auto industry. You just had to be there to understand the unfortunate situation the US found itself in. Like Bruce Springfield said,”there was nothing we could do”