(first posted 7/20/2015) It was a classic senior moment: I saw this Dodge Diplomat coupe — which is quite a rare find in its own regard — and noticed the RT badges on the grille and front fender, and thought: Hmmm…I don’t remember an RT version of that. But then I don’t even remember this version of the Diplomat. Uh oh.
Yet there they were, looking original enough.
Was there an obscure RT package available on these? I haven’t exactly thought about a ’79 Diplomat coupe in a mighty long time. In fact, I’d totally forgotten about this particular version of it, with its Monte Carlo style roof to go along with its Monte Carlo style rear hips. It was only offered in 1979; the 1980 is all squared up, and sits on a shorter wheelbase.
I took a closer look, wondering if someone was messing with me. Well someone has been messing with their car, and left some wrenches in a convenient place where they weren’t likely to fall of in the drive to this location, which is next to my rental houses and not where it lives.
The wrenches weren’t used to mount the RT badge; it certainly looks like it’s been there since day one.
No RT badges on the rear. Hmmm…come on, there wasn’t an RT version offered on these?…Or was there? An RT Diplomat, with a vinyl roof?
A look inside made me dubious. The big tach and Edelbrock sticker confirmed the go-fast proclivities of its owner. And the 360 was still available on these, including the 4 barrel HD version, which made 195 (net) hp. Not bad, for 1979.
When I got home, I Googled “Dodge Diplomat RT”…no relevant search results. I headed to oldcarbrochures.com, and found the ’79 Diplomat book…”Medallion 2-door; The sensible sport”. No mention of any RT anywhere. I’ve been punked.
Checking out the brochure reminded me again how I had totally forgotten about this one-year version of the Diplomat coupe, which wore this familiar roof for 1977-1978, and still on the base version in 1979. Even these are impossible to find.
It took me a bit to unravel the mystery of this very unusual car, the likes of which I have not seen in an eternity, and may well not again. Now about those RT badges....
Needs less muscle, more BROUGHAM. Just sayin. The “RT” lettering looks like the “R” and “T” of an eighties Plymouth Reliant.
It’s the last two letters of an ESCORT badge. I’m almost certain of it.
Those letters do have a Ford-like look to them.
Or “DART”?
I put TRD badges on my Highlander – just because. At least it is V6, 4WD. I sincerely hope this Diplomat has the 360, that would be pretty cool.
The Citroen CX Turbodiesel was called the DTR in the UK rather than the TRD in non-Anglo countries for obvious reasons. A car with a reputation for…. ‘unexpected episodes of character’.. does not need such a connotation.
“Unexpected episodes of character” HA! Are those anything like “Spontaneous unscheduled catastrophic disassembly”?
All the Dart badges I can find are in a serif font, and I remember this style of block letter from my childhood (Dad owned an ’83 Escort L for six years). Found a photo online that seems to confirm:
I thought it something stolen from a Volarespen or something maybe. But for performance, the owner of this Diplomat has affixed the all important Edelbrock sticker to the dash.
At least they didn’t try the Roadrunner motif or did I miss that? Lol.
Now about those wrenches…??
I’m with you. I am also certain that’s the last two letters of Escort. That looks like the font they used on them.
That’s what I see as well.
On Dodges, wasn’t “R/T” always punctuated with a slash?
Yes, it meant “Road/Track,” not “Road & Track,” which is the enthusiast car mag. And I agree with the Escort Theory. Looks like someone got desperate during a junkyard foray.
Chris’s photo above looks like an ’82. Mine was an ’81 L which had black plastic filler between the reverse-light & license recess. Note also the plastic caps which reduced cost on the extruded bumper.
Looks like someone got desperate during a junkyard foray
I can relate lol
Bingo.
I had one in 79. It was a Medallion. Yucky copper metallic color. There was no RT ever on these cars.
Sounds like a contradiction. With a name like Diplomat, you’d expect something to look like a car you’d expect a business CEO to drive, or even be driven in. With a trim like RT, that sounds more sporty.
I had such a low opinion of these cars when they came out. Still do.
At least the Dodge had a “normal” front end. It looked like a 2nd rate copy of a 76-77 Buick Regal, or even a period Cadillac Seville.
The Chrysler had the ‘upside down’ look…with the headlamps under the turn signals, as if they put it on backwards.
And these cars were pricey!
Fine examples of the worst the malaise era!
Personally I preferred the “upside down” look, though maybe just because it was unique…this just looks rather plain. The scuplturing on the trunk is pretty cool thouogh.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one with this roofline. One-year-only changes were usually small by this time…fascinating that they would do this on a rather obscure model.
So was the LeBaron the inspiration for the Family Truckster? LOL
Always thought it bore a resemblance
http://www.diecastmodelonline.com/images/Scale_1-24/MM73331LC.jpg
I love the upside down look, they remind me of the parking lights on ’70 Barracudas
Very surprised by the lack of love for these on here. I thought the LeBaron and Diplomat coupe, fussy front end aside, were one of the cleaner and more elegant personal luxury coupe designs of the era. The ’80 revision ruined the coupe because it lost its graceful kick-up over the rear wheels and just became a boxy 2-dr sedan.
It’s not the styling of this car that earns my scorn, William. I don’t find it particularly ugly. I don’t find it particularly attractive, either. It’s no better or worse than a lot of cars of the era, which isn’t really saying very much.
No, my disdain for it stems from the fact that these just weren’t very good cars. There’s a reason why the phrase “Malaise Era” , coined here I believe, is so descriptive and fits with my memories of the time. Overall build quality was lousy and materials used were inferior. These cars rusted out at an alarming rate in New England. These were the days of drooping headliners and cheap plastic door handles and window cranks that no amount of velour, brocade or overstuffed pillow seat cushions could compensate for.
Add to all that low compression, wheezy versions of formerly great engines (Slant Six, 318 V-8) that managed to deliver low horsepower AND poor gas mileage along with driveability issues and you have a truly disappointing automobile.
Right on Gene. The poor build quality and the propensity to rust within only a few years was appalling. My dad was a Pentastar brand supporter for 30 years – before the 1979 Diplomat sedan he purchased. Descended from the Aspen, to this day it was the worst family vehicle we ever had.
Those cars come with the metal door handles inside out, and window cranks are metal with plastic knobs. Some buttons on HVAC were initially plastic poorly put together, but to present a premier look, they used full metal buttons afterwards that I always hate to touch them in summer.
I don’t doubt the you’re right and my 65 year old memory is faulty about that point. On the other hand, I distinctly remember slicing my finger tip on the “chrome” plating that was peeling off the plastic HVAC buttons of an Aries. Doesn’t negate my perception of the less-than-stellar overall quality of these cars, particularly when compared to the great Chrysler products of 1965-70.
Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I wonder what the tooling costs were of ONE YEAR ONLY body panels when Chrysler Corp wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough to start with.
Peanuts. All they did was cover up the side rear window with a vinyl roof. I wouldn’t be surprised if the original larger rear side window is still in there 🙂
But that small change really does change the look quite a bit. That distinctive bent rear window is still very much accounted for.
Looks like a Monaco or Magnum with a botched nose job and rebadge to me. The RT looks exactly like something I may have done to my Festiva. Gt emblems from a Mustang and a couple of turbo emblems from that little Renault that as around a few (many) years back. It didn’t go faster but got some puzzled looks.
What about the “hips” – was that sheet metal shared with any other Mopar?
The 2 door LeBaron and Diplomat shared those rear quarters for 1977-78 and 79. Those coupes were a lot more stylish than the sedans, which looked like trimmed-up Aspens.
It’s nothing more than a glorified Dodge Aspen Coupe with a longer wheelbase.
I would expect an R/T badge to have a diagonal bar between the letters, but there is someone selling one on ebay that just reads RT. Supposedly it is for a Coronet or Dart.
I have a spare Acura “Legend” badge I’ve been tempted to put on my TSX for the past two years, as a tribute to its ancestor.
Go for it Brendan!!
Can’t do that, you would need an Acura RL or RLX, to use that Legend badge… Which the RL is the Honda Legend in Japan.
Although, I did put an SR-5 badge on my 83 Toyota Corolla 2 dr sedan, which this body style among the 5-6 iterations of E70 Corolla never came in the SR-5 trim.
So what do I know? Go have fun.
Sarcasm or – wasn’t there a Corolla SR-5 starting in 1981.5? To my knowledge it came as a coupe, fastback or lift back. I bought one of the first for sale in these parts….similar to this Google pic
Dave, read my post again, please. 😉
Yes, there was an SR-5 in the E70 lineup, but was only on the hatchback, and lift back for 1980… When the E70 was introduced in the US.
The SR-5 hardtop arrived in 1981, like yours… I know, I had an 82 gray/black hardtop SR-5, back around 1990. I miss that car.
The E70, also came in wagon, 4 dr sedan, and a 2 dr sedan from 1980-83… All of which did NOT get the SR-5 trim, unlike the hardtop, hatchback and liftback E70 models did.
I currently own two E70 Corolla 2 dr sedans, which never came as SR-5s. My 83 AE70 wears an SR-5 emblem from an 83 Tercel 4WD SR-5 wagon.
Dad, I’ve been invited duck hunting with Dick Cheney, what car should I bring. It should be understated but something special.
Take the Diplomat son, It definitely something special. It can easily stay under Uncle Paul’s radar for 35 years but Mopar awarded it a medallion. You think they just hand those out?
Great Dad! Uh, what should I do if Vice President Cheney gets a little hammered and starts shooting a little off target.
Well son that’s another thing great about the old Dippy. It really is a RT, with a 360 and the Lean Burning Edelbrock. Faster than a speeding misdirected bullet. Have fun.
Canadian offering ?
If it was a TRUE R/T, the letters would be stylized in red, with a slash between the “R” and the “T”.
Never seen a real Mopar R/T with plain, ugly letters like that. Not even a factory stripe scheme, like the 70’s Volare Road Runner? Which it woulda sold opposite to in Dodge dealerships.
Unlike the R/T badges on the muscle cars of the 1960’s which ostensibly stood for “Road and Track”, in this case I think it means “Really Terrible”. 😉
This car is from Mexico. There the Dart name was applied to the Real Dart’s successors known in the U.S. as the Aspen, Diplomat and Aries.
That thought crossed my mind, at the time, and since then. What about the “RT”?
Yes but wasn’t the Dart name used on the Aspen during this time?
That was not a one-year-only body style. 1977-1979 Chrysler M-bodies came as coupes, and the quarter glass consisted of two plugs: a larger opening and the smaller opening like the car found here, both of which could be found with and without the vinyl roof. There was no “R/T” or “RT” of any version…closest relative would be the Dodge Aspen R/T.
There was no R/T anything in 1979. Chrysler was into Salon and Medallion trims for everything then, and sport was o-u-t Out. I think that even the Aspen R/T was gone for 1979. Only the Lil Red Express version of the Dodge D-100 gave the buyer anything remotely resembling performance.
Was there not a hot (or perhaps “warm”) version of the Magnum in ’79?
There was definitely a warm version of the Cordoba, called the 300 in ’79. It had a hotter 4bbl 360 very similar to what the LRET was running, and for that MY, these 2 were some of the fastest rides from the Big 3. The LRET delivered respectable performance for its time and as I remember was the absolute fastest pickup you could buy at that time.
Yes, the Magnum GT.
Nice car. Interestingly, Chrysler did spend a bit on advertising the Magnum and ran a print ad campaign on the GT even though personal luxury was still big. Think about it, there were no sporty Cougars or Thunderbirds, and the Grand Prix and Monte Carlo’s sporty versions weren’t exactly well-known.
Doh! Forgot about the Magnum GT and the 300. Of course given their sales volumes, can I be blamed? 🙂
You guys forgot one more, the 78 Dodge Charger Daytona, that was offered alongside the Magnum, it’s debut year.
It had the powerful, for the time, 400 V8.
This would be the last year for the Cordoba based Charger, leaving the Magnum to take the reigns.
And I think we can even see where the letters to the left of the RT were cut off in that closeup of the nameplate. Every real Mopar “RT” I ever saw was actually “R/T”.
I thought this car looked familiar. I saw it for sale on the list of Craig down in Roseburg some while back. The added on guages inside confirm it. I like the bodystyle on these and the contemporary LeBaron coupe. Back in H.S, one of the guys from the meat counter where I worked picked up one of these LeBarons in emerald green. It had duals with glasspacks and a California rake going on. More show than go, but hey you work with what ya got. It was a neat looking car, and different from the 10 billion late 70s GM F bodies done the same way.
hang on, somewhere I have a pic of an 81 Omni Superbird. Rare car…
HA! Good one!
That can’t be as bad as that 1 of 1 AAR Hemi Reliant K. Lol
My guess is that the spanners and broken grille were due to the hood catch breaking off the cheap plastic mounting and the owner needing to fish it out to add a quart of oil. This happened to EVERY F and M body I’ve ever owned or had the pleasure of working on, which was why you never saw a ’78-79 Aspen or Volare with the grille intact.
Hmmmmmmmmm you know when I looked at a 1987 Diplomat at an auction the hood refused to open by pulling the release. Was this a common problem on the old M and F body vehicles?
Who remembers the 1980 Plymouth Turismo Spyder? A show car modified to resemble a Ferrari 308GTS ! True story! I’ve got a photo of it with Lee Iacocca resting his foot on the rear bumper.
Nice find. I’d forgotten how Buick-like the face of these was. I’m also struck my how much the hips resemble those on the flanks of the current Ram pick-up. Plus ça change….
The closest things to a Diplomat RT would be an Aspen R/T, or a Diplomat optioned with the heavy-duty suspension and the 360.
I remember the 2-door body style, but not the Monte Carlo-inspired opera window or quarter panel sculpting.
Wow, with that roof treatment the ’77 – ’79 body looks a LOT like the revised ’80 model with the wrong front clip.
Not a big fan of this roof option, but it was probably a purposeful transition to the ’80 body.
The ’79……
The ’80 body……
Chrysler’s lame response to the better selling A/G body Monte Carlo/Regal/Grand Prix/Cutlass Supreme.
They even tried to copy their formal roofline.
The 1980-81 version coupes, look like uglier imitation Buick Regals, even the tail lights.
Notice, the coupe still didn’t sell well, that the Le Baron switched to the FWD K platform in 1982.
My 2014 Elantra has a 4.6 liter V-8.
…..not really.
Ya been punked, Paul. My research also shows NO R/T for Diplomat in 1979. Aspen had one that year, but it had big call-outs on the side of the front fenders, none on the grille. Use those wrenches and take it off……
No worries, Larry. It probably will fall off by itself before long. 😉
No R/Ts in that platform. The car isn’t the best design but, I do see potential in this car. Per granted this is a Lebaron but, you get the idea.
The fetching blue color really helps! Not a fan of vinyl roofs of any type, but the white does look great with the blue.
Remember looking at a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron Medallion after my Volvo got wrecked on Lawrence Ave. Same body, same roof, very attractive, even had leather on the Sable Tan Sunfire one I was looking at. Fake straps on the trunk too. Figured it would be chic bait. Would have had to park overnight on the mean streets of Chicago though. Took the bus into the Loop everyday anyway. Bought an old Opel Manta instead. Glad I did.
My idea was to have a personal luxury coupe with a 4-speed stick. Didn’t want a racer. Both the Dodge and Chrysler came with a floor shift standard. Medallion trim could be had on either. Had to really shop around for that kind of car even back then. Next to impossible now. Was ready to buy the LeBaron if I had a better place to park.
Ha ha! Looks like one of your rental tenants is messing with you. Next thing you know they’ll have a 72 AMC Hornet Hermes edition parked out front.
The immediate giveaway for me: The models designated as such were never “RT”, always R/T.
Dodge Aspen-ish.
Nope.
What is so unusual? I have a Honda Civic Si Hybrid EV.
These were pretty nice cars; we had them in our fleet up in South Burlington when I drove them as transporter for Hertz in 1977-1978. For some reason I remember several trips in these down to Harold’s Gulf in Montpelier (the shortest mileage trip we did, maybe 45 miles one way?). We also had the sedan version, and one time I actually got to drive a Magnum, my favorite of the bunch (it was green, like a lot of cars around this time).
I’m a bit of an odd duck in having owned only 4 cars in my 45 years as licensed driver…of course I drove parents cars (my Dad owned quite a few different ones) as well as relatives and friends, but my car vocabulary as it is for different models was firmly established in those 2 years at Hertz. Back then Fords were predominant, but MOPAR was probably 2nd, followed by a few GM (mostly Omegas and Novas but an Impala once) and even one AMC Pacer. Imports were still rare then, drove Toyota Corolla liftback and Datsun 510 (the later 70’s one)….my car at the time was a 1974 Datsun 710. Got stopped at the Canadian border a lot, a 19 year old driving a late model Thunderbird always got his trunk inspected, guess I fit a profile or two.
Sometimes wish I’d bought something like the Diplomat back then; I did buy a couple of 2 door cars, both VWs, but somehow didn’t consider these were endangered and soon to be no longer available. But the early 80’s were still uncertain for gas availability, so I stuck with smaller cars, but one of these would have been fun, even at 22% interest rate on the loan I’d probably have on it back then.
Found this site trying to research this “Diplomat RT” for sale, this is a 1977. Different badging then in this article… given the hood pins, aftermarket tach, etc. seems like possibly another owner modification?!?
Pic #2
Pic #3