(first posted 11/22/2015) The last Dodge Aries was built in December 1989. The PT Cruiser was launched in April of 2000. In that span of just over ten years, a lot of change took place, obviously. These two almost perfectly represent the old and new, design-wise: One is low and boxy; the other is tall and curvaceous. If the PT Cruiser had been available with AWD, it would have been a CUV and a real trailblazer. But even as it was, it represented a clean break with the Iaccoca-mobiles of the past. And although it sold well, the PT Cruiser never succeeded in its intended role.
As much as the K-cars broke new ground for Chrysler, design-wise, they were still thinking inside the box, literally. They were slightly updated versions of the appliance-school of design as so successfully employed by the late 60s and early 70s Valiant and Dart sedans. Chrysler didn’t want to risk scaring its traditional buyers any more than necessary, given the all-new FWD architecture underneath. Chevy took a more adventurous route with its hatchback Citation, and buyers couldn’t get enough of them, until it bit back. Is that why mid-sized hatchbacks died along with the Citation? The very safely-styled A-Bodies based on the X-Body made folks feel it was ok to head back to their GM dealer; well, the more loyal or masochistic ones, anyway.
Cars like the K-cars and the GM A-Bodies were built for so long without any major changes that they inevitably became associated with older folks, who tend to like familiar shapes. That continuity also made for much more reliable cars than average, for American cars, and the later years of these K cars are veritable Cockroaches of the Roads™, along with those A-Bodies.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to see an actual roach in this car. That’s quite the hole in the seat. Speaking of, this later version has bucket seats, but the early versions came with a genuine bench seat, ostensibly to be able to seat six. As if.
The rear seat is intact, and three Great Depression-Era adults would probably have been quite happy there, as it’s substantially wider than the cars of the thirties.
This is a 1985 or later refresh vintage Reliant. Starting in 1986, the optional Mitsubishi 2.6 four was gone, replaced by Chrysler’s own 2.5 four, along with the base 2.2, upon which it was of course based. They were humble engines in their natural aspirations, and mostly durable ones, although not without their faults in the early years.
I mostly shot the Reliant, as I have a hard time thinking about PT Cruisers as CCs yet. In fact, we’ve never done a full CC on one, and today is not the day. But let’s give it a few moments of consideration.
The PT Cruiser was heavily inspirde by the Plymouth Pronto concept of 1997. It was part of an ambitious plan to revive Plymouth with a fresh new face as well as new products. The Prowler gave a cue as to the direction stylistically, but the Pronto was more significant in terms of its package. It was decidedly tall, likely influenced by the Japanese “tall boy” phenomena. Chrysler’s CCV from 1997 also pointed to this direction upwards, one seen as a critical component of the Pronto’s appeal to younger buyer, who was not about to buy grandma’s low-rider Reliant.
The production PT Cruiser’s design is credited to Brian Nesbitt, who later did the Chevy HHR. It was supposed to be a Plymouth, but after the ill-fated “merger of equals” with Daimler, Plymouth was not considered a safe bet for investment/resuscitation. So somewhat oddly, the PT Cruiser became a Chrysler. But it was a big hit, and some 1.35 million were built world-wide, including in Austria at the Steyr-Magna plant that built a number of Chrysler and Jeep products. The Euro PT Cruiser was available with a 2.2 L Mercedes diesel. 1.6 and 2.0 L gas fours were also used on oversees versions. The US Cruisers came with the 2.4 L engine from the new family of Chrysler fours that replaced the K-Car family fours. Turbo versions were also available, with a variety of ratings from 180 – 235 hp.
The PT Cruiser was classified as a van, so that its EPA fuel economy ratings could lift the low ratings of Chrysler’s large vans.
While the PT Cruiser sold well, ironically it tended to sell best with an older demographic. Once they tried getting into one with their aging joints, the realized what suckers they had been, buying into Detroit’s “longer, lower” mantra for all those decades. I tried to get my dad to buy one for my mom, unsuccessfully. She would have loved it, especially getting in and out, compared the challenges of doing so in her low Saturn Ion.
My brother, who very mechanically inclined, had a used PT Cruiser for a while. One day it died while on a trip, and it took him quite a while to diagnose the problem, given the inconsistent symptoms in different cylinders. It turned out to be a broken camshaft; it just snapped in two.
The PT Cruiser was the first popular American car to go tall (other than trucks, SUVs and vans), and as such was a trail blazer. If Chrylser had morphed it into a CUV, it might well still be with us today.
More:
CC 1983 Dodge Aries: The K Car Saves Chrysler
The CC Comprehensive Chronology of the Chrysler K Car Family Tree
Nice comparo. Back in the day I rented a number of Ks (and, one time) a PT Cruiser. Although the Ks were not something I would have been likely to own, they were pleasant to drive and very roomy. For some reason as well, I seem to have thing for Squaremobiles like this; I’m a big fan of late-’60s Valiants, Rambler Americans and the like.
The PT Cruiser, on the other hand, always left me cold. The faux-retro styling and hunched back are ungainly, and a car this size ends up being unfortunately reminiscent of a clown car. I was unaware of (or forgot) its relation to the Pronto concept, and for me the Pronto is the one that should have been produced (although I could do without the pencil-mustache bumpers).
In 1984 I had a Plymouth Reliant as a company car, it was a 4-door model the same color as the one in the photo but had the bench seat.
This was the worst car I’d ever dealt with. Fresh from the dealer it started falling apart almost immediately. It was very prone to randomly dying on the road and frequently had to be towed. It was no joy when running either, underpowered with (to be charitable) mediocre ride and handling. (Of course given the company’s fleet at the time I might well have wound up with a Chevy Citation. Guess they were gluttons for punishment!)
At least Rambler Americans and Plymouth Valiants were usually reliable!
The owner of this car is a god damn savage. First of all the hole in the seat appears to be cut for a bottle to fit neatly between the legs when driving. I suspect the owner is cheap & not too bright? Second there are after market brake pedal rubber pads made by HELP for such purposes. The front ashtray is missing hence the ciggy butts on the floor. A cheap center hump console from the same auto parts store would have worked to hold his cup holder ashtray & his beverages. A plastic bag over the passenger side headrest could hold the trash. The hole in the grill was cut to get to the hood release. Rather than let a garage do the job he did a hack job on it. A full set of hubcaps from the same auto parts store would help with appearances? Lastly keeping the car clean & waxed wasn’t in this person’s wheel house either. I waxed cars even if they were heaps. Living in the northeast & snow. All I had to do was start pushing the snow sheet off on one side & the momentum of the push made the snow slide off the car. It worked wonders on the hood,roof & trunk.
I’ll have to admit, when the PT Cruiser came out, I was quite impressed with them. I really liked the interior as well. As time went by though, they really did seem to age quickly, and already are becoming few and far between. Strange how a camshaft would snap in half like that, I did once have the same thing happen in a 1600 cc dual port VW engine in a ’71 Super Beetle I bought for a quick (I thought) resale. Do you recall how many miles were on your brothers PT when the cam broke, Paul? The K cars never really impressed me much, I always thought they looked so cheaply built. But over time it seems they have proven to be fairly durable, it seems.
Now I see what’s always bothered me with the K-car design. Half of the car looks like normal, the other half looks trunkated. The front of the car up to the B-pillar looks normal sized, everything after the B-pillar looks like they took a normal sized car and squeezed it all together. It acutally looks like someone made a photoshop layer and just squeezed the entire rear of the car, thus shortening it with perhaps half a metre or so. Couldn’t someone in the photoshop crowd just make it right and drag the proportions right again?
In the early ’80s, when economy and efficiency was the priority, it just turned out that way.
Those cars are really roomy but the roof looks so horrible.
Yup in the early 1980’s it was about price, interior space and fuel economy. In 1981 when these came out, they sold well(after Ma Mopar got its act together and offered K cars for the price promised instead of K Cars loaded with options and jacked up prices) because for the low price customers got a lot of interior space and good fuel economy. This was a blessing for young families. Sure they were odd looking and a bit crude but they were much better value then the Honda Accord of the same era and getting out of the Aries K sedan did not feel like you were stepping out of an ergonomic nightmare clown car like the Accord.
I talked to few people coming to the US in the ’80s, from either China or Soviet, where they remembered how pathetic cars were in those communism counties, and hearing about the better US cars all the time ( mostly diplomat vehicles like bigger Chrysler, Lincoln and Cadillac ) They were quite shocked about how ugly cars looked on the street in the US at the time, even when compared to fairy dated cars like Volga from Soviets. What a disappointment.
Ingvar, see if this is what you had in mind…
That definitely helps. The back of the door doesn’t look right to my eyes on either version, but that length makes the car look a lot nicer.
Wow, that’s a dramatic improvement! I doubt it would a cost that much more in dollars or mpg if they had been built this way. It’s certainly better than the stretched “K”s. But since they sold a gillion of them as is, I guess they didn’t have to.
All he needs is an upgrade to Dodge 600.
But strangely enough the Dodge 600 and Plymouth Caravelle didn’t sell all that well, not nearly as well as the Aries/Reliant even though in many ways they were nicer and roomier. Go figure.
Exactly what I was thinking. There was a longer, better-proportioned K-car, and it was the 600/Caravelle. I’m not sure why those didn’t sell–priced too high perhaps?
Or a Lancer…
Lancer. The biggest POS car I ever owned. And I am a big Mopar fan. I got it from my mother when she quit driving. She had bought it new and had problems with it since it was new although I never heard anything about them until after I got it. The timing belt broke shortly after I got it, it had been replaced just 10,000 miles before. Put 2 more in in 30,000 miles. The window regulators gave up the ghost and it would be $400.00 a window to replace. My mother had had them repaired 3 times in the 14 years she owned the car. Various other things needed repairs that shouldn’t have on a well maintained 14 years old car with 80,000 miles. Finally gave it to my son who promptly got rear ended in it and got way more than the car was worth IMO and got to keep the car. I have had at least one Mopar from 1973 till 2012, after I got this car in 2000 I never bought another Mopar. Now own all Fords(4) and none of them has given me anywhere near the grief that the Dodge Lancer did. Not that I am a Ford fan by any stretch of the imagination, they just ended up being cheap cars that I bought and ended up being reliable and inexpensive to maintain transportation. 20-25 years ago if you would have told me all my cars today would be Fords, I would have told you you’re crazy.
Ahh, just as I thought: a Volare ! Good work.
Something like that. Thanks! 🙂
Proportioning is an endlessly fascinating subject. And taken side by side, the original looks extremely truncated now. What has been seen can not be unseen….
The front half of the K car looks very similar to a 1978 Ford Fairmont
Now that I look at it, I wonder how much the front overhang was stretched when they rounded the nose off in the midcycle refresh.
Heh. It’s practically my first car and my second car. First car was an ’87 LeBaron sedan – the reliant with a vinyl roof and a waterfall grill (and a bench seat). My second car was a red PT Cruiser much like that one.
I know people question the looks of the K car, but the interior pictures remind us how roomy they were. This was a package 6 inches shorter in wheelbase and length than a current Corolla. The 96 cubic feet of interior room was only one less than an 86 Taurus. It weighed 500 pounds less than either one. I miss this type of efficiency.
Chrysler K-car is very roomy and efficient, and fairly reliable ( if optioned properly ) and it is a far superior people hauler than nowadays popular Corolla, Camry, Accord ( in terms of space, efficiency and maintaining cost. parts are pretty cheap on K-car and quite the opposite on imports ) but it really looks horribly squeezed and really dull. And I think when Detroit car companies realized that, they prefer to trade quite a chunk of efficiency for styling anyway, unless the economy is that bad ( remember how popular Focus was around 08-10? )
I always thought the K-cars were fairly decent if uninspired looking. An interesting comparison would be a K wagon and the PT Cruiser. I say that because I almost bought a Reliant wagon.
As far as the PTs go, just yesterday I saw 3 of them, 1 a turbo convertible. For the moment, I look at Cruiser convertibles like I do older VW convertibles. That is, good looking, okay driver’s that aren’t really all that sporty.
The K-cars had some of the most comfy bucket seats ever built by Detroit. The split bench with armrest was also pretty good – the base bench seat not so much. There were a lot of K-cars in my family in the ’90s so I experienced all three. These cars were pretty well built, much more reliable than the X-cars and also very simple to repair. They were also very roomy.
Never driven a PT Cruiser and not really a fan of them. They look way too tall and ungainly to my eye. I also hear they have reliability issues.
Roaches of the Roads™… Really? I think I may have heard of something similar to that once before… 😉
Eh, the Cockroach of the Road® designation changes from time to time, and from whatever vehicles populate your area. Oddly, this past Labor Day, I traveled to Geneva on the Lake and Ashtabula, Ohio, only to find a local former Suzuki dealer must have been stackin’ em deep and selling ’em cheap… I’ve never seen so many Kizashis in driveways… ever!
There was a posting on the other site the other day about follow ups to “stylish” cars; the PT was one of the cars mentioned. I liked the idea of the PT Cruiser, I thought it was one way to get an original sized minivan again, but without sliding doors. While never owning one, I’ve driven several, other than the comically bad fuel mileage on freeway trips, I can’t say anything else bad about them.
I think that if Chrysler had followed up with a production car in 2005-2006 that aped the Pronto Concept in every way, they would have had a successful second act to the PT. But, I don’t believe that Daimler would have let that happen.
The true successor to the PT, the Chevy HHR, was a little better in terms of interior space utilization and somewhat less beholden to novelty styling. I think that once GM realized that Daimler was not going to update the PT ever, there was no need to have a 2nd gen HHR.
As it was, the Compass/Patriot/Caliber triplets were designed to replace the PT, but they didn’t do a very good job of it. Nothing produced now by FCA competes in the same area as the PT did. Maybe if FCA would revive the Hornet Concept of a few years ago…
Oh my god, I loved the Hornet concept! It may be because I’m smack in the middle of that particular demographic, but that concept spoke to me like few things before. It was an American Mini, in a way, but without aping it and becoming a Mini-Me. I think that could’ve stood a good chance in that crowd, especially considering the relative success of cars like the Fiat 500. It was a pity they didn’t go through with it, they could’ve had all those Fiat 500 customers before that car even appeared.
Yes, I was hoping it would happen. IIRC, Chrysler was in talks with Geely of China to produce this car. It would have been the Mini, 500 and the Scion xB (I forget what it is internationally. I think it’s still a Daihatsu) all rolled into one.
Good point about what would be competition with the Nuovo 500. I doubt they would seriously consider any competition to the heart and soul of Fiat.
I liked the Hornet too. Turbo engine, clamshell doors, and a useful bodystyle. Whats not to like? In SRT-4 trim, I liked the Caliber a lot too, but this is WAY better.
The Fiat 500L (Popemobile or not) strikes me as being a second-generation PT Cruiser in everything but name and grille.
I for one really like the K’s. I’m not a zealot about it, but I do rather fondly recall my grandparents’ 83 K-based New Yorker, which was followed by an ’87 LeBaron GTS turbo and then an ’89 New Yorker. Growing up my grandfather was a staunch Mopar man, and since my dad’s best friend owned a Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge and later Jeep dealership we always had no less than two Chrysler products in the extended family fleet. These cars and their derivatives were fairly serviceable little units during the middle of their run. I’ve had extensive experience with a number of them, and plenty of time spent with the 2.2 and 2.5 litre fours, the Mitsubishi sourced 2.6, and (unfortunately) the 3.0 litre V6 mayed to the not-so-fondly remembered Chrysler “slip-o-matic”. Generally these cars performed their duties admirably, even if in questionable style, and they were comfortable and reasonably well-mannered in and old-school yet new-fangled kind of way. There’s really no mystery as to why they were indeed the cars that saved Chrysler.
It would be hard to overstate the “K”s value to Chrysler, In fact I could say that it was the most important platform of it’s era considering all the cars (and vans) it became. Fords Fox and Falcon platforms spawned a lot of models, but nothing like the insane variety of uses MOPAR put the “K” to.
I think the Falcon spread to a lot more models than the whole of the K’s and their derivatives. If you think about it, the Falcon chassis was introduced in MY (model year) 1960, the last derivatives of it were being sold as late as MY1979 (here in the US). I think in South America, they were sold well into the early 1990’s.
The K car, introduced MY 1981, with the last derivatives ending production in MY 1995. If you go through the list of all of the Falcon derivations compared to the K derivations, the Falcon outnumbers the K handily. And that’s just in North America!
The 1980s FWD K-Cars Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries had a nine year run but had spawned off many models including its near twins the Chrysler Le Baron and Dodge 400 through their FWD K-Car replacements such as the Plymouth Acclaim and Dodge Spirit and different models based on the K-Car platform such as the Generations I and II Plymouth Voyager/Dodge Caravan and Dodge Daytona and Chrysler Laser (not to be confused with the Mitsubishi Eclipse badge engineered Plymouth Laser). The cab forward styling replaced the FWD K Cars and some of their derivatives such as the Dodge Spirit/Plymouth Acclaim with Dodge Stratus/Plymouth Breeze and Dodge Shadow/Plymouth Sundance with the Dodge/Plymouth Neon. The Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler Neon platform were actually used as the basic architecture for the Chrysler PT Cruiser. I have posted here were just some of the Mitsubishi based late 1970s-late 1980s Dodge Products, their similarly sized FWD K-Cars and then their future replacements afterwards all the way to the Fiat based Dodge Dart.
These were the Dodge Neon’s 4 Door Sedan predecessors and successors and their similarly sized Mitsubishi based companions.
Same as above, but Two Door Coupe or Hatchback versions.
I still see plenty of K-cars and PT Cruisers around these parts (Vancouver Island). In fact, I would dare to say that I come across a K-car every day in my travels to work and back and certainly not just the same one car. The late production units definitely had all the kinks ironed out and clearly demonstrate solid build quality given production ended over 25 years ago. My aunt & my grandparents both owned well optioned Reliants in the same light blue color as in the example.
The early models were testy and certainly you do not see very many of the ‘extra boxy’ variety these days. I recall the 2 bbl carburetors being rather finicky and certainly our 1985 Reliant that was equipped with one was not a shining example of reliability and proved to be a frustrating car for my parents. Once the 2.2L gained fuel injection and the 2.5L came along as the option, these cars were virtually bullet proof and a good, economical choice, even if the styling was getting long in the tooth by then.
I never warmed up to the PT Cruiser. It’s just not my thing.
According to Google – Wikipedia, Since the Chrysler Neon based PT Cruiser was discontinued after 2009 due to Chrysler’s Financial Woes just divorced from Daimler (Mercedes Benz parent company) and as the country was headed into the Great Recession, the future replacements were not immediate until Fiat became new partners and now owners of Chrysler Corporation as well. The 2014 Fiat 500L became supposedly as the future indirect replacement for the Chrysler PT Cruiser.
Just a quick and unfinished Photoshop, what do you think about this hypothesis of a 500L based PT Cruiser?
I think the PT Cruiser’s retro styling and tall packaging were trend setting, but it wouldn’t have been a trailblazing AWD CUV even if it had AWD. Toyota got there in 1994 with the RAV4 in Japan, and they were common sights on US roads by early 1997.
I remember lots of K-cars shedding their bumper paint to reveal yellow material beneath. What was it, some choice of fiberglass resin? Can’t recall other cars doing the same.
I didn’t mean in terms of being the first. I meant in terms of styling: the early CUVs like the Rav4 and such looked like shrunken SUVs. The PT Cruiser predicts the current styling of today’s CUVs with their curvaceous lines and such and general packaging.
Methinks it might be primer Although I have no idea about cars, I’ve seen enough worn, burnt, or rubbed-off paint on tractors and equipment to expose the primer underneath, and it’s always a dull yellow.
Fox body Mustangs have the same phenomenon with their front and rear bumper covers… yellow underneath the paint… I always assumed it was the actual material showing through.
It is the bumper surface. It’s polyurethane.
I wondered when the PT Cruiser would show up… we’ve had one for 6 years now.
The wife always wanted a purple PT, so we found a 72,000 mile example in the summer of ’09. It’s a Touring Edition, so it has some features. LOTS of these cars buzzing around western Washington.
So… what do I think? I kinda like driving the damn thing. It has a bit of a knock of not being that masculine in character. Decent driving car, though. It shares components with the sporty Neon. Wish it was a 5-speed, though. Interior layout is logical and the seats are comfy enough for a long drive. I drove the Cascade Loop without my legs falling asleep. (I have a bad back.) It basically drives like a slightly heavier Neon. Just a bit slower and a bit less in fuel economy due to the bigger body. We recorded 26.75 mpg on said trip. Still, it’s a tidy size and easy to drive and park.. Wanna go fast? there’s plenty of aftermarket goodies for these things. We’ve put about 50,000 miles on this thing, mostly happy. The water pump did let go a couple of years after we bought it. We had the timing belt done as a preventative measure at the same time. The other problem took some figuring out. Apparently a multi-function switch on these cars (turn signal, fog lamp, lights…) can malfunction and slowly kill the battery. Two shops couldn’t figure it out. It took me finding a PT fan forum to figure this out. Seriously… if something is hard to figure out on your car, someone is a fan of it and has a site for it.
Negative stuff? That round little nose makes the engine really hard to work on. I’m fairly capable with tools, but this car is hard to deal with, therefore me taking the car to a shop for the water pump. Need to replace the alternator? Gonna have to pop the lower control arm and spindle loose on the passenger side. Really?… Driving the car is fun, but it brings up…” behavioral problems” in other drivers. People do not like being behind me in this car, even if I’m exceeding the speed limit. Aiming their car at me in intersections, behavior I don’t get subject to when driving my Ranger or Impala or whatever. Small car vs. truck mentality.
It’s a decent car. My wife likes it because it looks like a ’38 Ford, doesn’t burn a ton of gas, and has been relatively reliable.
My $.02.
For as popular as they were when new, PTs are pretty rare on the road around here. I always thought the K car variants were okay, My ’90 Dodge Caravan was better than my ’96 Town and Country. I liked the interior detailing of the PT but was disappointed in the low fuel economy when I rented one for the weekend.
Another concept in the mix was the coupe styled Pronto Cruiser. This has a lot of the final PT’s lines in it also.
The hole in the seat in the Aries looks strategically placed to hold a beer can. As for the mention of roaches likely being in this car, I’d check the ash tray first.
I knew it couldn’t have just been accidental; thanks for clarifying it.
Great comparison on two notable cars! Very well written!
I loved my PT…trading it for my Ram was stupid. But I didn’t want to empty my savings account either. Still, for the 4 years I had it, it was a great car. Mine was a ’03 GT 5spd and obviously I rubbed quite a bit of my own stank on it…COAL will come eventually. These cars benefit tremendously from a suspension upgrade, since even with the first year 215hp HO turbo, the car is a beast. The stock GT suspension is nowhere near adequate for the power these cars have, even stock. I went with an Eibach pro plus which dumped the car about 2″ overall (the stock wheel gap in the rear on these is horrible), it added a rear swaybar and upgraded the front swaybar. Handled like a go-kart…and Ive always felt that’s how these should have been from the start. These could’ve been Chrysler’s Mini and GTI all rolled into one with a more practical bodystyle.
If I came across another GT 5spd in a good color and in clean condition….Id have to bite. These things are completely underrated and make good sleepers.
Man, that’s a big cigarette burn hole in the driver’s seat.
That aside, a picture of a K-car and PT Cruiser on the street exemplifies Chrysler in so many ways. Even though they were part of Detroit’s ‘Big 3’, Chrysler always seemed to lurch along alternately between success and bankruptcy throughout what seems like their entire history, just like an independent that would otherwise succumb to market forces and go belly-up. IOW, the ultimate automotive beautiful loser.
Paul,
Just for kicks I ran a Carfax on the Reliant using its Oregon tag number.
It’s a 1986. I believe that by ’86, all K-Car variants utilized fuel injection. Can somebody attest to this?
PJ I think you are correct here. Fuel injection became an option for the ’85 model year and standard for ’86, though it was TBI not multi-point. It always amazes me that during this period car makers went to so much effort to downsize their vehicles and build new, lightweight platforms, but seemed to pay so little attention to the fuel system which would have had a huge impact on fuel economy, emissions compliance and driveability.
Chrysler (and for that matter AMC) had negative experiences with electronic fuel injection in the late 1950s that may have made them a bit gun-shy.
Yes, TBI was standard for 1986.
1985 was a bit of a mixed up year… new front & rear fascia, but the 2.2L still came standard with the 2 bbl carb and it was the last year for the Mitsubishi 2.6L four… and 1985s also have the same rear door/window configuration as the 1st generation where the smaller “non functional” window panel is quite thick… in 1986, it was reduced in size… and this was the same until 1989.
As far as I can tell, the 5th-gen (1992) Honda Civic was the first mass-market car to be taller than the model it replaced. Not like they could’ve made it any lower than the 3rd/4th were.
Most of the cab-forward Chryslers and certainly the original Neon also were; by MY2000 it was a full-on trend graphically illustrated to me by a coworker who had the first Ford Focus ZX3 in town and often parked next to another’s late-90s Escort wagon. The outgoing wagon was lower, roof rails and all, than the new sporty “coupe”.
My experience with the PT was that it was a very “tight” car, solid and rigid. But the egg shaped interior was not very efficient for its size, and the car leaned horribly in high speed sweepers, like it was going to turn turtle on me. All of the interior parts (seats, steering wheel, dashboard) seemed about 7/8s scale, like an old 70s Japanese subcompact. A low roof brow over the windshield made overhead traffic signals impossible to see without crouching down (the HHR had the same problem). Power was adequate in my 5 speed, but not lively. The engine room was very tightly packed, and the shift linkage bushings finally failed on me, as they did in all of the shifty PTs. A kludge of metal washers, rubber bits, and cotter pins, suggested on the Internet, saved me from hundreds of dollars of new shift cables. I actually found the Neon to be a superior car in just about every way.
I never thought of GM actually, literally, plotting to sour Americans on mid-sized hatches. Until now!
I have thought of GM plotting to sour Americans on diesel cars with the half-built Olds model. Wonder if I’m alone in that.
Looking at the interior photos of the Aries (what happened to those of us born under another star sign?) I am struck by the many different colours and textures visible.
Assuming this interior is original but worn, the rear pillar does not match with the A pillar, which doesn’t appear to match with anything, the front doors have a different finish (carpet?) at bottom to the rears, the black and seemingly texture free (or smooth finish) dash clashes with just about everything, including the steering wheel and column, the front footwells have a strange light blue finish that is not matched anywhere.
An interesting time capsule, or do north American cars still show variety in the respect?
What you’re looking at is probably 30 years of sun-induced fading on the various interior surfaces, resulting in a motley array of colors. Except for the dash, of course.
This also happened in late 70’s and early to mid 80’s GM cars, except sooner. The tan interior plastics on our Malibu had faded into a wide array of shades by the late 80’s, some of which turned from tan to pink. At least the seats stayed the same color…until I got a seat cover for the front seat, which proceeded to pull the same “fade to pink” trick.
Roger, are you serious?
This is a 30 year old beater, and some of the different plastics/vinyls have aged differently. That’s an extremely common thing from materials that old. And obviously, some of the materials were meant to be different in the first place.
Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but your question about American cars today comes off as condescending (or clueless). Instead of asking, why don’t you just go to any American car manufacturer’s web site and look at what the interiors are like. Do you even read our not infrequent reviews of current cars here at CC? You think anyone would build an interior like in a 30 year old K car now? Seriously?
How would you react/answer if I asked you if current British car interiors are still like the ones in a beater daily-driver Montego?
I almost bought a PT when they first came out – even had an order number to track it’s production. I liked that it was smallish but a hatch, had fun and fairly coherent styling, and most importantly was available with a manual. The manuals were rare though, especially early on.
That was the first car I really researched on thre Internet, and I finally found one at a dealer in New Mexico (I’m in California). I was about ready to flythere and road trip back with my 2 year old – he was calm for his age – but I got cold feet due to worry about registering. I regret that now, would have been an adventure. I ultimately put a deposit on one at a more local dealer. But it never got made before I lost interest. I still have one of the promotional Matchbox-sized ones that Chrysler sent out though.
Ever see a house with an interior so focused on matching every item in each room that it ends up looking more like a hotel lobby than a house? This can happen with cars too. A designer can go too far. The PT Cruiser, the 1996 Ovoid Taurus, Nissan Cube, the New Beetle, Chevy HHR, all took a good thing and ran it into the ground in execution. The Pronto isn’t committed to the PT Cruiser retro look. So, it doesn’t look retro.
Consequently, the generation attracted to the PT Cruiser retro look, bought it. Seniors were thrilled with them. My mom’s friend giggled every time she showed up at our house in her PT Cruiser. My mom was nutty over the New Beetle and the Thunderbird. These car designs triggered something that really made this generation happy.
But today, I see these cars sitting in high school lots. My kids aren’t old enough to drive yet, but I asked them if they thought the PT Cruisers were cool. They couldn’t care less either way. They talked about wanting a Tesla or a pick up.
My ’85 Reliant took me over 300,000 kms before another familiy member took it over. It was mostly dependable, but it didn’t like to give long life to its fuel pumps. They always came out looking burnt on the sender end. Perhaps I gave it too many RPMs on a regular basis, although I was told later to never let the gas tank get below half.
A friend’s wife had PT Cruiser, and she quite liked it. Another vehicle, a truck I think, ran in to it, and it was totalled. They said the PT was very spacious and utlitarian inside, and never gave them problems.
If I recall, I think the PT borrowed most of its dash from the Neon. That’s just a visual recollection.
What bugged me most about this vehicle was the stupid name. Part Time Cruiser? What? I bet the name hindered sales—I for one would have been embarrassed to drive a car called a “PT Cruiser.” I mean, come on. That’s just dumb.
I’m not sure I follow. They produced more than a million of these over a ten year production run, and did so without ever updating the sheetmetal significantly. They were a fairly hot item when they first came out, and Chrysler was able to keep moving them… mostly as rental cars when they started getting a bit stale in the later years.
I don’t feel that the name was out of line with the intended mission of these vehicles. I believe they were part of a larger plan to revitalize the Plymouth division in the later 1990’s (along with the Prowler), but then they decided to kill Plymouth right around the time these actually came out. It ended up not really being a Plymouth, and definitely not being a truck, but then again, these vehicles sort of went out of their way to eschew conventionality, at least as far as styling was concerned. Not really my style, but they certainly DID find approval with many.
FWIW- There actually have been legitimate Plymouth branded trucks at various times over the years.
Just occurred to me I should do a Wikipedia check to see what it means. So, apparently the “PT” stood for “Plymouth Truck.” Again: what??
I though it was an internal code meaning P platform, Tall. But most people thought the letters stood for “Personal Transportation “.
Wow just realized reading this I havent seen a running PT Cruiser in quite a while where did they go I guess being Neon based they just vanished like those did.
I just saw a running PT Cruiser today. In my driveway!
The PT Cruiser did not succeed in its intended role, which was to save Plymouth. The assassination by Daimler ended that.