So I’m driving on my way to the airport to return my rental before my flight back to El Salvador, and what do I see parked by the curbside? None other than a late 1980s K-Car, a Dodge Aries of all things. When was the last time I saw one? And when was the last time you saw one?
But there, on the other side of the street, it was. A nowadays rare remnant of Chrysler’s life-saving FWD K-platform. Once upon a time, the most mundane and common of sightings but now awfully thin on the ground. The kind of stuff CC is all about.
So what if I delivered my rental a few minutes late?
Parking around my old SF neighborhood is never the easiest of things, still, I think the detour was worth the trouble. After all, the last sighting of one of these on the Cohort dates to a few years. At least as far as the good ol’ US is concerned. (A few more show up in Canada, as usual. Do Canadians give their cars better care?)
This old Aries looks complete, yet worn, with a paint that has faded in the way many 1980s cars did back in the day. Elsewhere, the K has minimal rust and the hubcaps are a mix of missing and mismatched. So a beater, by all evidence.
So, this K is definitely a survivor. But how much of one? It looks to be a recent arrival on this section of the sidewalk, but it already has at least a parking ticket/notice that is somewhat faded. Not good…
Does the old Aries K still run? Has it stopped doing so? Or, considering it may belong to someone far from youthful, has it even outlived its owner?
Whatever the case, I fear this old K-car may soon be towed away, and these photos will be the last to register its existence.
Should you care to know, this generation of K-car with the ’85-’89 bookends refresh is the one most familiar to me. A quite common car with Puerto Rican government employees that I saw often in the parking grounds of the Justice System offices Mom worked at. The most innocuous of American offerings, wrapped in 1980s aerodynamic FWD efficiency and which served its transportation duties unassumingly.
And as we know at CC, these commonest of cars, once thick on the roads, eventually become the unliKeliest of survivors.
The whole K-car saga has quite a few chapters, and it’s certainly filled with a few unexpected episodes and even some heroic antics (most covered at CC, of course). It’s a story of growth, self-correction, and perseverance, against the great odds the Pentastar faced in the late ’70s early ’80s.
And while I’ve noticed plusher K-car derivatives like LeBarons and New Yorkers have reached our days in slightly larger numbers, it’s good to find a humbler version of the platform from which they all sprouted. Not quite an early one from the ’82-’83 run, but let’s not push our luck. One from such vintage would be unliKely and remarKable by all means.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1983 Dodge Aries – The K-Car Saves Chrysler
Curbside Classic: 1984 Dodge Aries – Lee Iacocca’s Second Falcon
Automotive History: The Curbside Classic Comprehensive Chronology of the Chrysler K-Car Family Tree
I cannot look at one of these and not think of Ed Rooney’s (Jeffrey Jones) car being towed away from in front of Ferris’s house towards the end of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. This car fit him perfectly.
The trunKlid Keyhole Kover is missing on this one. I still have the one from my K car, long departed.
This could be a 19K85 or 19K86 model.
I’d have liKed to have seen the wheel Kovers on the drivers side, but overall this one looKs in fine condition. The Klear Kote seems to have suffered some over the years of what appears to be original paint.
It’s a 1986 based on the CHMSL (started for 1986) and the sequence of the California “Sunset” Plates. I got a set starting with “2Dxxxxx” in October 1985 for my own car, CA plates stay with the car, so this was likely first registered in November or December 1985. Not too many cars out there with these plates anymore, they ran concurrently (minor extra cost from what I recall) with the end of the blue/yellow plates for only a few years, then were both replaced by the white plates with the red California block type header in late ;86 or so that then were replaced with the cursive red California header but same white plate and blue characters in the very early 90s….
I believe it’s an ’87 – looks like the car was advertised for sale on OfferUp last year. The ad is still up:
https://offerup.com/item/detail/93fae7cf-a3c1-3c18-8b6e-28f4c7257ac0
…it was listed as an ’87 with 109,000 mi. Apparently it sold (asking price was $2,300), and it appears the car stayed in San Francisco. The ad contained a good interior shot, which I’ve attached below.
Incidentally, my license plate guide lists the 2E series of California sun plates as being a 1987 issue, along with the 1P, 1R and 1S blue plates, which were also offered in ’87.
Bush and Pierce just above Japantown.
Ha, looks like you are correct, I should have checked the Smog Check Database which says ’87.
I had an ’86 GTI with a from new 1RSU678 blue plate which I don’t believe was a leftover car. Interesting.
That’s interesting about the 1R series – usually that guide is pretty accurate, especially for states with straightforward numbering sequences. Just one of those mysteries…
Yeah, the GTI was sold new in San Francisco, see tbm3 below with a Feb ’86 “P” plate from most likely the same region.
I realized I actually have all of the paperwork on that car including the sticker and build sheet as well as all of the original owner’s receipts, looking at it she bought it July 17, 1986 and would have had the plates within about a month of that. Sold new at Ron Greenspan VW in San Francisco, no longer there but immortalized on the license plate frame of the Lotus Esprit in Basic Instinct that sports that dealer frame clearly visible on the movie car.
Great photo. I can’t make out what that is on the dash where I thought the heater/AC controls were – below the radio. I see the listing says no heat or AC. Perhaps it’s a cassette player. Very unusual to have no HVAC.
Here you go with the history of that plate. It was a $5 option when it was being used. My 86 Mazda 626 had a blue with yellow lettering of 1PED911 issued February 1986. My 91 Mazda 626 currently wears the white plate with blue letters and the red block California.
I not only pay attention to which plate is on a car when I look at them but also the number sequence such as the one on the 91 Mazda. That plate is still in use and now starts with a 9 today. My 91 is a 2. Knowing the sequence you can tell when the car actually got the plate. I have looked at some cars where the plate was issued years after the car was made. I am also able to look up their registration and smog test history. That way I can ask the seller where the car came from. You’d be surprised on how some sellers get antagonistic when I question the provenance of their car.
I just did three period correct plate exchanges on my 68 Mustang, 72 Ambassador, and 73 Polara. The 73 was hardest to find the correct sequence.
https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/true-history-of-period-correct-california-license-plates/
One of these came up for sale locally several months ago. Had it been 20 years earlier and it was Grandpa’s 67 Coronet sedan being offered, I might have jumped. But as much as I appreciate what these aKKomplished for Krysler, I let someone else have the chance to house and feed it.
This sedan platform had simply amazing packaging. Great size outside, big windows, good room inside. My first car as a 1983 Dodge 600 bought a few years old from my grandfather. It was as reliable as an anvil as is suffered subzero temps of Vermont winters back and forth to college. Everyone wanted to ride in that “little limo” and it was often the only car to start when it was time for a beer run with my college suitemates in the Vermont winter.
Reminds me all too well of an ’85 that was my temporary company car (long term rental) for a few months. While I could appreciate the K-car’s relative advanced packaging and such in 1981 or so, by this time it was already badly outclassed by the rapidly improving Japanese competition. It had become a classic rental-mobile, along with the GM A-bodies. Dull. Sloppy handling. And an interior to match.
We’ve gone from K cars to K-cups. Is this progress?
K cars produce less solid waste.
I have admiration for these cars, although it’s mostly from wearing rose tinted glasses looking back at where I was in life during intermittent K car ownership. In 1988 my dad bought a new wagon as the first new car we as a family were to own. During HS in the mid 90s, an 85 sedan was my first car. It provide reliable transport aound the NY, NJ, NEPA area I grew up in. After a few car-less years working with the NPS, an 86 sedan was purchased when I began my career in fleet vehicle mgmt, kept it for several years. After a divorce in 2015, I was left with enough money to buy an 87 sedan to commute with (I kept the house/property, it was an ammicable seperation). I kept the 87 until it threw a rod in 2019 with roughly 330K on the lil 2.2 engine. IDK, I’ve never had a bad experience with the lil Mopars That Could.
After the Aspen and Volare, Chrysler made great strides in rust resistance. Here in Central Canada, exceptionally rare to see rusty K-Cars. Same for their many derivatives. Almost, non-existent.
A good write up on a lonely survivor. The ticket may be for an expired plate, as I see it went out in March of ’23. Perhaps it never found a new home.
I though someone might mention the Mercury Milan in the first photo. In my part of the country those are getting on the thin side.