I was sitting in the parking lot of Albertsons, waiting for my son when I spotted this in the next row over. Wow; it’s been a while. And it’s even got those fine alloys with all the round holes, “pizza wheels”, I’ve heard them be called.
So who would be driving this in 2020?
I got out and walked around and peeled off a couple of shots. Turbo.
it was in very nice original condition, including all the tape trim.
I can’t tell the exact year, but it looks to be one of the first couple of years, which started in 1984.
I saw someone approaching, and given the pandemic times we live in, I backed away. It was an older woman. Had she bought it new? I was tempted ask, but as I watched her loading up her car, and then putting some things back in the cart, and then putting some back in the car, and then take some others out…and so on, for quite a long while, I realized she had a mental disorder, and decided to just let her be, and leave the question unanswered.
This was still going on when my son finally came back. Very sad to watch it.
But how else would an older woman end up with a very well-kept original Chrysler Laser Turbo from 1984 or so? She was 36 younger then, and probably in her late 20s or early 30s. Would someone that age be able to treat their car so well and keep it for so long?
Every car has a story, but sometimes we can only guess. Or watch.
I don’t know but it seems like the parking spaces in Oregon are readily sized for a return of the longer, lower, and wider ethos that a lot of people here seem to love. I get the Laser isn’t a very large car but you could almost fit two of them in that spot.
Brown wasn’t a hugely popular color back in the mid ’80’s for a “performance car”, which makes it doubly interesting to see on this one. I’d consider this to be a rare survivor back in the year 2000, let alone 20yrs beyond that.
Impressive, who knew a K-car had it in them.
In either the late 70’s or early 80’s the company I worked at repainted the lines in the parking lot over a weekend . When Monday rolled around all the parking spaces were too narrow for American sized cars. We watched people drive around for a long time looking for a parking space in a half empty lot. It was never explained what happened. I wonder if they were using foreign specs.
I live in Vancouver, British Columbia. We are hemmed in by mountains to the north, the USA to the south, the sea to the west and more mountains to the east.
Suffice to say we don’t have a lot of space here. Ergo, the underground parking space where I keep my Golf is barely wide enough for it. For the same reason, gigantic cars aren’t that common here.
In 1984 or 85, my manager at Nationwise Auto Parts bought not a Chrysler Laser, but it’s stable mate, the Dodge Daytona Turbo. I never got to ride in it and don’t remember a whole lot about it, but it had a pretty sharp looking maroon exterior and the alloy “pizza” wheels. I won’t swear to it but it was probably a 5-speed.
Prior to the Daytona, he had one of the early 80s aero Thunderbirds.
I had a ’90 blue Daytona with the naturally aspirated four, which was Fun to drive, and I put a hundred thousand miles on it in four years. Ultimately, my fiancee (now wife) and I had a close call with a barely averted head-on collision on Route 70 in Lakewood New Jersey on Columbus day weekend 2003, and I had the Daytona replaced with a Legacy L wagon by Veterans day.
MoPar folks have funny names for wheels. They call these “Swiss Cheese”. The “Pizza wheels” only have holes around the outer circumference.
I’ve heard that style called ‘pepper pot’.
I believe that the “pepperpot” wheels were a Jaguar style –
That’s right, Evan; these on the feature car are indeed the Swiss Cheese wheels: different-size holes all over. The “pizza” or “pepperoni” wheel has a ring of same-size holes round the perimeter of the face, each of which has a rough-texture rim that does remind of pepperoni (if pepperoni were silver-grey).
Is that a Saaburu in front of the Laser? A nice pairing. I got a rental Daytona once. When the counter agent told me “Congratulations, we’re upgrading you to a sports car!” and told me it was a Daytona, the first thing that came to mind was a Ferrari 365. Trust me, that rental-spec, non-turbo Dodge Daytona was no Ferrari. And not even a sports car.
No no, the Saab is a late model 9-3, and from the picture I would guess it’s a sedan.
Somewhere in the attic of our house is a small briefcase with toy cars, one of them a red Ferrari 365 Daytona, just a little bit rough around the edges. One of my favorites. I think I discovered this other Daytona only few years ago, when it appeared on this site in a COAL post.
Before the Daytona was released, it was described by Chrysler to the motoring press as a cross between a 924 and 928. While it might have looked that way, it was no 924, let alone a 928. In effect, Iacocca was trying to do his Mustang magic once again. But underneath the Daytona’s snappy exterior was pure K-car. RWD was still where performance lay, and most bought V8 Mustang or Camaro, rather than a rebodied Reliant.
I’m reminded that before we knew exactly what a Daytona or Laser was, for introduction day, one took cops on a wild five-county chase.
This was before (and after) wild police chases were everyday ho-hum news.
Anyway, whatever the cops had back then, Motorola equipped Diplomats, roadblocks with leveled shotguns, etc., it seemed that the new Daytona apparently had a touch more. LoL
Perhaps this article asks the wrong question. I can see someone driving a 36 year old fwd Mopar as cheap wheels, or for a personal view towards nostalgia.
But who would keep one going, from new for 36 years? For that matter, who would keep any ordinary car that long?
From my experience, the car must be special to them. Sometimes it’s a performance car a young person scripted and saved to buy new, or was a gift from parents . They usually bought additional vehicles but never sold their first.
Alternately, I’ve come across middle aged or older people who finally treated themselves to the nice car they always wanted, and kept it. Perhaps they were fortunate enough to live decades more, but they never sold their special car.
You are right: Sometimes a car is special to you. I still own that Audi 100 S that I bought in 1984 because I still like the looks and feel and because it has never left us stranded up to now. Yes we own a dozen other cars but that Audi has always had its own garage. I know old Audis do not have the best reputations but my cars have always had proper maintenance and very little issues.
Who would keep an ordinary car that long? Someone like me.
Here’s a sneaky piece that’s not in the index. 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/car-of-a-lifetime-1974-ford-cortina-living-beyond-the-design-brief/
Nostalgia usually, I have one, an 84 Daytona. 2.2 NA 5spd with no options. Same color as the Laser, “Mink Brown Pearl” but the Dodge had orange stripes, black rockers and they didn’t run the ribbed rubber strips between the end caps, actually pretty sharp for a base car. My Dad bought it new for the gas mileage and it’s still pretty decent today, 40+ MPG at 70 to 75 on the highway. It’s not a bad driver, has about 110k on it with no winters. Its Incredibly easy to work on and almost all parts are available very cheap, but mostly I keep it because it was my fathers and he’s no longer here, Oh and I don’t have to take my wife with me when I take it out, no AC.
I can’t remember when I last saw one of these, probably 20 years ago.
I seriously considered buying an ’84 base model in this color from a Chrysler Plymouth dealer in ’86. But the car was really slow, and they couldn’t get it to run appreciably better, so thankfully I bought something else. A friend had an ’84 Omni with the same 5 speed/2.2L powertrain, and it was quite lively compared to the Laser I looked at.
I would think the subject car was inherited, and that it sat for a while before this woman took ownership. I’m sure parts are nearly impossible to come by, and anything specific to this year and model of Laser was probably discontinued by Chrysler by 1990. To me, it’s amazing to see this car in use.
I did some checking and found that surprisingly many mechanical parts are still available, probably due to the past ubiquity of it’s K-car underpinnings. However, trim parts and other parts specific to the Laser/Daytona are probably hard to come by.
I used to think this car was just a rebadged Mitsubishi Starion/Conquest . I didn’t know it was K-car based till now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Starion
Never mind turbo — that looks like it’s got a manual trans in it. Even more amazing…
This car brings back a lot of memories, because my sister had a very similar 5-spd. Laser Turbo. Hers was an ‘86, and gold instead of brown, but still awfully similar.
My parents bought the Laser for her used in 1989 while my sister was in college. I drove it plenty, and liked it a lot, minus the torque steer. Oh, and the talking alert system, which was annoyingly verbose. My high school friends liked it too… these Lasers/Daytonas had a pretty good cool factor back then.
My sister didn’t keep hers for 36 years though; I don’t think she made it to the 2-year mark. In 1990, she and her fiancé were driving to Florida, and the transmission quite literally blew up suddenly on I-95 in Georgia. The sold the car, essentially for scrap (what else can you do with a 4-yr. old inoperable Chrysler 600 hundreds of miles from home?). My parents felt terrible that the car they picked out for her turned out to be so problematic; neither them nor my sister have bought a Chrysler product since.
What else can one do?
Well, it could have been towed to a dealer for repair. The owner could have returned at a later date to pick it up.
Many years ago, I sold a German exchange student friend a 1976 Chevelle four door. He wanted a big American car for a road trip in the USA. Somewhere in California, the dreaded Chevy axle shaft started puking oil.
He called me in a complete huff: “Why did you sell me a defective car?” I replied that it was a $500 car and I wasn’t going to rip apart the rear end to inspect it. He was quoted $300 to fix it.
Instead he sold it for scrap and took the bus back to Victoria. He never spoke to me again.
One detail that I left out was that when my folks’ bought the Laser, it had a salvage title. It showed no evidence of body repair, and seemed to be in good shape, so they figured it was worth the gamble. Personally, I wouldn’t have taken that risk, but I’m not them. The Laser was cheap to buy, but consequently had a low resale value.
From what I recall, my sister and her fiancé did get a quote for repairs, but it exceeded the car’s value. And the hassle of dealing with such a repair on a long-distance basis meant that scrapping it and moving on was a reasonable choice.
Yes, “What else can one do” was oversimplified. But I don’t blame them at all for doing it that way.
Wonderful find. Sad about its driver, though.
Could she have been sanitizing her groceries, she’s got disposable gloves on? My Mom still does that, taking the better safe than sorry route amid conflicting information about whether or not covid lives on surfaces, albeit she cleans them when she gets home, not in the parking lot. Could be obsessive compulsive disorder too, which could simultaneously explain the remarkable condition of the Laser.
These were excellent designs in my opinion, they straddled the line perfectly between the Mustang and Camaro of the time, and if you didn’t know any better you’d never think they were FWD K car based. One of the things that kind of bothers me with them is their positioning and branding, were they ponycars? Where did they fit with the Omni based Charger/Turismo line? Or the Conquest? I had always looked at these as intended to be the direct competitors in Chrysler’s way to the Fox Mustangs and F bodies but with names like Daytona(which is interlinked with Charger in my mind) and Laser they seemed like a reinvention in a familiar segment.. what ever happened to Barracuda? Why did Dodge eschew continuing with Challenger?
Could she have been sanitizing her groceries, she’s got disposable gloves on?
No. I watched from close range for ten minutes, loading stuff in, then standing for long periods looking lost, then rummaging in the trunk and taking some stuff back out, and so on and so on and so on….
You know what Matt, I can actually tell the difference between someone sanitizing things and between someone who is mentally ill and acts accordingly. Ask me how I know…
Your need to second guess me or contradict me borders on pathological, by the way. 🙂
What are you talking about? I wasn’t second guessing or trying to contradict you, I just posited a possibility that occurred to me from the pictures and what she was doing and probably occurred to you at the time before coming to ultimate your conclusion. I’m sorry to offend Paul.
You haven’t offended me Matt. It’s not that easy to do.
Given that I had a front row seat, it was quite obvious from what she was doing, as well as how she went about doing it. I could spell out the obvious details, but how about you just take my word for it, if that’s possible.
Pretty wild tangent here, but if you’d ever care to write about the “grittier” aspects of your life, Paul, I’d love to hear. You have such an amazing way with words, and full and fascinating life, and I feel as though I almost know you through your COAL series. You mentioned you had a close relative who’d struggled with drug addiction, and another with a mental health disorder. Not to pry into your personal life, or sound like a creeper, but it would be fascinating to read more about your experiences. I know this is highly personal, and if you don’t care to write about such things, of course I understand.
Thanks for the thought. It may not be of equal interest to all.
It’s my younger son that is an addict, and has been for some years now. I’ve learned more about addiction than I would have expected. A complicated issue. We’re all addicted, it’s just that most of our addictions are not as damaging and life threatening.
If I don’t get at least one brisk, long walk in every day, I get withdrawal symptoms. 🙂
Paul.
Be kind.
It’s a shame that in one the the richest countries in the world, she can’t get the help she needs. She probably drives that old car because she can’t afford a newer one. I suspect the reason the car is in such great shape is because she has a garage and doesn’t drive that much.
I looked up what these go for on Hemmings. They sell for what in my opinion is crazy money, from $9900-$16000. Being she has a Laser, it would probably be worth more due to the fact they only made them for 3 years.
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/dodge/daytona
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2014/05/08/lost-cars-of-the-1980s-1984-1986-chrysler-laser
My guess about the owner (although I doubt we’ll ever know) is that the car belonged to a lost beloved child, and that she keeps it (and keeps it up) for that reason. That would explain the apparent dichotomy between mental issues and keeping up an old car so well.
I don’t recall Paul mentioning that she displayed sadness, distress, anger or plight. Regardless of her apparent challenges, maybe she was happy or content with her routines. And her Laser. Having worked many years with kids and adults ‘on the spectrum’, sometimes their routines mean the world to them.
As somebody on the spectrum myself (Asperger’s with a side serve of PTSD), I can confirm the wide diversity of manifestations. Once you consider the likelihood of other conditions existing alongside the ‘main’ one and influencing the person’s behaviour outside the usual pattern, it’s no wonder some of them take so long to diagnose. And that’s before you start considering the what side-effects of some medications do to confound the issue further.
I would not like to hazard a guess as to what her problem might be. I’ve seen it, but I don’t have the knowledge. But to be out shopping by herself at all, she seems to be coping better than many. More power to her!
She exhibited signs of schizophrenia. She kept taking items out of her trunk, examining them extensively, walking up and down a ways with them, as if trying to decide whether the item was ok to bring home. She did this repeatedly with a number of items. It’s as if she was afraid the item might be somehow harmful or unsafe. Clear signs of concern and confusion.
There’s a woman who lives a block from us who has schizophrenia. She moved out of her house and into a long succession of tents in her yard, as she deemed the house to be unsafe for her somehow. It’s now overgrown with blackberries and bushes.
We’re all quite familiar with her and her ways. She’s quite calm and can seem normal at times, but not so at other times. And she’s always worn rubber gloves…
You;re right; I shouldn’t guess at her motives. Everyone is different, with or without mental issues, and we all have our own story. TBH, I feel sorry for her. The world is a hard enough place, especially as we age, even before psychological issues are thrown into the mix. I guess we should just focus on the car, although a car is more than an object; our story tends to get caught up with our cars’ story and vice versa.
All of these disappeared in Atlanta by the mid 90s. K cars tended to get junked when the owners were faced with a moderately expensive repair, having very low resale values and no passion. These also tended to have neglectful and enthusiastic young owners and had short, exciting lives.
Back when this debuted in 1984, most cars were so underpowered that fwd v rwd in a sporty car made very little difference. There were a lot of sporty fwd cars back then; prelude, gti, escort gt, cavalier z24, nissan 200sx and pulsar, etc. The mustang and camaro were available with truly wheezy 4 cylinder engines so this was a reasonable rival in 1984. By the late 80s the mustang and Camaro had improved enough that the Daytona/laser’s day was done.
It’s a beautiful car in beautiful shape and deserves to be kept as such. I hope she takes good care of it.
I can see why someone would keep a car that long; I buy what I really like and keep it as long as possible. At least this car has some appeal to it unlike some of the chevy sprints and 81 corollas that pop up. Why buy a new car for no reason?
Until a few months ago, there was a pristine Laser Turbo at an apartment complex near my house. It was under a carport and had a decent layer of dust. The truly amazing part is that I live in Michigan, so it had somehow avoided road salt for 35 years or so.
I don’t know who that poor afflicted woman might be, but isn’t that Dee Dee McCall’s car?
Except hers could fly!!
So thats why it looks vaguely familiar and Im sure ive never seen one
Maybe she is carefully placing the groceries to avoid scraping up the hatch plastics or having any spills in the pristine interior.
I had a roommate back in 1985 who bought one of these; black, turbo. It seemed pretty quick at the time. Within a week or two, his (manual) tranny somehow locked up. He had to get a new trans (under warranty)… He later admitted he was flogging the car when it happened.
I remember looking at an exact duplicate to this car for my sister with my Father when I was about 15. Sharp car, but he ended up getting here a 2 door VW fox instead. 15 years ago there was a dedicated following for these cars particularly here on the east coast (lots of guys from PA and NJ at mopar meets with these.) I assume there still is but not as big. When FWD performance became more mainstream at the end of the 90’s I saw a lot of guys buying these cheap and building them out for really lower dollar amounts.
A modern equivalent would be a Scion Tc and even if in proportion it was not as popular ( for the last gen ’11-’16 ) we will find much more reliable one in 20 years … if oil still allowed .
These used to be very common in my area, now they are hard to come by, especially the 1st gen. The 1st gen has a reputation for engine problems on various Toyota forums. The 2nd gen supposedly fixed these issues, but these are cars that lead hard lives. People seem to treat FWD sport compacts like disposable cars. I doubt there will be many old TC’s around 30+ years from now, just like there are very few 80’s vintage Celicas around today.
I do think the survivors will be worth a surprisingly amount of money though.
You’d be surprised at the kind of demographic that bought 2nd generation Tc. Many boomers like me have bought it with auto trany and drive it like a Camry . Same engine as the latter with the 2aR-fe which is also found in the ’13-’18 Rav4 . Yes , the preceding engine , the 2aZ-fe experienced trouble like excessive oil consumption among other .It was found in the first gen Tc , Rav4 before ’13, Camry 09-11 , Scion Xb . Even a TRD supercharger was offers with the 2aZ-fe , which did not help its reliability , especially between the hands of boys racers .
These seemed like nice sporty cars . Well-proportioned, solid, reasonably powerful with the 2.2 (and especially the turbo). Nice interiors.
Were they as good as the Japanese competition such as the Celica and 300ZX? No, but there were far closer to that standard than the Camaro and Mustang of the time.
Summer 1985, Philly. My partner & I had recently relocated from NYC to center city Philly and he was the assistant to the owner of an advertising firm. His boss, very attractive lady in her mid-30s, had just ended her 4th marriage, loved to club & drink with the boys.
One night during clubbing & multiple drinks, she asked me if she could trade cars with me for a week, she takes my Eldo convertible & I take her new Chrysler Laser turbo. I just needed to keep her red Laser out-of-sight for a week. Not a problem, I knew a parking lot in center city where the car could be parked and not observed.
A week later she returned my Eldo conv. fully washed & detailed. She had driven about 500 miles. Never asked why we switched cars.
The Laser, during the short time I drove it, was a fun car to drive in the mid-80s.
This was a great story.
maybe she needed something with a big trunk. . .
I believe the car to be a 1984 version. I forget exactly which year Mopar went to five lugs, but I know for sure by 1986 they were five lugs on the FWD non-K cars.
There used to a Laser similar to this in the town that lived in back in the 80’s. It was a bit more of an orangish brown with a lower body stripe that was black and had the word “Turbo” reversed out to body color. It had the four-lug Swiss cheese wheels also.
I thought the car was gorgeous, as those earth toned cars were starting to lose their popularity as the 80’s wore on. See attached photo. It was the best I could find, but TestDriveJunkie.com has the MotorWeek road test that shows a better view of the car.
When I first saw these, I thought they aped the styling of the then-current Mustang in the front and godknowswhat in the back, I really don’t see any Porsche styling cues there, either then or now. It took a while to get used to the FWD proportions, but once I did, I grew to like the styling of the cars. This iteration of the Laser only lived for a few years, but the later Daytona became my favorite after the (post-1990) facelift.
I was going to comment on this. 1984 is the correct identification. They definitely were using five lugs in 1985, which makes one wonder if something happened to inspire the change. Hopefully it was due to feedback from IMSA RS drivers Joe Varde and Kal Showket.
I liked these cars then, and I like them now. I used to like the ’87 restyle better with its refreshed nose w/ the pop-up headlights and redone rear styling, but in the past several years, I have come to really appreciate the original cars.
At first, I thought the triangular rear windows that didn’t follow the beltline looked awkward. Later, though, as with anything that seems unorthodox at first, they grew on me. I remember thinking when I first got a good look at them that Chrysler Corporation was seriously back after building what seemed like only economy cars and police cruisers for a few years.
As for the lady, I do wonder what her story was. Like her, I have held onto certain things from specific times in my life that I wanted to remember. Maybe the car was a gift from a late parent, or some kind of memento from someone she loved. Maybe a divorce car. Maybe simply from a time when she felt like anything was possible before some tragic event from which she never quite recovered. Stuff happens sometimes, and it’s nobody’s fault. I hope she’s content, whatever her narrative.
In 1990 my cousin had a very clean Laser, dark red with red interior. Handsome car. I drove it once for whatever reason and wasn’t at all impressed. Felt just like you’d think it would. Front heavy, slow (automatic), ugly and cheap dash that seemed too high up. Also, it had poor rear visibility before that became universal. But it was and to me still is a well-styled car and that still counts for a lot to me.
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I just remembered I test drove a used Turbo Daytona in ’89. It felt just like my cousin’s, but had turbo lag and then a big push when the turbo kicked in. It, too was an automatic and kind of spoiled the fun. I suppose a manual is mandatory for any kind of driving pleasure.
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But my Corolla SR5 (AE86/U.S.) was an auto and was a lot of fun anyway.