It was around last Christmas that I discovered that a local estate sale shop in a small storefront not far from my home was selling some first-choice, die cast, 1:18 scale models of classic vehicles. My jaw dropped when I walked in and saw that yellow, ’69 Plymouth Barracuda fastback perched high on a shelf toward the back of the room. I had collected an assortment of smaller die cast replicas over the years, but the largest that I had in my collection were in 1:24 perspective. What’s more is that the asking price was unbelievably low, and the box, by then twenty years old, still had an orange, $19.95 price tag on it from once-defunct chain Toys ‘R Us!
The Plymouth’s detailing, while quite not on the Peter Wilding Scale of lifelike authenticity (few scale models I’ve ever seen have been), was fantastic, including the black stripes down the side and its red, clear plastic taillamp lenses. Why shouldn’t one buy oneself a Christmas present? I’ve done so for years now. I was giddy and felt like I was ten years old with the acquisition of this new treasure, which I then wrapped when I got home and put under my tree. Not long after that, I discovered that this Barracuda was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what was still at the store.
The family of the former owner of these scale models had commissioned the shop owner to liquidate an entire collection of such models, many of which were being kept in a back room until more shelf space inside the main store was freed up with the movement of other merchandise. I’ll admit that I then went bonkers. I told myself it wasn’t an addiction if I limited myself to just one purchase a week, and two of them ended up as gifts for others. Prices ranged from $35 on the higher end for a ’78 Dodge Warlock pickup, all the way down to just $15 for a beautiful ’64 Chevy Impala SS that was dusty and had no box. Much of this inventory gradually found its way from the store into my home, piece by piece, until only a handful of models remained (as of this writing in July).
I had gotten used to the thrill of heading over to the store after I had shut down my work laptop on Friday afternoon, finding something I really liked, and plunking down a Jackson and two singles (taxes) for a happy, new trophy to hopefully display in my home. Months later and with most of the more iconic vintage models (’68 GTO, ’69 Hurst/Olds, ’69 Corvette Stingray, ’57 Chevy Bel Air convertible, ’70 ‘Cuda AAR, etc.) already in my possession, the only choices left were from the ’90s or the new millennium. I had passed on a tuxedo black Chrysler PT Cruiser multiple times as my weekly purchase, but only after I had seriously contemplated buying it before moving on to something else. I’d take its box off the shelf next to a red, 1:18-scale Volkswagen Beetle, stare at it for five minutes, and then put it back in favor of something else.
Maybe it was a little bit of nostalgia for that time of my life when the PT Cruiser had been introduced in 2000 as an ’01 model, but I started giving that model more consideration. I was in my mid-twenties and my insurance career was in diapers when the PT Cruiser was introduced. Everything was “Y2K” and seemed full of optimism. Many songs from that era are still on my SanDisk MP3 player (remember those?).
It’s hard to overstate in 2024 just how cool the PT Cruiser seemed when it had first arrived. A nice family at the church I was attending at the time had paid a few thousand over sticker for their theirs, which was the first example I had ever seen in the metal. I wasn’t the only person in that parking lot in Tampa who was fawning over it. Like I had mentioned in a recent piece on a Chrysler Crossfire fastback, pre-Daimler Chrysler seemed unstoppable with a steady stream of rollouts of its new, beautiful, daring, and innovative designs.
The LH cars looked like show car sketches come to life, and much sleeker than any large, new car designs I had seen within my lifetime up to that point. The Prowler hot rod, even with its lack of V8 power, looked like a Hot Wheels dream come true. (They still turn my head.) The Viper was a top-performing brute, and the segment-defining Ram trucks upended everyone’s expectations of what a full-sized pickup was supposed to look like. The sheetmetal from competition from Ford and Chevrolet looked instantly obsolete. Along came the 2001 PT Cruiser for mid-year ’00, originally designed to be part of Plymouth brand’s planned resurrection, with its 1930s-inspired, retro-futuristic design (heavy on the retro), thoughtfully designed interior, and supreme utility with its rear seats that could be easily folded away or removed completely for a cavernous sixty-four cubic feet of cargo capacity.
Most of the criticism I read about these cars in present day seems to center around the styling, and these cars seem very polarizing even today. While I won’t say the PT Cruiser is breathtakingly gorgeous, I absolutely love its shape and all the thoughtful surface details incorporated by chief stylist Bryan Nesbitt and his team. It’s a distinctive package full of flavor, and at the time of its introduction, its base price was actually less than that of a comparable and also-new Ford Focus wagon ($15,935 vs. $16,425). At the beginning of the PT Cruiser’s run, dealer markups were a thing due to high demand, so in the end, the Focus longroof could have been had for less money at the time at your local Ford dealer’s. Look at both cars today, though, and ask yourself which one is memorable in any way. Both are equally usable.
I get that retro or statement-making pieces aren’t for everybody. Some want to fly under the radar by calling as little attention to themselves as possible, and to use the previous comparison, the Focus wagon would allow one to do just that. I remember going to my grandparents’ farm in Ohio and how there would sometimes be anise-flavored hard candy or black licorice in one of the opaque-glass candy dishes sitting around the house. Sometimes when all the rest of the non-licorice flavored hard candy was gone but I was determined to have some candy (I just want some candy! Any candy!), I’d resign myself to some black licorice. Admittedly, it wasn’t my favorite at first, but after having more of it, I’ll be darned if I didn’t start to actually like it. Just like the styling of the PT Cruiser, black licorice is that candy with a kick. For me, sometimes a roll of Smarties, cheap and cheerful though they are, just won’t cut it the way some Good ‘N Plentys will. Black licorice just feels “adult-flavored”.
Opinions of its styling aside, its combination of utility, maneuverable size, and power is undeniable. Initially powered by a 150-horsepower, 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, a 215-hp turbocharged mill was introduced in the ’03 GT, with the ’04 Touring and Limited models getting a 180-horse version for ’04. For ’06, the GT’s output increased to 230 horses. With no firsthand experience with these cars, the only real downsides I have read about of any significance to me were subpar gas mileage (Edmunds reported 19 mpg city / 24 highway / 21 combined, which isn’t great) and lackluster side-impact test results. We don’t want to die or be seriously injured, but honestly, were its results worse than other vehicles in its class? (I’m actually asking, just so you know.) It’s also significant that the PT Cruiser was listed as a “best buy” by Consumer Guide for its first six, consecutive model years.
Over its ten-year run from between 2001 and 2010, the PT Cruiser was available in a myriad of special editions and also as a convertible, the latter of which was built from between 2005 and ’08. A total of over 1.3 million of them found buyers worldwide, so these were popular vehicles. More than a few recent articles I’ve read about these cars seem to present them in a joking or negative light, and my first thought when I see something like that is how people seem to have forgotten just how loved these were when new. The PT Cruiser was designed as inexpensive transportation, and as such, I think it’s aces. Give me something with thoughtfully expressed exterior and interior styling, combined with utility and ease of entry and exit all day over something with antiseptic linearity or an angry face and bizarrely and arbitrarily sculpted lines.
After I had repeatedly decided against taking the PT Cruiser scale model home, it had then become a mission for me one Friday in June. It was still there on the shelf, so I paid Richard, put the model in my backpack, took it out of the box when I got home, and examined its fine details, including its chrome wheels, door handles, and emblems, as well as its two-color plastic taillamps. I subsequently watched a few YouTube videos about the life of Walter P. Chrysler and his early drive, determination, work ethic, and ultimate success in the industry. The risk-takers of the world deserve your and my respect. I feel like the PT Cruiser demonstrated the kind of independent and innovative thinking of which Mr. Chrysler would have undoubtedly approved.
Chicago, Illinois.
All photos were taken in July 2024. Print ad was sourced from the internet.
For some factual information on the PT Cruiser, check out this excellent and comprehensive 2020 article from Brendan Saur, from the CC archives.
The roofline on that model of the PT Cruiser seems off. It’s too round, like Beetle. The roof should be flatter.
Good catch on the model’s roof. You can really see it in the shape of the rear windows. The model’s windows are of a much more square look than the real car’s more rectangular shape.
I dunno – it looks right to me. Maybe the perspective of the shot?
Another nice article, thank you Joseph.
Ah, the PT Cruiser. When it came out I was dubbing if I would go forward with the company I was working for, or to change to another company. That would mean selecting a new company car. High on my list were the new Mini and the PT Cruiser.
The new Mini was disappointing to drive, comfort was not in the cards and the interior / dash a big let down: too much plasticy plastic all over. Toy-shaped handles and switches as well, I could not live with that. What were they thinking, customers would like to be in a kids playful environment? Well, not me.
The PT Cruiser had very different, fresh styling. I liked how Chrysler had the guts to put something like this on the market and I was willing to forgive maybe some shortcomings just to be in a different kind of car. I was so fed up with the boring alternatives.
But, like the Mini, that interior. Again big plastics all round. I know a car interior is mainly plastic but please can they make it look better than shiny grey plastic?
In the end I did change company but was allowed to use my own car (30 year old Triumph) against a nice increased commuter allowance.
Thanks, Dion! I’m “late” with my responses as I’m on holiday. Chrysler has so much guts back then. That whole shiny plastic thing seems to have affected even appliances and even alarm clocks from that time period.
I once read that the PT Cruiser and Pontiac Aztek were textbook examples of car companies not listening to their market research. Supposedly, focus groups had found that the PT Cruiser would be a hit, yet Chrysler’s production targets were modest and they were caught flat-footed when the car was a success and they could have sold a much greater number of vehicles in the first year.
GM’s focus groups, OTOH, found the market for the Aztek would be much less. Yet GM, just like Chrysler, ignored these findings and ramped up production for sales which never materialized, leaving them with big, unsold inventories of Azteks on Pontiac dealership lots.
I remember when these come out and my brain STILL immediately identifies these as Plymouths. Of course, they were Plymouths for only about 15 minutes and Chryslers for the rest of the time.
I always liked the look, but never seriously considered one for myself, making these like dogs. I like dogs, but they have to be other peoples’ dogs.
I have always been afraid to buy a model like these. My fear is that once I start I will not be able to stop and I will become one of those old men who have every inch of shelf space covered with dusty models of old cars.
Can you imagine a whole Plymouth model lineup of fun, affordable models that would have saved the brand? I know “PT” was the platform designation, but I still think “Plymouth Truck”.
Always a Chrysler this side of the Atlantic. There are still a few around too. Here’s one from 2005 I saw a couple of weeks before Christmas 2023 (and I have seen it about since). Not sure if the colour is a standard option, but I’m pretty sure there’s a little after-market chrome striping, though fairly in keeping with the late ’30s styling.
Berranrd, one other thing I liked about these was that even with their distinctive styling, they did also lend themselves to customization from mild to wild.
I had a PT as a rental once and enjoyed it. Much roomier, for two adults and two pre-teens at least, than its shape would suggest. An upright seating position creates tons of legroom in a short vehicle. We just got back from a whirlwind five day trip to Oregon, which involved about 1400 miles of driving. The PT Cruiser is a not uncommon sighting in rural or even lower income parts of the West. More of them still Cruising around than Focus wagons or even the newer Chevy HHR.
Yea me too, plenty of room inside, some style, but otherwise just a Neon for better or worse. I still them around and in good shape. My neighbor has one.
Excellent. It seemsile Chrysler really nailed the packaging, even if it took just a little while for me to get used to the slightly up-sloping roofline.
I never cared much for these myself, having driven several as rentals. But I did appreciate Chrysler’s nerve to go the whole retro route with these, and much of its lineup at that time. Plus, they really did offer good interior space for carrying stuff..always a plus in my book. But I guess I just wasn’t a big enough fan of 1930s automotive design to appreciate its resurrection in the PT.
I still regularly see these on the road, and many look to be in fantastic shape for a car that is likely to be close to 25 years old. I see a lot more of these than the Chrysler LH cars which most all seem to have vanished in my area.
An interesting, unforeseen phenomenon occurred with the target demographic of the PT Cruiser. After the initial dealership price gouging subsided, suddenly, it became something of a defacto geezermobile, probably helped by the cancellation of the Mercury brand around the same time as the PT Cruiser’s end. It’s understandable with the high front seat driving position of the Chrysler, as well as the Swiss Army knife rear seat removal ability (which was a big factor in the PT Cruiser’s classification as a ‘small’ minivan). And those oldsters have a reputation of taking better care of their vehicles than most, certainly better than average, which explains why many of them are still on the road.
FWIW, the latest retirement car seems to be the Kia Soul. Lots of pensioners seem to be driving those.
Well, I can’t think of the Kia Soul without thinking of hamsters. Perhaps that’s just me.
I cannot express just how much my kids loved that commercial when they were tweens ’round about 2012.
I do agree about the PT and its geezermobile status. I think that’s absolutely what’s behind the well-preserved ones I see on the road; and also their increasing availability in junkyards. I suspect that most of those junkyard ones ran when given to some charity (out of estates…similar to how Joe found his model!), which promptly sold them for scrap value.
All PT Cruisers end up in Phoenix. It’s a fact.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/junkyard/junkyard-outtakes-chrysler-pt-cruisers-the-pt-apparently-stands-for-phoenix-terminus/
I didn’t make it out to Phoenix to see my friends this year, but I feel like I’m going to remember to pay attention to the number of PT Cruisers on the road the next time I’m there.
I respect this. I don’t think that the ’30s would have been enough of a cultural touchstone for many in this car’s target demographic at the time, but for that reason, I thought that was a good choice. Chrysler wasn’t going to be able to bust out some cues from even the ’50s and have it feel fresh. I suppose they could have. Ford did successfully duat off the ’60s with the ’05 Mustang.
I remember when my father-in-law bought one of these. He asked if I’d ever owned a soove. He had to spell out S U V before I could figure out what the heck he was talking about. These were incredibly space efficient. Not anywhere near as good on gas as the Neon we owned though. The PY & Neon may have been related, but the driving experience struck me as very different.
Hahaha! I like “soove” and will probably reuse it at some point!
The PTC being related to the Neon is a common mistake. It actually had more in common with the cloud cars (Cirrus, Stratus). In fact, that’s a big reason it was a styling dead-end and was ultimately cancelled; there just wasn’t anyway to get an engine larger than the Cirrus’ 2.4L in the tight, short engine compartment without significantly altering the look (and not for the better).
But the PTC had a good run, that’s for sure.
I always liked these. I am a fan of tallish vehiclesThe practicality was not compromised by the styling. Then I offered to replace the battery for a friend of a relative. Except for cars like the MGB, where the battery is not under the hood, I don’t remember ever opening the hood and not being able to see the battery. In the end it was not that hard, but it was really annoying. Otherwise a practical vehicle with a different look.
This is a great point. How often would one actually need the manual to locate the battery?
I always had great respect for the PT Cruiser as an exemplar of space efficiency and utility, if not as a styling exercise. I rented a number of them back in the day and felt a little self-conscious about driving it, given the rather geriatric profile of the owners. Now that I’m in my 60s, I would drive something like this unabashedly.
I like your approach to purchasing scale models one at a time, with a week or two between each transaction. It makes for a considered purchase (even if you did end up buying most of the retailer’s inventory). This approach just might, in my case, lead to a smaller fleet representative of what I like best, rather than yet another huge collection of stuff that I or someone else will eventually have to get rid of.
Thanks, William! And you’re correct – one purchase at a time made the process that much more deliberate. I’m proud of and happy with my little fleet of large-ish, 1:18 scale models!
True Confession:
Installed bookshelves in my spare bedroom which I converted into an office. Don’t have as many books as I thought. Therefore, several of the shelves now house model car collections. One reserved for Deutschland, one Britannia, one Italia, and one Americana. My prize is a 1/18 scale Ford GT40, white with a blue stripe down the middle.
Since my new car lacks a CD player, that shelf is a candidate for a Nippon collection.
Excellent! And I like your idea of curating your collection by country of origin. I’m glad they ran out of models before I ran out of space. 🙂
I’m a bit behind with my CC reading; hope you’re still here, Joseph. 🙂
Ah, the snare of diecast models! Look at it this way, they take up less space than having all those cars in reality, and unless you’re Jay Leno a lot more affordable too, as you’d need staff to look after all of them for you. I’m assuming you’re not as rich as Jay; I should think that’s quite a safe assumption. For me, I have a hard time keeping my mitts off a diecast model; my eyes always seem to find bits that aren’t quite right or beg for a bit of extra detail. Of course that’s why I build models. And Revell did a nice simple curbside kit of the Cruiser. So naturally…..
I’ve always loved the PT Cruiser as a piece of design. It seemed a natural outgrowth from the huge and rising popularity of SUVs. If you’re going to return to Thirties sedan proportioning, why not return to Thirties style? In this case they seemed to choose 1937 Ford style in particular, but to my mind that was more attractive then trying to resuscitate the 1937 Plymouth. I’ve been trying but I really can’t imagine a 1937 Plymouth look on the PT’s bones.
They were a common sight down under. A friend used to have a blue one and gave it a hot rod makeover with professionally-painted flames and 20 inch (at a guess) wheels. As he’s a little older than me, the effect was somewhat startling! There’s still one in daily use in my town, also blue but with a lot of extra jewellery and a faux-Continental kit, of all things! Also the property of an older driver. I think it’s the packaging that attracts us.
Peter, your observations are all on point. My “favorite car” seems to change from week to week, so yes – these models are a great way to still celebrate the years, makes, and models of cars I like and would never afford to own all at once because, to your point, I am not Jay Leno.