From pretty much birth, I’ve always been interested in cars. I took my first trip down the ¼ mile in a car seat with my dad at the wheel of a ‘57 Bel Air. After getting my driver’s license, it was time to actually purchase my first car. It would still be a few years before I got my hands on my dad’s 1977 Dodge Aspen (previous COAL). I had visions of modern muscle cars (mid-80s Monte Carlo SS) and convertibles (68-72 Olds 442) dancing in my head. The reality of insurance prices and my $2K budget squashed those dreams pretty quickly. I had a fondness for the 1987 Shelby GLHS and Shelby Chargers, but the turbo motor made that a no-deal proposition. This narrowed my focus down to one of the non-turbo brothers, a 1984-1987 Dodge Charger or Plymouth Turismo (I preferred the look of the quad-headlight front end on the later models). Not long after I started my search, in April of 1993 I became the third owner of a faded white 1985 Plymouth Turismo.
For 1985, the hottest performance Turismo was the Turismo 2.2 with a 110-hp 2.2L 4-cylinder, close-ratio 5-speed manual trans, rear spoiler, sports suspension, and ground effects package. Mine was not the Turismo 2.2. The next step down was the Turismo Duster. This had the 96-hp 2.2L 4-cyl, styled road wheels, and the rear spoiler from the 2.2 model. Mine was not the Turismo Duster.
[The car I really wanted, definitely not the car I got.]
My Turismo was a base model. It did have the 2.2L 4-cylinder, which made 96 hp when new, mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. It was a faded white, with a tan interior, and almost solid chrome wheel covers. The fastback shape made it look sporty, but it really wasn’t. It didn’t matter to me, I had my own car. I performed my very first oil change on this car. I cleaned it every week. During one such session, I performed my first wax job on the car. About mid-way through, my dad walked out to the garage to inspect my work and casually commented “You know, you can’t polish a turd” and then walked back into the house. All in jest, of course.
[Not my interior, but it was essentially identical.]
Once my junior year in high school started, I became the neighborhood taxi service. I shuttled friends to and from school. After school there was marching band practice, and weekly football games. Never was there an empty seat in the Turismo, and on a few occasions there were a couple of friends cruising in the back hatch area. I also got an after school job working at Montgomery Ward, and my Turismo served me well back and forth to work.
After 6 months and countless number of clutch drops, it was time to having to start replacing parts on the car. The clutch was starting to slip, and the front tires were just starting to see the cords peek through. I swapped the fronts to the rear, but was still riding on borrowed time.
One afternoon in November, my mom and I were in her car when we heard an advertisement come on the radio. Rich Ford in Albuquerque was advertising brand new ‘93 Escort Ponys for $6995. This was to clear out the previous year model’s inventory, the new ‘94s were already on the lots. We got to talking about car payments, how much I was making at work, etc, and came to the conclusion that I could probably afford the payments on the new car. A very quick test drive in a Pony Escort and I was absolutely NOT going to buy that car. My mom’s Escort was a 1991 LX version, and felt like a luxury car compared to the penalty box the Pony was. It was hard to believe that they were essentially the same car. I would rather have kept the Turismo than buy that car.
However, I began looking around for other new cars in the same price range. Several dealerships in the area were offering similar discounts to clear out old inventory. Within a couple of weeks, I handed over the keys to the Turismo as trade in for my first new car.
[My Turismo after my girlfriend’s ’93 grad party.]
That would not be the last encounter with the Turismo. About 6 months later on my way to work, I caught a familiar face on a used car lot out of the corner of my eye. I went back that weekend and sure enough, there was my Turismo. I took her for a test drive for old times sake. The clutch was still slipping and the tires were still bald. The asking price on the car lot was $5000, over twice what I paid for the car more than year prior. About a year after that, I participated in a jazz music competition hosted at the University of New Mexico. I arrived very early in the morning, me and my high school jazz band were the first to compete. When I parked in the UNM campus parking lot, it was pretty much empty. When I came out a few hours later, the lot was full. I walked up to my car and sitting right next to her was my old Turismo. It was easily recognizable because I had painted a silver-dollar sized Marvin the Martian face on the front bumper, and it was still there. That would be the last time I would see the Turismo.
That was a very short experience with your “Omini in a track suit.”
Interesting that you would be able to see you former car twice. That only happened to me with the 1953 Chrysler (because I sold it to a co-worker) and the 1995 Eagle Vision (when the salesman who sold me the PT Cruiser used the Eagle as his personal car).
Each time I felt a pang of nostalgia (well, in the case of the Eagle, it may have been the beginning of an ulcer – not sure).
Nostalgia is an odd feeling, it is defined as “pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again”. Many people often regret letting a romance die, or move to a new house or neighborhood, or sell an old and troublesome car.
I believe that much of what makes people come to this site is a sense of nostalgia combined with curiosity for the automotive aspects of our pasts, or even the past of our parents. Sharing these feelings with others who have similar experiences feels good, even cathartic. It says, I’m not all that odd.
Or if I am that odd, there are lots of others like me, so there is that!
I understand how a simple and far from ideal car that moves you around during the exciting times of your youth can evoke feelings. Like seeing an ex-girlfriend give you a wave and a smile.
Glad you blocked out room on the windshield to see out of when you wrote up the glass area for your girl friend’s graduation. Good planning.
After I sold my Durango, I was able to spot it twice. It ended up in the small city 45 minutes away; 60,000 people and their cars, yet I still saw it twice. Was hard to miss, it still had the 2 dents in the hatch from my brilliance (stupid, stupid, stupid me) and a chair we moved via the roof rack.
I used to see my old Pontiac Grand Prix (2001 GT) all of the time as it ended up in my neighborhood, or at least close to it. The last time that I saw it was 3 or 4 years ago and it was apparently being used to deliver pizzas. I don’t know what would be farther down the automotive food chain than pizza delivery vehicle, perhaps being used to transport farm animals or as ad hoc living space for someone down and out.
A couple of weeks ago I spotted my TSX at a used car dealer only a few miles away from my house. Apparently the owner of the used car dealer is friends with South Shore BMW/MINI’s general manager and bought it wholesale right after I traded it in. I’d recognize those wheels anywhere!
It’s not the only car that I’ve owned that I have run across after the sale. I’m pretty sure I call that out in their own COAL articles that are coming.
My first car was an 86 Turismo Duster with the 96hp 2.2 and the auto. It was a fun car for me. The Turismo weighed less than the K cars my parents had and the later 2.2 had 12 more hp than theirs. The difference was felt distinctly at higher rpm. It had tiny tires !65/80 R13 that would squeel at the slightest provocation, so fun but with low limits to keep a new driver out of real trouble. It was the first car in the family with cloth seats, low backs in mine, that gave a taste of luxury in the southern heat. The hatch area was useful for extra friends and push lawn mowers fit perfectly without folding the handle.
Surprised the dealer was still asking 5k for yours so many years later. Mine was $8518 new with sales tax and fees and rebate new.
Yeah, it was a fun car. Agree with your comment, low limits definitely kept me out of trouble a lot.
Your dad’s comment when you were waxing the car sounds eerily familiar. My dad made many similar comments, often with a smile revealing that he really understood what I was going through, but couldn’t help himself making such a comment. Those comments drove me nuts at the time, but now I laugh about them, realizing that he was, of course, right all along.
It’s also amusing that the dealer asking the ridiculous $5,000 for the Turismo didn’t paint over the Marvin the Martian — maybe that added to the resale value?
Both my grandpa’s were great at making snide comments about my first car a 1974 Volkswagen van. They couldn’t understand why I would drive a 20 year old vehicle at the time which seemed to always need some work. The more diplomatic one would say that I was throwing good money after bad. The world war 2 vet would say nice Nazi mobile. It was annoying at the time now that I am older I can see the humour…
The Marvin portrait must have made it a “Warner Brothers Edition” like the Chevy Venture had many years later!
Arnie Cunningham polished his Plymouth turd.
Yeah, and look how that worked out for him…
Fun to read, and the photos brought back some memories. I came very close to buying one of these new.
A year or so into my first job after graduating college in ’83, I wanted something to replace a rusting and gas thirsty Ford Torino. I remember test driving these, and talking price with the dealer. The Turismo seemed like a lot of car for the money. But an ’84 Chevy Cavalier I was also looking at seemed a little better built, so I went that way instead.
Always wondered if the Turismo would have been the better choice. Still have the sales brochure in my collection.
The Turismo would have been better and the normal Omnirizon better than that.
One look at the first picture, but before I read further, I thought, “hey, that’s got to be in Albuquerque.” There’s no mistaking the pueblo style home in the background and all the elm trees. Older parts of the NE or SE areas of town, no doubt.
But let’s get back to cars, shall we? Never owned Turismo, but two friends owned new 1984-ish Daytonas/Lasers. They were pretty spiffy for time and place. The turbo powerplants made for decent acceleration, but I distinctly recall the rubbery, long-throw shifters. Fit and finish were typical for the era, but I remember them as mechanically stout. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to take one for a spin now.
Yup… that’s in Albuquerque. If you’ve lived there, it is easily recognizable. With all of the films/tv shows being filmed there now, I recognize it a lot. One movie even had shots filmed in my high school. It doubled as a hospital.
In late 1982 several months after our first child was born the time had come to trade in my 79 Mustang Cobra. The car had been modified with a few items and had served me well. We traded it for what at the time seemed like a sensible vehicle (82 Cavalier).
The next year I spotted my Mustang in a parking lot sans TRX wheels and tires, now shod with some cheesy chrome wheels and without the rear window louvers. The car wasn’t clean on the outside and inside not much better with the ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts. My heart sank as I stood there wondering what kind of person would allow such a nice car become trailer trash transportation.
I only saw it once more four years later cruising by the restaurant where I sat with a friend. Of course it looked no better, but I didn’t get a look at the driver.
I liked these a lot back in their day. I thought the interiors were very nicely done, compared with the thin plasticy ones found in cheaper American and Japanese cars of the early 80s.
You bring back memories with your mention of high school band. My car during my trombone playing years was a 67 Ford ragtop, that my friends always insisted on entering by jumping over the closed doors.
In 1984 I traded in my ’82 Escort L for an ’84 Turismo 2.2. I was 2 years into my career as a “data processor” and thought I needed something more becoming of a hot shot computer guy of the day. It was the worst car buying decision I ever made. After it left my new wife stranded due to a broken shift linkage (2nd time, and a list of other catastrophic failures I won’t mention at this time) I immediately traded it in for a new ’87 Escort wagon. The wagon never gave me a problem up to the day I traded it in with 123,000 miles and the original clutch still doing its thing.
That Escort Pony cannot be any worse of a penalty box than my friends ’76 Pinto Pony MPG (remember those??) that his dad bought new. Reliable as an anvil, but it might as well have come with milk crates for seats, as it was… ahem…so well equipped.
I once owned a 76 Pinto MPG, though not a Pony. It replaced a 74 Audi Fox, and aside from having OHC engines, 2 cars that could have been similar were never so different. Both, amazingly, cost under $5,000, but while 1 was a giant leap forward for small cars the other was just “typical” Detroit….cut down to a smaller size.
And to add insult to injury, that Pinto MPG got the same mileage numbers as the 77 Nova that replaced it.
I saw my old ’73 Sport Bug I sold in ’78 at least twice for about 3 years. It still had the same license plate on it, and it was bright yellow so not hard to pick out. Both times it was in bumper to bumper freeway traffic near downtown LA. It looked like new when I sold it, the first time it was dirty and had a couple of dents, the second time it was filthy, had dents everywhere, missing a tailpipe and sounded like crap. A man was driving it the first time, not the one I sold it to, and a woman was driving it the second time. This was around 1980 and it looked like it was ready for the junkyard. It made me a little sad.
When I sold my ’70 C10 (in 2006) I only saw it once after that, and this was when the new owner came back to get some DMV paperwork signed. I never saw it again, but I still pay attention just in case it’s still around, hasn’t been repainted and still has it’s white spoke wheels.
Always thought these were nice-looking cars, I’ve got a thing for 80s-era liftback coupes of any stripe, whether they’re rear-wheel-drive musclecars or glorified econoboxes like this one. But a friend of mine in college had the Dodge version of this car and at only 2 or 3 years old it broke down all the time, and even when it was running it was constantly plagued by lesser problems.
When the TC3 (isn’t that what these cars were called when they 1st hit showrooms?) and it’s Dodge sister, the 024, first showed up in “buff books” I thought they were “the next big thing”. But they were quickly eclipsed by the 2nd generation of Japanese sporty coupes.
I guess what hurt these cars in my eyes was the interior that was lifted from the Omni/Horizon sedans and the tiny tires on all but the highest performance versions. And yet, I still regret not stopping to “check out” a fairly nice mid 80s Charger this summer.
My cousin had one of these, a white and red 2-tone TC3 model. He had good luck with that car, considering he beat on it and didn’t really maintain it all that well. I thought it rode well and looked nice considering the times and what was out there.
That black Shelby would be the one to have. I also liked the Daytonas. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the Shelby name was just a stripe and sticker job. Ol’Shel actually had a major hand in the development of these cars, unlike the last days of the Shelby Mustangs. This was during a phase when Shelby thought that fwd high out put small displacement cars were all that was going to be available in the the future. The GLH (goes like hell) version of the Omni would make a good collectible. Any of these cars that carry the Shelby or later CS (yes they were actually labeled that way, a joke Shelby probably got a kick out of!)The turbo charged versions were even better.
Nope, the Shelby name wasn’t just tape and stickers. I was well aware of all the mods that Shelby did to the cars above the base Charger. I still keep my eyes open for one, I think it would make a great autocross car.
Turd, indeed. In a recent, previous CC on this car, someone mentioned that the Turismo facelift with the quad headlights made it look like a seventies’ Chevy Monza. Unfortunately, it didn’t look as good. Neither did the quarter window block-off panels. The earlier TC3/024 dual headlight/open quarter window cars came off looking much better.
All that aside, another idea for a CC article would be to discuss how often previously owned vehicles were seen and the shape they were in.
I considered a TC3 new, in early 1980. Drove OK, though I thought having to push a button on the steering column to get the key out excessively rinkydink. At that time the Omnirizon had already compiled a vile reputation, and Chrysler’s survival, even as far as the end of that year, was not a sure bet, so I passed.turn into ru
I have seen a few if my old cars around:
-saw my 70 Cougar once after I traded it in, I recognized the pattern of rust holes on it.
-saw my POS 78 Zephyr Z7 several times after I got rid of it. Even had a chance to talk to the second owner for a minute. He saw me looking at the car, so I explained that I used to own it. First words out of his mouth were “you have a lot of trouble with it”. He related how that car had continued it’s repair shop loving ways.
-saw my Renault R5 several times over the next two years after I sold it. Sad to watch the little car that was so fun to drive rust away before my eyes.
Living now in metro Detroit, the car population is too large for my former rides to stay in the immediate area. According to Carfax, my old Civic is now in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Bellefontaine is only about 15 miles from Marysville, ground zero for Honda North America, so I like to think my car, phenomenally clean for a 98, is now in the loving hands of a Honda engineer.
The basic Omnirizon platform came out in 1978. This variant has the higher end interior that came somewhere along the line over the years. The seats are the same as in a Dodge pickup custom cab. I had a ’78 and ’88 Horizon. The ’88 had the higher end interior, basically identical to this car. The ’78 also had the high end interior but it was mostly different from this other than the armrests.
They had twist beam IRS and rode better and were quieter than the competition even in the later years where the pretty much unchanged car was marketed as a cheapo and was, down there with Hyundai prices. The 2.2 four was “raucous but reliable” as one magazine said back then. Because it wasn’t that good at high revs but had a lot of cubic inches compared to the competition it was geared up in this application, making for low revs at highway speeds and quieter cruising.
But the stick shift was always a mistake. Clutch problems and not that slick a shifter or clutch. The way to go was always the mini-Torqueflite, which gained a torque converter lockup over the years. Both my Horizons met their deaths by being totaled around 130K with a lot of city driving and both Torqueflites were trouble free.
That interior was identical to my 1979 Plymouth TC3.
Not a bad first car–useful, a little bit stylish, and not enough power to get you into trouble. Though it must have been a nice upgrade to get into a brand-new car from there, which I’m looking forward to hearing about next week. A new car at 18 was something that I could only dream of… (I’ve bought precisely one brand-new car in my life, and I was 31 at the time!)
I loved this read, and I remember liking these cars. These Turismos / Chargers seemed like a sportier alternative to other subcompact hatchbacks (Cavaliers, Escorts), and my impression of the Chrysler 2.2 (without any firsthand experience) was that they must have been reliable, as Chrysler seemed to be them in anything and everything.
Like you, I was lured into purchasing a lesser-performance version of what could be a fast car – I got a 2.3L 4-cylinder Mustang, an ’88. In my mind, I though, “Hey, at least it’s still a Mustang!” Hahaha…
Your dad’s comment about polishing a turd sounds like something my mom might have said in a passive-aggressive way LOL I felt your pain when I read that line. I still think these are decent-looking cars.
The $5,000 resale price of your Turismo at that used car lot reminds me of so much ridiculous pricing I remember seeing in Auto Trader magazines back in the day. Great piece, Brian.
Ford used ‘Pony’ as the base Escort in late 80’s, long after the Pinto was laid to rest. But, was only used on the 2nd gen for ’91. For ’92-’96, the base trim level was a 2 door hatch simply called “Standard”. Then for 97-99, was a 4 door sedan.
I might possibly have the longest durations between selling and reuniting. Several months ago, I saw my old ’96 Toyota Tacoma 2wd standard cab that I purchased new. It had the same accessories I installed including the Pioneer Super Tuner stereo and Boston Acoustics speakers. I traded it for a new 2000 Tacoma 4wd extra cab in October, 1999 (and hadn’t seen it since then). It was in amazingly good shape and the red paint hadn’t oxidized a bit.
Two years ago I saw my family’s old Volvo 142 which was purchased new in 1969 and sold in 1987. Several unique features let me know it was the same car.
For ten years, I also saw my family’s old Opel Manta beating the streets around Seattle. It was sold after I was rear ended at a traffic light. I ended up with the Volvo after my dad bought a new RX7. The Opel was still bashed in and had more war wounds added.
A good friend had a Turismo like this, in that pale blue that seemingly every other Chrysler product was painted (my own family had 2 blue ones, a Horizon and an Aries) Anyway my friends Turismo was used when he got it, and was very reliable-nothing but oil, tires and tune-up stuff done to it. We even drove it from Miwaukee to LA twice, and other than a flat tire, no issues.
Oh, yeah- “You can’t polish a turd, but you CAN roll it in glitter!”
With a strong custom chassis and a 6.1 Hemi, a Turismo would go beyond a mere polishing.