(first posted 11/14/2012) If one reads (and believes) the various articles and reviews relating to the Dodge Aspen, it would be easy to conclude it was the biggest chunk of junk to roll out of Detroit in the 1970s. Such thinking would be inaccurate, for there were too many other worthy candidates.
The Dodge Dart was a good solid car that had lived a very long life despite being nearly as exciting as a cholesterol test. Chrysler knew that simply remaining competitive would mean appealing to a demographic much wider than nuns, music teachers and math professors. The Aspen, introduced in 1975 for the 1976 model year, was designed to do exactly that. The debut was promising; Motor Trend named the Aspen its 1976 Car of the Year.
The Aspen, along with its Plymouth Volaré twin, was a breath of fresh air for the compact-buying crowd. Aside from drivetrains carried over from the old Dart, it was a completely different car. The Aspen lineup even included a station wagon, a body style unavailable as a Dart since 1966, a full decade earlier. Its 71.9 cubic feet (2.04 cubic meters) of storage space provided quite generous storage capacity.
The Aspen wasn’t perfect, but what is? In a sense, and in many ways, Chrysler was way ahead of its time. Did the front fenders on your Aspen experience premature rust? Chrysler replaced them and took care of their customers. That’s the embodiment of excellent customer service.
www.tmnews.com
In contrast, there is no evidence that General Motors did likewise for owners of their terminally biodegradable pickups of the same era, and Ford simply followed GM’s precedent.
There were also recalls for hard-starting issues, but even these issues produced something positive: They let the driver experience the wonderful sound of the Highland Park Hummingbird starter motor for a longer time. Numerous people here have commented on their enjoyment of that wonderful sound. Giving the customer what they desire is another hallmark of excellent customer service.
Chrysler was ahead of their time in customer service, yet is still chastised over the Aspen. No good deed goes unpunished, as the old saying goes.
www.splitsider.com
Often missing from the critiques of the Aspen is the one thing most important to its owners: How well did it actually perform when it came to meeting their needs? I’m not talking about raw acceleration, or how many g’s it could pull on a skid pad. I’m talking about a car with the ability to mimic the pledges in the movie Animal House: “Thank you, sir, can I have another?”. (Author’s note: Google “Animal House Frat Initiation” and you’ll see why I chose that picture.)
www.politicalcarnival.com
I’m talking about the Timex of cars, one that can “Take a licking and keep on ticking.”
I’m talking about a car that can take punishment and keep chugging along. Let’s examine that a bit.
In late 1978, my parents bought a leftover ’78 Volare like this one, but in fecal-brown metallic. Theirs was a two-door in Premier trim. Equipped with the Super Six (a slant six with a two-barrel carburetor), it was as reliable as ever a car was, and also pretty easy on fuel. I suspect it was one of the hard starters, but that sound was a sweet mechanical melody to a six-year-old Jason.
The Volaré was a tough girl. My mother had an natural talent for using it to thin out the local dog population, but it never suffered a scratch. Once, during a period of freezing rain, my mother, a nurse, left work at midnight for the 11-mile trek home. She ran off the road into a field, and then used about 20 acres’ worth of it to turn around, judging by the ruts we saw the following day. Driving through the tilled field didn’t even compromise the front-end alignment.
Throughout their ownership, which lasted until 1983 and covered 105,000 miles, it needed absolutely nothing major. The only surgery it ever required was a catalytic convertor-ectomy shortly after purchase.
As an aside to those of you outside my neck of the woods, I’ve yet to get an emissions test on anything I have ever owned. In the context of place and time, pulling off the converter was then a fairly routine procedure, much like LASIK surgery is today. I fully realize the likelihood of my experience being the polar opposite of your own.
http://www.ohtm.org/gallery/album624/80_dodge_aspen_1
Compared with my grandmother, however, my parents were rank amateurs. My grandmother has a Ph.D. in car abuse. She had an ’80 Aspen sedan in pine green with a pine green vinyl interior, also with the Super Six and Torqueflite automatic. Did Chrysler ever build a better combination?
Grandma, who is now 91 years old, bought her ’80 Aspen new, in mid-year. Her house was seven miles from the nearest paved road. She had an eight-mile drive to work, and over seven of those miles were on gravel roads; suffice to say that she was on gravel pretty much non-stop. These gravel roads were of the large creek-gravel variety, were maintained by a very poor county, and were graded perhaps once every two years. They would work suspensions and gobble poor quality tires. Oh, and did I mention she drove 45 mph regardless of the road surface, and employed the “point-and-shoot” driving methodology?
She drove that Aspen until 1990, when she traded it off after having driven it 55,000 extremely tortured miles. In addition to her 45 mph habit, she would overfill the trunk with firewood from a nearby sawmill (then drive back at 45 mph, on gravel), and let her 10-year-old only (and rambunctious) grandson drive it, often while overloaded with firewood. One can only imagine how she would have overloaded a wagon.
And my point? I washed and waxed her Aspen–for the first time in its life–when she traded it off in 1990, and it looked just fine. It had endured more physical abuse than most cars ever will, and yet it was ready for more. Even the oft-maligned transverse torsion bar front suspension wasn’t doing too badly. The ability to absorb abuse is the best testament to a car’s worthiness, and she had had zero issues with this one. Would you dare think of using your Camry or Accord in a similar fashion?
In 1989 I made a trip to Washington, D.C., where I had one of my most memorable taxi rides. As you might have guessed, the cab was a ’78 Aspen wagon similar to our featured car. During my 15-minute ride, I discovered that the cabbie could successfully moonlight as a stunt driver. His Aspen was totally unfazed by any of his U-turns, full-throttle left turns and 80 mph blasts through tunnels.
In 1978, the Aspen was considered a compact. At a curb weight of 3,448 pounds (1,570 kilograms), this was the sole American-made compact offered in three body styles, although wagon sales slid from 125,305 in 1977 to 61,917 in 1978, and dwindled to 38,183 in 1979.
Ford offered the Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch twins only as sedans and coupes.
Likewise, Chevrolet didn’t have a Nova wagon, only Nova sedans and coupes.
In typical fashion, Chrysler fully thought out the Aspen/Volare development process, as evidenced by model-specific wheelbases of 108.7″ for coupes, and 112.7″ for sedans and wagons. The practice of using multiple wheelbases started with the Dart, with its 108″ coupe and 111″ sedan wheelbases.
GM euthanized the Nova in 1980, and the Granada would get a new body and chassis for 1981. Nineteen-eighty would also be the final year for the Aspen, but not for its legacy.
Witness the Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Gran Fury;
the Chrysler Fifth Avenue, an M-body strongly based on the Aspen’s J-platform; even its front-door shape is eerily similar to the Aspen’s.
Did you know that the Diplomat/LeBaron also came in wagon form for a short while? Chrysler deserves credit for recognizing a good platform and getting full use from it, offering these M-bodies through 1989.
Are today’s examples of the Aspen/Volare twins representative of them all? Hardly. However, I do not subscribe to any theory about Chrysler’s having a lemon factory that cranked out Aspens.
www.imcdb.org
The Aspen was even good enough to get Mr. Roark around his fantasy-fulfilling island, so it couldn’t have been an unrelenting pig of a machine.
www.autonavigator.ru
Besides, a genuine swine-mobile would never have been used as the basis of the Monteverdi Sierra.
I found this out-of-gas Dodge Aspen in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store resting next to a Buick Century, a certified cockroach of the road. Since then, I’ve seen it on the road twice, both times driven by a little old man who could barely see over the steering wheel. It makes me wonder how many owners it has had.
It also made me curious as to how much more punishment this emissary of ’70s-era wagon Nirvana was ready to take.
Related reading:
1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare: Chrysler’s Deadly Sin #1
Vintage Review (R&T) “A Solid Set of Wheels”
CC 1980 Dodge Aspen Wagon; Rock Bottom and Loving It
I had a 76 wagon and a 78 wagon. Loved the fold-flat rear seat that worked with the press of a single button on the top of the seat. Loved the hatch with a low liftover height bumper. Didn’t like the rusted fenders (yes, they were replaced for free) and the five recalls all at once. Didn’t like the incompetent dealer service. But would defintely have another Aspen wagon today.
Our neighbors up the street bought a brand-new Aspen and the fenders did rust out. Chrysler did replace them and they happily motored along for a few years.
Not a bad car at all.
I owned/gifted a 1980 LeBaron coupe from wifey’s great uncle in 1988, dubbed the “Bat Mobile” by the kids after 1989’s “Batman” came out due to a bat decal I plopped on the left side of the trunk lid.
That was a good car, too. 225 slant six, Torqueflite, A/C. Kind of a pale yellow/cream color, just like the featured car above.
@Jason Shafer:
“I found this out-of-gas Dodge Aspen in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store resting next to a Buick Century, a certified cockroach of the road.”
As our dear friend GEOZINGER copyrighted the phrase “Cockroach of the Road”© and you didn’t credit him, you owe him a beer…
©Geozinger
I have a keg of an appropriate beverage awaiting!
Thanks, bro!
You have no idea how much brew I have coming my way! 😉
I love these cars, but am a realist about them. They suffered a very difficult development, as Chrysler was in horrible shape in 1974 and 75. One problem was that management laid off pretty much everyone in engineering whose work was not vital to meeting governmental regulations. That period of time was right in the heart of this car’s development period, and it showed.
I was truly excited when these came out. I (and everyone else) thought “great – the tried and true mechanicals in an updated package that includes a wagon.” These things had awful carburetion problems when they came out, and stalling was commonplace. The inner fender rust was also a big problem, although the rest of the car was not so bad for corrosion. Also, these were never as structurally sound as the 1967-76 A body. In short, a lot of people had a lot of problems with these when they came out.
All that said, I knew a kid in college whose dad bought him a silver Volare wagon in one of the higher trim levels, and it was a really nice car to ride in. Also, by 1979-1980, most of the bugs had been worked out of these and they were pretty good cars. Also, I always thought that the wagon was the best looking of these. The sedans and coupes, well, they were just a little off, somehow. A nice find, and enjoyably written. I found a Volare wagon, but it was parked under a bridge on a really sunny day and my pictures were not so hot.
When these came out, I thought they were the least attractive, dowdiest so-called compacts I’d ever seen. And then as the rest of the contemporary compact herd thinned out through natural selection over the years, I’ll was goldarned that the Aspen/Volare twins seemed to be the best represented of the lot. The ones that didn’t succumb to initial quality problems apparently stubbornly clung to life. Or were too simple not to realize they should have rusted away and seized up long ago.
A few years ago, I saw an immaculate Aspen wagon for sale. I wasn’t in a position to spend money then or I would be driving it now.
I will agree with you on the homely and dowdy part – which is why the wagons were my favorites, as they wore the lines better. The looks of the car was a huge disappointment after the 1975 Granada, which pressed everybody’s pleasure buttons at the time. But you are right – the ones that made it through all of the recalls and got all of the issues fixed were durable cars. On our local CL, there is a sweet low-mileage 78 or so LeBaron wagon with a 318 and leather that may tempt you. The nicest Volare wagon ever!
The LeBaron appears to be gone but I did find a ’69 Chevy wagon that probably wouldn’t fit in my one-car garage but is still very tempting!
“Likewise, Chevrolet didn’t have a Nova wagon, only Nova sedans and coupes.”
While that’s true, GM did offer a two-door hatchback. And two years later, the downsized B-platform offered a wagon in this size. Hey…didn’t I see somewhere that the rear windows didn’t roll down on these? 😉
I think Chrylser decided to offer a wagon after seeing the sales rung up by subcompact wagons (both domestic and foreign) in the early ’70s. Wagons were popular in that segment as way of maximizing usable space in a small exterior package. Chrysler didn’t have a domestic-built subcompact, but they figured the same principle ought to apply to the compact segment, where they would have things all to themselves aside from the aging AMC Hornet. Chrysler basically called this right, as the Aspen and Volare wagon were strong sellers until the cars developed a reputation as lemons and sales fell across the board. By 1978 competing wagons had also appeared in the form of the downsized GM A-bodies and the Fairmont/Zephyr.
As we’ve discussed in the past, each of the Big Three dropped their compact wagons during the 1966-70 period, a decision that seems to have been driven as much by a desire to upsell customers to intermediate wagons as by a perceived lack of demand for compact wagons. The decisions to drop the wagons were also made during a bit of lull in sales of compacts. For a variety of reasons, compact sales had fallen from their heights of the early ’60s. Towards the end of the ’60s they began to turn around, part of a rising tide of small-car sales that benefitted both American compacts and foreign subcompacts, but the decisions to phase out the wagons were likely made before that became apparent.
GM did have the hatchbacks (as did AMC). It’s my impression that the GMX-body hatchbacks got a lot of publicity the first year they were made (1973), but didn’t really sell well over the long term. My parents had a ’73 Pontiac Ventura hatchback when I was a kid. I remember that we would always look at 2-door Venturas we came across to see whether they were hatchbacks, and they almost never were. Years after they had gotten rid of that car, we were able to identify a car we spotted in a grocery store parking lot as the same one, in part because it was a hatchback. In 1984, there just weren’t too many brown ’73-ish Ventura hatchbacks running around the streets of Massachusetts.
I wonder too if Chrysler product planners knew by then that there would be no replacement for the B body wagon (Satellite/Coronet that became Fury/Monaco towards the end of its life) and the big C body wagon, both of which disappeared after 1978.
This was an easier decision for Chrysler to make because Satellite/Coronet wagon sales were negligible going into the early 70’s. Satellites in general were such poor sellers that in 1973 Plymouth sold more Dusters than every Satellite model combined. So, given they weren’t penetrating the Chevelle/Torino size wagon market at all, they had nothing to lose.
Compact wagons lived on in Australia, although they were arguably more like intermediate size by the seventies. Here’s the fuselage-bodied valiant wagon you didn’t get. This one’s a ’76 VK.
I had a 73 Ranger wagon 215 with treespeed some of it was that colour it was a heap of junk but never missed a beat Shepp to Cairns return finished its life at Shepparton autowreckers.
Nice looking Valiant wagon. It’s too bad it was never sold here in the USA. It’s better looking than anything Chrysler, Dodge, or even Plymouth offered. American cars, after 1971, generally looked rather ugly.
The place of the Aspen/Volare in the automotive world has evolved in interesting ways, in my observation. For several families that I knew, it was their last Chrysler Corporation product, as they were early buyers who experienced all of the early year flaws. There were also a few whose Aspens/Volares lasted for many years, though, into the late 80s as high school student first car beaters. They were common as cabs in Washington, DC in the 80s and early 90s, which shows that they were fundamentally sound and long-lasting once the bugs were worked out. Now, I see one at least once a month, always a bare-bones sedan driven by a young hipster, most likely inherited from a grandparent. I can see the survivors eventually challenging the 60s Ford Falcon as a cheap to buy and operate, and ironically cool, classic.
“I can see the survivors eventually challenging the 60s Ford Falcon as a cheap to buy and operate, and ironically cool, classic.”
Nail-head interface, and I’d consider owning one, although I will say that around here (East Texas) I see a lot more M-bodies than I do Aspen/Volares. The Diplomats and 5th Avenues I see usually are in very good shape, perhaps due to having spent most of their lives in some geriatric’s garage.
I finally at the age of 17 achieved manhood in the backseat of a 1976 4 door Aspen in Oxford Mississippi at Ole Miss thanks to a 19 year young lady that worked at local pizza eatery. She was impressed that I could out bench press (320lbs) half of the Ole Miss football team.
I have a vague memory of riding in a family friend’s blue Volare wagon in NYC in the late 70s. Pretty sure that either the seats or Uncle Charlie’s pants sported the plaid pattern seen in the red brochure shot.
No other firsthand experience with these except for every taxi in Portland, Maine from the late 70s-early 90s. The plastic grilles weren’t as tough as the rest of the car, so many were removed and replaced with Mad Max-ish steel mesh.
Have you ever noticed that being named Car of the Year by Motor Trend seems to give the winning car a better than 50/50 chance of getting a reputation as a complete turkey in the long run? That one’s gotta rank up with the the Grammy for Best New Artist as being the kiss of death.
I think I heard in the news this week that they just named the Tesla Model-S as COTY.
Automobile Magazine COTY as well.
Or like being on the cover of Sports Illustrated!
good call syke! amazing when you can clearly see the flop before they do.
The MT CotY “award” is pretty openly up for sale. As such, it’s likely to be bought by a manufacturer who knows they’re going to need the boost.
I’m not sure if Citroen had the marketing budget for MT’s COTY but they still somehow managed to win it in 1972 for their new SM.
As much as I adore the car, thank you for proving my point. In spades.
I’ve run across two /6 4-on-the-floor equipped wagons before. I still have the window sticker out of one of them & was surprised that 4th gear was overdriven. Nice.
The “PhD in car-abuse” & “fecal brown metallic” just own me.
I am still haunted by a silver-blue 1980 Volare wagon that was on the showroom floor when my mother was buying her 1980 Horizon. Slant six with the 4 speed manual on the floor. I wanted that car then, and I still want it now.
I test-drove some Aspen or Volare – can’t remember anything about it now except that it had the slant six and “four-speed” tranny. This was, as mentioned, a three-speed box with an overdrive fourth gear added, and I found it to be clunky in operation with long throws. Immediately afterward, I drove a six, three-speed 1980 Camaro that was really a class act by comparison.
A cousin (by marriage) had a high-line Aspen wagon that was borrowed from some other family member; he drove it for months with a front tire badly out of balance. I told him several times how easy and cheap it would be to fix that, but he refused to spend the money…it wasn’t *his* car.
Not exactly. The OD 4-speed was Chrysler’s well-known A-833 4-speed manual. It was NOT a 3-speed with OD added. It debuted for 1976, mostly in the Feather Duster and Dart Lite…and the engineers were told to come up with an OD trans, do it cheap, and make sure it won’t require changing a bunch of assembly lines.
They did it with a neat bit of tweaking. 4th gear is still direct. However, THIRD gear was made a 0.79 overdrive…and they simply flipped the 3-4 lever on the side of the trans. When you put the shifter in 3rd, you’re in what was 4th gear…and vice versa. Quite a clever solution!
And I am still driving my 76 Aspen wagon /6 4spd OD…. 🙂
Nice piece of writing Jason. I really enjoyed reading it and especially enjoyed your humorous phrases. Provided good entertainment for my breakfast read. You provided a new perspective on the Aspen/Volare twins. At that particular time I traded a much loved 73 AMC Matador wagon with a dying transmission (entirely my fault) for a new 79 Mercury Zephyr wagon. The Mercury lived a short life in my auto stable being grossly under-powered and it could not track a straight line down the road. Drove me nuts on long freeway trips. Had to continually adjust the steering wheel. Soon sold it to someone who didn’t seem to notice that. Got paid back though when I bought a new 81 Dodge Omni. The Omni was quite comfortable but something always needed fixing. Had to keep a case of power steering fluid in the garage for one thing. After a few years of that it was swapped for a used 81 Toyota wagon that was the first in a couple decades of Toyotas and Nissans.
the trim on these cars, inside and out, would just not stay on. Just ask my Uncle Al.
Another memory inducer. I never owned one, but the County Breathalyzer Program did have a stripper Volare wagon, and I was the main driver taking the machines from Ebensburg, PA to the reapair depot in Pittsburgh. And then stopping by Carnegie-Mellon for a few hours enjoyment with my coed of the week (which the County knew nothing about, of course). The interior was definitely low grade, the vinyl on the seats is still the cheapest stuff I can remember. However, the car itself was servicable and did the job very nicely. As I’d often overstay my time at CMU, I’d be racing back to the office so my absence wasn’t noticed, and got a few pull-overs from the PA State Police. In every instance, once the officer realized what I was carrying, I was sent on my way without even a warning. Only time in my life I’ve gotten professional courtesy, Guess there are benefits for being part of the team.
As a few earlier posters have commented, these cars were extremely poorly executed (perhaps only the GM X-cars ever got a bigger reputation as lemons, and as Robert noted, they were reponsible for permanently turning off a lot of people to Chrysler Corporation), but the underlying design was fundamentally sound for what it was. Of the examples that didn’t rust away or get junked in frustration early on, many managed to survive for a long time. I also recall these, and their M-body descendants, being commonly used as taxis in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I still see a few being used as daily drivers here in Massachusetts, but not many.
Around the time I was a senior in high school (1987-88), I had three three friends who had Aspens or Volares. At that point I guess they were a common car to have been passed down to teenagers (either directly from older to younger generations within a family, or by finding their way into the cheap used car pool). One friend whose car I was very familiar with, because I rode in to school with him every day, had a ’78 Aspen wagon. It had a 318 and was a bright shade of blue that we dubbed “flourescent blue”. The car had a lot of problems by the time he got it but it was an OK teenager’s car for the time he had it. I remember him once having a hard time finding a part for it at the junkyard because the taxi companies would grab any good parts as soon as they came in. IIRC, towards the end of our senior year he bought an ’81 Chevy Malibu 4-door sedan, and sold the Aspen to a kid that lived next door to him for $175. I think the kid who bought it junked it shortly thereafter after it neded some kind of major repair work.
“If one reads (and believes) the various articles and reviews relating to the Dodge Aspen, it would be easy to conclude it was the biggest chunk of junk to roll out of Detroit in the 1970s. ”
Might you be referring to my Chrysler’s Deadly Sin CC on the 1976 Aspen/Volare?
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/10/curbside-classics-chryslers-deadly-sin-1-1976-plymouth-volare-and-dodge-aspen/
Keep in mind, that the many teething problems these cars really did have were addressed in 1977 and 1978, so that the later ones were generally much better, although still prone to chronic stalling and a few other bugaboos. So writing about how reliable your Grandma’s 1980 was doesn’t exactly address the very real flaws of the 1976s that did give Chrysler a very real black eye.
The Volare and Aspen sold at much lower rates than the Dart/Valiant they replaced, and played a part in Chrysler’s brush with bankruptcy and bail-out.
Lee Iacocca had this to say: “The Dart and Valiant ran forever, and they should never have been dropped. Instead they were replaced by cars that often started to come apart after only a year or two. When these cars first came out, they were still in the development phase. Looking back over the past twenty years or so, I can’t think of any cars that caused more disappointment among customers than the Aspen and the Volare”.
The 1976s were a replay of the screw-up Chrysler made with the 1957s: they just hadn’t been fleshed out properly for one reason or another. Build a car long enough, and it gets better with age, up to a point.
The transverse torsion bar suspension proved to be woefully inadequate in police and taxi use, and Chrysler had to quickly engineer a number of fixes for it. Mopar diehards will never forgive Chrysler for it though, as it is by design not as good as a setup as the classic Chrysler longitudinal torsion bar design. it was originally developed to be a coil spring suspension, and some Chrysler marketing cone heads insisted that Chrysler’s image was so invested in torsion bars, that it had to be modified to be so. That’s not the way to design a new suspension….
I will also admit to also being able to conjure very considerable lust for a wagon with the 2 barrel slant six and four speed. Just not a ’76.
The truly sad thing about the Aspen/Volaré tragedy is that the best thing about the Valiant/Dart were carried over largely intact, i.e., the /6, Torqueflite drivetrains. So, the reliability was still there, but when the chassis/body integrity (never a strong-suit on the A-bodies, anyway) took the obligatory abysmal Chrysler nose-dive on their replacements, it didn’t mean much that the engine/transmissions were still running strong.
It should be noted that lots of cars had chronic stalling and driveability issues back at that time. Probably the only ones that did not were the fuel injected VW’s.
Regardless, Chrysler DID respond to customer complaints, but not in a consistently positive and transparent fashion. I believe this is the era when “secret warranties” were commonplace. If you complained loud enough or knew a friend who was in the know, you could get your car repaired either for free or very inexpensively.
IMO, the whole episode with secret warranties and dealers telling people they were on their own is what really wounded Chrysler, and the other domestic dealers. Folks were already wary of dealers, now with this shifting criteria of getting repairs paid for (or not), it only went into hyperdrive.
Not to be outdone, I can remember folks who owned import brands, (Honda and VW) who were told similar things at the time too, so I guess it had more to do with the rapaciousness of the individual dealer and how much or little they wanted to cultivate customers.
At one point, I read, and believed the reviews that talked of the Aspen/Volare cars as being poorly built cars. But after seeing so many cars being driven even up to the mid 90s, I believed that Chrysler did something right with building the cars. 🙂
Bet that car is still there the next week, and the week after. A can of gas or a a rock of meth? Decisions, decisons.
My dad had an ’80 sedan, beige with beige vinyl seats and striped cloth inserts. Aside from the torqueflight the car was a complete stripper. They got rid of it in ’88 for a new Astro van, and I was mad at the time that they didn’t keep the Aspen and ditch the Crapalier wagon. In hindsight the Cav probably got better mileage and was more practical, but the Astro was the family car now and could hold way more than both of them combined. The Cav did have A/C and FM radio, but I don’t recall either of them still being functional by ’88 anyway. The Aspen was infinitely more comfortable to ride in.
I can remember the Aspen being taken away on a hook at least once for a no-start condition. Nowadays I would probably immediately diagnose that as a bad ballast resistor and swap it out in 5 minutes for $5. I keep two in the glovebox of my Dart.
I thought my friends had invented the term “Crapalier.”. Apparently we weren’t the only ones.
Paul, I fully agree with what you say. Also, I did see your article in the midst of preparing this and it is on the money. I know of early models that plagued their owners for a long time. My aim was to be tongue-in-cheek with this as the Aspen was awful in the beginning and wound up being what it should have been at introduction.
I’ll give a thumbs up to this car. Bought a new 79 Volare wagen in the same color. Slant six, torqueflite. Test drove the Ford and Chev competition, didn’t want them.
Had it for 8 yrs. Fenders must have been fixed by then, some surface rust to fix on the rocker panels but no rust through. A great car for a young family of four. Went on many vacations including Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago. Not the best car I’ve owned but far better that it’s reputation. However, the first model year may have sealed the reputation for the rest.
I know of an intact Volare wagon sitting in an overgrown yard in rural Missisippi, four speed and slant six. I once had ideas of making a LeMons racer out of it. Apart from it I virtually never see these cars down here. There is one high-option Aspen sedan (V8 auto) around New Orleans though. It languishing on craigslist for months, probably for sale by the survivors of the original owner. The price started around $3000 and dropped to $1600 before I stopped seeing the ad.
Edit: Wow it’s still for sale. They’re down to $1250 now.
I had a much used 1978 wagon for about a year. I paid all of $700 for it. What I liked about it was the cargo area was over seven feet long with the rear seat folded. With a four inch foam thrown down there it made a very comfortable place to sleep that was more than wide enough for two. My girlfriend even made curtains for all the windows. Mine was Super-Six and Torqueflight, the best combo of them all. Great torque from the start and not bad fuel consumption for the time, either.
Paul is correct, these cars had weak front ends and didn’t do well in taxi use. The k member was famous for expensive replacements.
A couple of notes on the Chysler 5th Ave. It had the same license plate holder as the Diplomat but it was concealed under the plastic trim. I know because my father and I replaced the plastic trim piece on my mother’s ’86 5th Ave and I put a note (date and name) inside of a ziplock bag which I then slide into the original license plate holder. The 5th Ave’s plate location was on the bumper between two bumper-ettes which had the license lights facing inboard onto the plate…
And the rear door 1/4 glass was still underneath the vinyl roof sections on the rear doors.
The A/V wagons stayed on the road longer than the others, due to demand for cheap wagons. Still saw a few well into the early 90’s carrying mattresses or ladders.
Similar to how Mopar minivans are driven into the ground these days. Still see the boxy first gens once in awhile. The 96-00 egg shaped versions are now common working class family vans. Though, it’s hard to tell difference between 2nd and 3rd gens, 😉
The 96-00 are considered 3rd gen, so I suspect you mean 3rd and 4th gen are hard to distinguish. The key is the full length crease in the sheetmetal about 3 inches below the windowline. There in the 4th gen, but absent in the 3rd.
MY DAD BOUGHT A WHITE 2 DOOR ASPEN SE IN 1976 . THE FRONT FENDERS AND ALSO THE VENTS IN THE HOOD RUSTED, LOOKED LIKE THEY WERENT DE BURED. DAD GAVE ME THE CAR IN 1985 I FIXED THE FENDERS AND REPLACED THE HOOD WITH A JUNKYARD ONE .OTHER THAN THE RUST I LIKED THAT CAR VERY MUCH
My parents brought me home from the hospital on a freezing and snowy February morning in their candy apple red ’77 Plymouth Volare. I grew up with that car and have fond memories of it moving my family down to Florida (twice), trips to Disney World, and seeing it slowly rust in the driveway. I imaging that the Volare would have lasted well beyond the 177K on the clock at the time it was finally driven to the junkyard by my father in 1989 if it hadn’t been for those car-torturing salty Ohio roads around Youngstown. I would love to get my hands on another to use around town as a classic “beater” to make envious all the Toyopliance drivers around Sarasota.
You are so right about these- they are magnificently durable beasts. In both development and reputation, their story is similar to the Austin Allegro by British Leyland- I’ve had both, and I speak from experience, and have a soft spot for both of these cars.
On another note- I never really thought about the money Chrysler spent in replacing the front fenders on these- and later installing plastic fender liners as an example of good customer service, but you are right. Remember, this was the time that Ford was having recalls about its transmissions falling into reverse and running through garages. This was due to a weak detent on the shift mechanism- a £5 part. Ford’s solution- a sticker. Chrysler spent hundreds on each F body replacing the front fenders- way more than Ford did, and sadly, one thinks that had they, like Ford, spent more on lawyers denying the problem instead of fixing the problem, they may not have needed the government bailout.
I also doubt that the Volare or Aspen were any rustier than the Fords of that era, and yet, they got slammed for it, while Ford didn’t really make the headlines. Perhaps because Fords have always rusted, nobody really expected anything else. Plus, once those front wings were modified in mid-77, the F body became quite rust resistant- far more so than the competition…. …not unlike the Austin Allegro, which must be the most rust-resistant European car of the ‘Soviet recycled steel’ era.
Reading comments here and on Jalopnik or TTAC, you hear many, many more people complaining about having bad experiences with Granadas, Torinos, RWD X bodies, or even the ’78-81 GM A bodies than those who actually have had first hand experience with a Chrysler product of this vintage- and that has been my own experience with these as well. I have yet to meet a person who owned one that has anything negative to say about it- once they actually admit that they did own one that is.
“I have yet to meet a person who owned one that has anything negative to say about it-”
Helloooooo – I’m here. 🙂 I lived with a Lean Burn New Yorker of this era, and when it comes to the Lean Burn engines, you will find a lot of people with bad things to say. In fact, Chrysler’s quality was at rock bottom during the late 70s. The Volares were probably better than most just because they were simpler. All that said, if you got a good Mopar of the era or were patient to work through or around the issues, they were very good cars. But I am the first to admit that Chrysler drove off a lot of customers during the second half of the 70s with some really bad cars.
I will also admit that to this very day I have a strange infatuation with late 70s Mopars. Battered owner syndrome maybe?
I also have to admit that the people I knew with these had them in the mid 80s to 90s, so they probably had the Tuesday cars to have survived that long.
Yes lean burn was horrible- although I think that was worst on the big V8’s- the slant six didn’t have that as far as I could remember- but I could be wrong. I think actually the Super Six was quite good as far as smog era cars went. The well worn examples I’ve been in certainly didn’t have the stalling and stumbling issues that plagued the big blocks of the ’70s.
However, my ’83 Gran Fury had the ‘electronic carburetor control’ which was nearly as bad as lean burn. Easy to fix though with a carb for a ’71 Valiant and a ’74 basic electronic distributor- plus a glovebox full of ballast resistors. It ran great after that- like a proper ’60s slant six, but with the comfort and cushiness of a Fifth Avenue.
I also share your infatuation with late ’70s Mopar, and have always lusted after a ’77 or ’78 New Yorker Brougham (nee Imperial) 4 door hardtop, 8mpg and all.
I don’t believe that Chrysler simply replaced those rusty front fenders to keep customers happy. If I recall correctly, there was a class action suit over this, and the settlement called for Chrysler to replace the rusty fenders.
That certainly seems to be more in line with my experience of dealing with Chrysler dealers. As much as I would like to believe that they did this as a goodwill gesture, it just didn’t seem to make sense that they would, especially given their financial position. Regardless, I didn’t think that early front wings were any worse than other ’70s cars. Even Volvo in the ’70s had horrible rust problems until they installed fender liners in ’78.
Had it been Ford though, they would have just gotten away with a sticker on the dashboard advising owners to ‘wash inner fenders daily to prevent rust.’
The Ford transmission situation was more complicated. Joan Claybrook of NHTSA rushed the completion of a report that supposedly identified the safety defect. Meanwhile, the Canadian department, Transport Canada, performed its own investigation, and found no defect in Ford automatic transmissions that would cause them to jump from park to reverse.
The United States Secretary of Transportation was not impressed with Claybrook’s case. He was President Carter’s appointee (Neil Goldschmidt), so we can’t blame this on business-friendly Reagan appointees. He ordered his agencys’ attorneys to settle the case with Ford. No final finding of a defect was made.
There were some reports of the transmissions of other manufacturers jumping from park to reverse. One reason the number of reported cases of Fords doing this spiked was because a newscast in 1978 specifically mentioned Ford, based on Claybrook’s initial investigation. Unfortunately, Claybrook’s agency made no effort to gather reports of this happening in non-Ford vehicles.
Interesting.
I think the problem is one of wear though. The top detent on the shift quadrant gradually rounds over time. Thus, you think you have put it in park but it is still ‘riding the hump’ and the spring of the mechanism will pop it into reverse.
From driving all of the big 3 cars of the 70s, GM and Chrysler both had a very large park detent- much bigger than the other detents between gears. You knew you were in park blindfolded. Fords always seemed to have a much weaker catch into park, and it felt more ‘mushy’, and on my old Custom 500, I had to make sure I ‘rammed’ the gearstick all the way up to get it to lock into park.
Now, I do believe that some of the accidents were related to cars ‘falling into drive’ but I cannot see how this could happen, unless perhaps dear old Aunt Edna was using the shift lever as a handbag holder, or hit the long pedal instead of the sideways one.
I remember that phenomena in my 67 Galaxie. A very slight pressure to the shift lever and the lever would slip past the detent AND naturally drop down to reverse. It is as though the Ford shift mechanism has some mechanical bias against the lever being all the way up. On the GM and Mopar cars I drove of those days (and later) you could pull the lever all the way towards you, but without downward pressure on the lever, it was happy to stay in park even though the lever had been pulled off of the detent.
I always wondered why the warning sticker only went back to 1970 – I had assumed sort of design change that took effect that year. Now, I am starting to wonder if they just picked an arbitrary year to stop at.
The 1970 year cut-off is interesting, as an internal Ford investigation, begun in 1972, initially focused on the years 1968 through 1971. There were 40 such incidents involving Ford cars in those years. Given the millions of Ford vehicles with automatic transmissions produced in those years, it is not beyond belief that 40 people failed to completely move the lever to the “park” position.
The real question is whether this was happening to competitors’ vehicles at a similar rate. There were reports of this happening to GM and Chrysler vehicles.
The Ford internal study didn’t determine this – it only looked at Ford vehicles. NHTSA later said that it did receive more reports of this happening in Fords, but this was AFTER it had launched its inquiries and issued consumer advisories that centered exclusively on Ford vehicles. So NHTSA itself may have been responsible for the spike in reports by owners of Fords.
Claybrook, in my opinion, made a real mistake here. She went in with the belief that this happened more frequently with Ford vehicles, and it formed every move that her agency made from that point. She should have waited for impartial evidence that supported her initial opinion, and she definitely should have held off on any public announcement until NHTSA had gathered information on how often this happened to vehicles from all manufacturers.
One of our ’67 Mustangs is very difficult to get into Park — I guess the detent must be severely worn out. It has jumped out of park several times even after firmly shoving the shifter as far forward as it will go. Extra excitement is provided by the broken emergency brake handle.
Evidently this is a common problem on the Mustang & there’s an aftermarket piece available to fix it.
The first TV station I worked for (KTVN, Channel 2, CBS, in Reno) had two of these that they bought brand-new three years before I was hired there. I saw them going down the Biggest Little City’s streets on the backs of tow trucks far more often than I saw them do it under their own power.
When I joined the team, I found out that although virtually every part of both these beasts (identical white station wagons, apart from the interior colors…one red, one blue) had been replaced, they simply didn’t work well when they worked at all…and that wasn’t often.
By ’82, they were replaced by an AMC Eagle wagon and a Ford Escort wagon. And we considered both of those major improvements. Which should tell you something.
However…
At the same time, a buddy’s girlfiend had a Volare sedan. And although it was nobody’s idea of a great car, it was a bulletproof tank. Stuff fell off left and right, but in the four years she had it before moving to Sacramento, I don’t remember it ever stranding her.
A bit off-topic but I spotted a picture of an Aussie A-body Chrysler VF Valiant wagon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50415738@N04/5164176702/
And seems then the Aspen & Volare got their share of fans at that website, who show a couple of Aspen and Diplomat wagons badged as Dodge Dart in Mexico
http://www.aspenandvolare.com/showthread.php?3746-Mexican-F-M-Dart-Wagons-1977-Dodge-Dart
Was this generation of Aspen the last car (not truck) with Slant 6 power?
It was the next-to-last inline 6 RWD compact in the US, lasting to 1980. Fairmont and its Falcon six made it to 1983, probably thanks to Ford’s decrepitude.
Once there were tens of millions of RWD sixes running around this country every day. It was the basic American car for about forty years.
No.
The M-body Diplomat and Gran Fury were available with the Slant Six. In fact it was, IIRC, 1983 that the six got – for the first time! – hydraulic tappets..
When the M body was pulled, the Valiant Slant Six became – briefly – a truck engine only.
FWIW, I often wondered: Given how successful this engine was, why did Mopar never make a four out of it? A Slant Four with balancing shafts would have done the K-cars much better.
And if AMC could find the money to do it to their 258 six, surely Chrysler and its Uncle Sam could do the same.
Absolutely- my ’83 Gran Fury Salon was a slant six- but with the ubiquitous 80s feedback carburettor until I ripped it off and went retro.
Aside from hydraulic tappets, the unfortunate thing about the post-76 slant six was the downgrade from a forged to a cast cranshaft. This meant that the bottom end might need a rebuild in 300K miles instead of 500k miles. Meaning it would only outlast 3 of its contemporary GM V6’s instead of 5. 😉
As for the last inline six compact US car, that would have to be the AMC Eagle, which lasted until ’88. I think ’83 was the last year for the slant six in cars, and ’85 or ’86 in Rams.
Actually, the K car 2.2 engine was based on similar engineering- if not common parts- of the slant six, and was developed by the same engineer. It was actually a very solid engine, nearly as reliable, and strong enough to turbocharge. The only thing I never liked was its horrible engine note, but compared to a Tempo HSC or CVH (constant vibration and harshness) or an Iron Duke, the 2.2 was in a different class- not up there with Honda and Toyota, but not to be laughed at either.
Of course if you wanted a balance shaft, you could get a 2.6, and then another engine, and then another and so on every few years until you finally gave up and got a Camry.
The 2.2 was famous for eating head gaskets, just after warranty, so not as good as the Slant Six.
One correction:
Chrysler didn’t WILLINGLY replace the fenders.
They were ordered to by a Federal regulatory agency; based on claims of consumer fraud and warranty obligation.
Other than that…these were innoculous cars. The Dart drivetrain assured bulletproofness in use. Beyond that…they were what American compacts were: totally uninteresting to drive.
I never owned one but I drove several as taxis. And a friend’s grandmother had one, the relatively-rare square-headlight 1980.
They always started; you could identify the sound of the Reduction-Gear starter and the snicking of the solid lifters of a Slant Six at 500 feet (the last few years had hydraulic lifters patched in; the engine sound changed completely).
Beyond that, not especially engaging. I have no fond memories, so no attraction. The Maverick, a much cruder and more corrodable pile, I remember more fondly.
For my own reasons.
These were F-bodies, not J-bodies. The front doors are interchangable with M-bodies. The Valiant/Dart were a better car in my opinion, I never cared for the Aspen/Volare. They had a bad reputation in our area when they were on the used car market, unlike the Valiant/Dart which was highly regarded. The M-bodies later on were better. We had an ’86 5th Ave, it was okay, except for the lean-burn computer that caused constant problems.
As someone else mentioned the Transverse torsion bars didn’t hold up in Police/Taxi use. M-bodies had lots of problems with sagging front ends, cracked K-members and the inability to keep alignments. Some claimed the made in Mexico K-members were more prone to failure.
In its small size, the first picture looked pretty similar to the Holden Kingswood station wagon of the same era. Even the back end is similar with the same basic shape of tail light.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/1978_Holden_HZ_Kingswood_SL_station_wagon_01.jpg/788px-1978_Holden_HZ_Kingswood_SL_station_wagon_01.jpg
My mother owned a pine green one with woodgrain cladding. It had a 318 with a messed lean burn that made it run on seven (and later six) cylinders and within a few weeks of ownership the driver’s and passenger side front door catches failed, resulting in the doors being roped shut. There was also a large rust hole in the rear footwell that would allow dust and water into the car.
However, I have seen two very clean surviving Plymouth Volare wagons, the same cream as this one, but it’s been almost eight years. One was owned by an elementary school teacher and the other was owned by a neighbour who went through a lot of ’70s and ’80s Iron.
In 1976, my parents looked at the new Aspen but purchased a 1976 Dart sedan instead. The Dart was mom’s car for about 10 years. It was a pretty loaded dark brown SE model with the 318, a vinyl top and a very nice interior. When the magazines reported some pesistent problems with the the early Aspens and Volares, they were very relieved that they made the right choice. Both dad and grandpa bought the first year of the SweptWing Dodges, 1957, and experienced a few problems. I learned that it’s often wise to skip the first year of a new car model until all the problems have been sorted out. Now, within the past week, saw either an Aspen or Volare sedan headed south on I-270 on the east side of Columbus. Was night and couldn’t see it clearly, but definitely recognized that it was a 1980 or older. It was the beige or cream color. The first one I’d seen in some time.
My family knew another family where the father was a huge Mopar fan, and he bought an Aspen wagon in 1976. Between the engine stalling issues, the rust and other ones I’m sure I’m forgetting now, it was the last Mopar the guy bought.
I had a friend in college who had a 1979 Volare coupe. Slant six, Torqueflight all the normal stuff. For the five years we knew each other the car always started and ran fine. It looked good, did not develop serious rust and the interior held up pretty well too.
It sounds like my my story is the same as everyone else’s. However, if you were to find one of those 1978 Road Runner Volares with the 360 in it, I’d be all over it…
Our 1976 Aspen was a real nightmare…stalling, rusting, unalignable, and caught fire once! It was our last Chrysler product.
I bike past a similar vintage (and color) 4 door Aspen parked on the street not far from us in Toronto that’s in pretty good shape and it looks like it still gets driven regularly. My friend’s mom had one back in the early ’90’s that ran forever. The body was rough, but she painted it over with a brush and drove it anyway – the old Slant Six just kept on going.
Interesting write-up Jason, this wagon is roughly the same size as the traditional Australian family car station wagon (the wagons were on a longer wheelbase than sedans post 1971). It is interesting for me to read the story of your aunt’s car, I remember riding in my aunt’s 1987 Falcon wagon where she would slow down to 65mph on roads like those you described. The locally developed cars here were designed for this sort of thing, and can be a real contrast to imported cars. I took a new Corolla along a back-road shortcut recently, and even going half the normal speed it bottomed out the suspension a couple of times.
When Holden was developing the Commodore off the Opel Rekord/Senator in the 1970’s the Opel engineers did not believe the body stress levels that were being recorded during prototype testing – one of the first Opel prototypes broke in half at the firewall.
My buddy got his wife’s parents hand me down 79 white 4 door super six automatic Volare back in the 90’s. He could never get the damn thing to run right, even after replacing the carburetor, adjusting the gap in the distributor, replacing the entire distributor and on and on and on. It was sloth slow off the line where a bike could kill it off the line in full throttle, the suspension felt ancient compared to the then more current independent setups with the back end literally hopping sideways over railroad tracks taken over 10 MPH and the interior was as cheap and spartan as a stripper Ford Fairmont of the same era. His replacement car, a 1986 Buick Century with the 2.8 V6 was a revelation in comparison.
Interesting trivia about the Aspen’s badge-engineered cousin, the Volare, is that it got it’s name from the infinitive form of the Latin word “volo”, which means “to fly”, this means that “volare” means “I am flying”.
I thought it was named after the ’50s song.
This reminds me of my high school buddy’s mother’s green ’76 or ’77 Plymouth Volare station wagon! What a piece of crap! My friend and I driving around in it like two dorks in the mid ’80s with me holding a boom box in the passenger seat blasting heavy metal tunes, cruising around in a futile attempt to pick up chicks! Mission impossible! The situation became much better year later when I bought my very own Plymouth….a ’72 Barracuda!
Maybe it’s the year but how this car doesn’t get the deadly sin label is totally beyond me. A 1978 GP. A 1984 Bonneville. Two cars that were downsized to meet new mileage requirements with lighter more efficient G-bodies. The difference. The Volare/Aspen were total garbage in 1976-77 with a laundry list of issues ranging from disappearing fenders to faulty stalling lean burn systems to electrical nightmares to poorly applied trim and appalling fit/finish to name a few. If anything it was these cars that led Chrysler to it’s bankruptcy in 1979.
My dad’s parents purchased a new maroon 1977 Aspen Special Edition four door. Despite being the top trim level that year, it was not a highly optioned car…but it did have a/c and automatic transmission and the 318 V-8. It was an absolutely pitiful car mechanically, but my grandfather drove it until his death in 1985.
My mother’s parents totaled their 1976 Dart coupe in 1980, so they replaced it with a new white 1980 Volare Premiere coupe. It was a much improved car over the 1977 Aspen. In fact, it stayed in the family until it was 10 years old or so. I can still remember the mechanical ‘power’ door locks, which operated a little differently than the electric door locks which GM cars of the era so equipped did.
I bought a used 1976 Dodge Aspen in 1978. It was a blue vinyl-over-white Aspen Custom Sedan with the optional vinyl roof, air conditioning, power steering and brakes, cruise control, rear defroster, AM-FM radio…what was called a “well-equipped” car back then. Having maintained my own vehicles for years, and after suffering through getting a relative’s 1974 Valiant to run properly in all its desmogged splendor, I set to work on the Aspen pretty quickly…almost as soon as the dealer was out of sight, actually.
The catalytic converter came out.
The time-delay on the vacuum spark advance was bypassed.
The carburetor air intake heat was modified for longer duration to smooth out warmup.
The heating element on the electric assist choke was modified electrically to heat less, also to smooth warmup.
The basic ignition timing was advanced 7.5° and the vacuum advance in the distributor was made quicker, a simple process on those cars, with the help of a small Allen wrench.
The heavy understeer was cured with a factory rear stabilizer bar from the Dodge parts book, designed for the Aspen-Volare police package cars. Goodyear Eagle high speed tires stuck the chassis to the road.
The result was a for-the-day fire-breathing monster that did 0-60 in under nine seconds, held flat and sticky on corners, with a rear end that could be brought around with a blip on the gas pedal. Yet it still rode softly like an old lady’s Volare, but for stiffer shock absorbers that introduced some jiggle.
And then I maintained it. Kept it garaged. In rust-free California the front fender recall didn’t happen; no matter, they didn’t rust. I did what needed doing and a little more, and drove it for twenty years. In 1998 it still had its original white paint with most of its original shine, and the blue vinyl roof still glowed, but the engine’s crankshaft seals were starting to leak after 227,000 miles, and the vinyl seats were starting to crack. I said good-bye to it after taking it to a “classic” car show. It was two years past the mandatory 20-year minimum age for the show and I got an offer for it that I couldn’t refuse. Last I heard, after the 25-year timeline on smog controls had expired, it had gotten a rebuilt 360 four-barrel and a beefed up TorqueFlite, and is still running around out here in rust-free California with a restored interior, only leather instead of vinyl. A lot of car people would laugh at someone who says he misses his old Dodge Aspen, but I do. The Taurus that replaced it just doesn’t have that same kind of character.
I’ve always liked the 1976, the 77, and the 1980 Dodge Aspen. I grew up being told that for all years the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare were poorly built cars. I disagree. My aunt had a 1977 Dodge Aspen Special Edition two door coupe. I can’t remember whether it had a 3.7 litre (225 cu.in) slant six or any of the V8 engines, but I remember it being one of the most reliable American cars she’s driven. I’ve always preferred the Dodge Aspen and its predecessor, the 1970-75 Dart, more than that of its replacement, the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant. I got to ride in one owned by a teacher when I was in jr. high school, and I found it uncomfortable to ride in. I found it difficult to get into the rear seat. I also didn’t like the way the car looked. It looked a little too boxy, unattractive, compared to its predecessors. Besides that, I was never a big fan of front-wheel drive fan, I’m rather old school when it comes to cars, I’ve always preferred rear-wheel drive. I was surprised, to be putting it mildly, to be told how well the cars sold.
Your statement: “the Chrysler Fifth Avenue, an M-body strongly based on the Aspen’s J-platform; even its front-door shape is eerily similar to the Aspen’s.” is very true indeed! Both vehicles took the same windshield! The part numbers were changed to reflect the Chrysler mirror button change. But, the windshield and both left and right front door glass were the same as the Aspen/Volare. I installed enough of them when I was a lot younger!!!
Were they?
I drove one of these as a cab. It was plain but it ran well and always ran. The super six had decent power and OK gas mileage. that car was tough. I drove it a year and with 300000 on the car it always ran. Only things to fail on that old car was the alternator. A thermostat and the torsion bar. The alternator wes like 25 $. The tstad did no damage despite it being run hot multiple times and I hit an open man hole breaking it and it made it home sagging. That car was also driven into a river and it backed right out running rough for a few mile. I had 17 people in it once. It was the most reliable car in the fleet. It was more comfortable than a Fairmont or an a body sedan by gm. And the back windows went down. It rode and drove and accelerated adequately and was OK on gas. But best of all it never broke down. Try that in a v6 gm a body. The volRe and aspen are not the type of car I like. I don’t like the name. Volare is from old people music and aspen is a tree sort of like a maple. I like a big luxury car but these cars earned my respect. Make mine the fifth avenue with carriage roof and continental kit.
Apparently, what the author is saying is that Lee Iacocca couldn’t have been more wrong about the Aspen/Volare if he tried. Chrysler, even though they were going through problems during the 1970s, made a great car that took whatever punishment its drivers gave it and asked for more.
Purchased a used 79 Volare wagon for less than the cost of the extended warranty on my neighbor’s Mercury Sable GS!? I kept it 4 years longer as well! A great all-around vehicle, particularly when equipped with the bullet-proof 318/727 drive-train.
Another in a series of great articles! Thanks, CC!
“…the Chrysler Fifth Avenue, an M-body strongly based on the Aspen’s J-platform; even its front-door shape is eerily similar to the Aspen’s”.
It should be F-body and not J-body who was the Aspen-derived Cordoba gen-2 and Dodge Mirada who replaced the Magnum (strangely, there was a 1981 show-car Mirada Magnum http://www.flickr.com/photos/splattergraphics/3383574699/ ) and in Mexico the Magnum was used for a more muscled version of the 1981 M-body Diplomat. (And speaking of Mexico, they continued to use the Dart nameplate instead of Aspen south of the border)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEyequvncZE
Eurgh–another decent CC ruined by Wal-Mart spec plastic wheel covers.
My paternal grandmother had a 1976 Plymouth Volare. I believe she purchased it brand new. By 1987, she had passed, and my dad’s sister AND brother both used it and abused it. They both lived in Philadelphia and were not the best about preventative maintenance (oil changes, etc.). They also drove both drove it from their homes in Phila. to jobs they had at a newspaper in New Jersey, a 50 or 60 mile commute one way over the Schuylkill Expressway and Walt Whitman Bridge.
The car was passed to me in late 1987. It was a rust bucket by then, but it ran and ran and ran. I think I invested about $500 in it — a lot for a high school kid — but looking back on it now, that’s what some of my friends and my brother’s friends were spending on high school beater cars.
About a year after it was passed to me, my maternal grandfather bought himself his first brand new car — a 1988 Plymouth Voyager. He gave his former car, a 1980 Pontiac Grand Prix, to my mother, and my mother gave me her car, which was a 1980 Ford Fairmont Futura. My brother, who had turned 16, used the Volare for a while, until it was too rusty and in such disrepair, that it had to be junked.
My dad loaned the Volare to one of his employees once. She took it on a trip to upstate NY, about 5 hours from our home in eastern PA. She said the car ran great, but the wheel wells had rusted so badly that some of her dirty laundry, including underwear, ended up on the road on the return trip home. HA HA.
I took the car to a fundraiser car wash one time. They couldn’t really get it clean. There was too much rust and the paint job wasn’t like the paint jobs of today. I would describe the paint job as being perpetually dingy. Also, my friend looked at the car and ended up pulling a whole bunch of papers out of the trunk through the wheel well.
Rust aside, I have fond memories of that car. It stayed with our family a good two years before its final demise. I wish I could find a picture of it. It was a tannish color with a brown vinyl roof. An artsy girl I knew called the color ochre. The inside was vinyl — an ugly tannish color.
The 1970s and 80s were difficult times for car manufactures, with emissions and safety regulations bombarding left and right, it’s any wonder any of them ever made it out of the 70s at all. It was particularly difficult for American car makers.
We had a 76 Volare wagon, it was a piece of junk, always breaking down. One Time it broke down on the Mt Hope bridge (2 lanes) and apparently I was crying in the backseat. My dad also says the front fenders rusted away after a short time and were replaced. Sold it to some guy in 1988.
This was the family wagon when I was growing up – a ’78, white, with fake woodgrain and burn-your-legs vinyl. Build quality was awful – my dad has said he could reach through the panel gaps to unlock the door. But mechanically it held up fine for over 100k, surviving two trips from NJ to Florida towing a u-haul (my dad hated flying)
They got rid of it in 1986 in favor of a Renault Alliance, which had better build quality but much worse electronics.
Good cars and bad cars. The Aspen/Volare had a terrible reputation. Many incidents of premature rust, driveability issues caused by Lean-Burn and lousy carburetors, poor quality front suspension components coupled with a questionable design that often made alignments difficult if not impossible (front end parts manufacturer Moog made ‘problem solver’ control arm bushings that were eccentric to compensate for sagging front crossmembers), top it off with rather indifferent assembly, and it is easy to see why these cars were shunned pretty soon after introduction. However, does that mean they were all bad? No, it does not. Many ‘good ones’ were built that served their owners well and completely lived up to their buyer’s expectations. The difference between a good car and a bad one is a question of percentages. The Aspen/Volare is a prime example of a car that had a number of issues that affected high percentage of those built. The reputation was earned, but there were some good apples, no question.
I worked at a DIY shop in the mid 80’s and there was a local cab company, Blue Line, that used these exclusively. A local bodyman did these cab conversions on the side for cash money. I mixed so much B3 Cadet Blue Met that I didn’t have to look up the formula when he came in. Two quarts for a sedan, three for a wagon and any light colour that was kicking around for a base if the car was babyshit brown. The streets were crawling with these for a number of years until they switched to white Impalas with a blue stripe on the side and then these vanished quickly like it never happened.
A mechanic from another cab company came in to rent a space for an engine swap in the last remaining Volare in their fleet. A 380K km motor from one with a broken subframe into another 795K km version that was smoking pretty bad.
A former co-worker’s “idiot brother” swears these are the best cars ever made and still drives one. The CAA told him recently that they will no longer respond to his calls until he gets a better car.
so what do owners (me for instance) do about these hard starting issues w/79 dart?
[There were also recalls for hard-starting issues, but even these issues produced something positive: They let the driver experience the wonderful sound of the Highland Park Hummingbird starter motor for a longer time. Numerous people here have commented on their enjoyment of that wonderful sound.]
My good friend has an Aspen…a pretty loaded 1978 wagon. It has power steering, brakes, locks & windows, tilt column, cruise control, 318/automatic, A/C…basically, everything except woodgrain, the third seat, and the 360. It’s totally stock except for 15×8″ wheels.
Well, OK, maybe not…the engine is a 408ci Magnum stroker dressed to look like a 318 (complete with stock Lean Burn air cleaner covering the 800cfm ThermoQuad), the trans is a low-gear 999 with a B&M converter, cooler, shift kit, and deep pan, the stock rear axle got a limited slip, and the supension got a full going-over with Energy Suspension parts, a Firm-Feel steering box, and a swap to police B-body front brakes. 12.40s in the quarter mile…and oh yeah: it is painted beige.
Unbenownst to myself, evidently some folks still have Volarepens for sale. This one is on the block for just above $10Gs.
https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1978/plymouth/volare/101210871
I had not known the Aspare was the car the Diplomat/Caravelle was derived from, in part at least. Learn something new every single day.