(first posted 12/30/2012) No, Plymouth was not a common sight on pickup tailgates. After a brief fling with them between 1937 and 1942, Chrysler left it to Dodge to do battle in that segment of the market. Well, there was the little FWD Scamp, a version of the Dodge Rampage. But other than that, this Plymouth Arrow pickup, a badge-engineered Mitsubishi Triton, was the only one. And they’re not exactly common anymore either.
I’m guessing at the exact year for this one, as Arrow pickups were offered from 1979 through 1982, and I can’t readily tell them apart. Obviously, these trucks were more common in Dodge D50 (1979-1980) or Ram 50 (1981-1986) disguise, and after 1982, as the Mitsubishi Mighty Max.
Somewhat curiously, this generation truck was Mitsubishi’s first compact truck ever. Toyota, Nissan, Mazda ,and Isuzu had been building theirs for some time. Dodge and Plymouth were probably happy to finally have a belated response to GM and Ford’s captive import trucks, the Chevy LUV and Ford Courier. Exactly why the Plymouth went away in 1982 is unknown; probably it just didn’t sell well since folks weren’t exactly used to the idea of a Plymouth truck.
These trucks were powered by Mitsubishi’s 2.0 and 2.6L fours, mostly rugged engines except for a serious weakness with the timing chain tensioner, if I remember correctly. And this one has an automatic, no less.
Speaking of Plymouth’s brief foray into pickups, there was a corresponding one into full-size vans, for a couple of years in the late seventies. I’ve had my eye out for one for years, with no luck (this is from Andy T’s photostream). But that experiment didn’t turn out any better, given how rare they are now.
Update: And also the Trail Duster, a Dodge Ramcharger with Plymouth badges on it.
Poor old Plymouth….the world was moving to trucks, but it just wasn’t working for them all that well.
We didn’t get any of the Plymouth badged trucks in Canada since all C-P dealers also carried Dodge trucks (after Fargo departed in 1972). I would have thought that this was the case in the U.S. also. I believe the Dodge version of this was the D-50 and that it didn’t take the Ram 50 name until the next bodystyle.
It started out as the D50 and was changed to Ram 50 for 1981. I’ve amended the text.
Hey there Paul!
Randy here. I’m a 56-year-old caucasian male living in central Arkansas.
I just discovered your webpage here regarding the Arrow pickup by Plymouth(Mitsubishi). I found it when I did an image search for Plymouth Arrow trucks to see if I could find one like the one I owned and drove for 120,000 – 130,000 miles many years ago….
In the fall of 1982 I was 23 years of age and living in southern California after having spent the winter semester attending BYU in Provo Utah. I think it was about October ’82 when I sold my nice ’78 Ford Thunderbird (white / white leather interior / T-tops / 351 2-barrel) and went on a hunt for a smaller-engined, more economical ride. Owning the T-bird (a Ford) had been a bit of a deviation for me at the time as the only 2 autos that I had previously owned in my life were both PLYMOUTHS: the first one (my 1st car at age 16) was a pristine 4-year-old ’71 Plymouth Barracuda (B5 blue / white vinyl top / blue interior / 318 2-barrel) which I traded a year later for a newer 2-year-old ’74 Plymouth ‘Cuda (the last year for Barracuda and ‘Cuda by the way)(yellow with black longitudinal stripes running full length down the sides and black twin hood scoops / black vinyl top / black interior / factory HP 360-4 barrel). Now how many folks are lucky enough to be able to say the only cars they owned & drove all thru their high school years were Plymouth Barracudas and ‘Cudas?! I owned one of each! I just wish I could say that my ‘Cuda had been a Hemi. Anyway, I’m getting away from the story of my little Plymouth pickup truck…
Back to the fall of ’82. I sold my T-bird and took the money from that sale and a little more added to it to look for something economical. I regrettably managed to stick to my guns and “wisely” (as my mom would tell me: “be wisely economical son”) “wisely” tore myself away from two cars that I found for sale on a couple of used car lots there in the Los Angeles area which I was severely tempted to buy at their then asking price of approximately $6,500 each: both were Plymouths…Roadrunner Superbirds. Yeah, both of them authentic Superbirds -the ones with the huge wing stabilizers mounted on the trunk and the pointed nose cones up front -two of only just over 1000 produced by Plymouth in the single year they built them for the sole purpose of meeting the NASCAR rule of building at least 500 to offer to the public so that the Superbird could be qualified to race NASCAR. I passed them both up in my effort to be “economically wise”. I should have listened to the voice in my heart. Passing them up turned out to be VERY economically stupid as their soon-to-be prices proved. Today those same two Superbirds sell for well over $100,000 apiece!
Probably the same day that I was forcing myself to walk away from those two Superbirds, I ended up seeing an ad in the classifieds for a 3-year-old 1979 Plymouth Arrow pickup truck with about 68,000 miles on it. Hey, at least it had a Plymouth badge on it! It was beige or cream in color (whichever you want to call it) with a slim multi-colored stripe running full-length down the middle of each side front to rear / tan checkerboard bench seat / 2.0 liter 5-speed (or was it 4-speed? I can’t remember) / no power anything and no A/C. It was as basic as you could get and it was ECONOMICAL. I bought it from a guy who lived in Westminster just off of Beach Blvd (hwy 39) for either $2500 or $3500 I can’t remember which (the guy was asking either $3700 or $2700). I ended up driving it for the next 5 1/2 to 6 years…
I was driving it when I met and was dating the girl I would marry. We sold it when our 2nd child was born as there obviously wasn’t anymore room in it at that point for the 4 of us. By that time I was very attached to that reliable little truck which had taken me over about 120,000 – 130,000 miles of highways, byways, and backroads, and thru countless towns, cities, and communities as I traveled several times between California and Arizona and between Arizona and Arkansas -most times purposely avoiding the freeways and just wandering thru the backroads exploring my way across small-town rural America. Have you ever been to Boggy Depot? It’s just a tiny place in the middle of nowhere coming out of a maze of dirt roads in southeastern Oklahoma. Me and my little ’79 Plymouth Arrow friend passed thru it together once. I’d seen Boggy Depot on the map as I was plotting my course before heading out from Arizona to Arkansas on a trip I made back in early ’83. I told myself I’m going to go thru Boggy Depot Oklahoma at least once in my life to see what’s there -and me and my little ’79 Plymouth Arrow pickup truck did just that.
It was a couple of years later that I well remember when the odometer turned over the 100,000 mile mark. It was late one afternoon along a side road of California’s 60 freeway near Rubidoux / Glen Avon just outside of Riverside California. It was the first time I’d ever seen any vehicle’s odometer roll from 99,999 to 100,000 and it was a big event for me (I’m a simple man, what can I say…I’m easily amused I guess 😀 …It was such an event for me that I stopped the truck, carefully checked for traffic behind me and when it was clear and no one around I backed up to watch it roll BACK to 99,999, and then drove on to watch it flip over to 100,000 again! Yeah, me and my beloved ’79 Plymouth Arrow pickup experienced a lot and saw a lot together. It was truly an old friend and I nearly cried watching it drive away when I sold it with nearly 200,000 miles on it for about $1200 back in 1988.
My initial intent in posting this was simply to let you know that the photo you’ve posted is of a ’79 Arrow rather than an ’80. I’m assuming they changed the look some between years. I can tell you for a fact that the ’79’s look EXACTLY like the one you’ve posted because the reason I found your webpage here was by clicking on the one photo I found in my image search that looked exactly like my ’79 did, even down to the slim multi-colored stripe running down the sides.
-Randy
Thanks. It may well be a ’79. Did they change for ’80?
Not sure if they changed from ’79 to ’80 Paul. I just assumed they did. It may well be that they were the same those 2 years.
Bring back basic, simple mini trucks! Mitsubishi’s had the best styling. Thanks for the article, Mr. Niedermeyer.
We have our absurd CAFE regulatory scheme, and its recent “footprint” formula in particular, to blame for the disappearance of compact pickups (and most affordable wagons) from our shores:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/10/how-cafe-killed-compact-trucks-and-station-wagons/
Perhaps we’ll see them return as BEVs, such as the Alpha Wolf pickup which seems to have taken some styling inspiration from these first-gen Mitsubishi pickups.
In the town I grew up in (in the U.S., in the ’70s and ’80s), there were two Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. The larger of the two had a Dodge truck franchise, but only Dodge trucks, not Dodge cars. I don’t remember when they got the Dodge truck franchise; it’s possible that it wasn’t until after the Trailduster, Arrow, Scamp and full-size Voyager had gone away. The smaller dealer was strictly Chrysler-Plymouth, and never sold new Dodges of any kind, as far as I remember.
There were no other new car dealers in town, but the town was adjacent to a much larger city. The adjacent city had numerous car dealers, including yet another Chrysler-Plymouth dealer and a separate Dodge dealer. I am guessing that at least one of the C-P dealers in the smaller town may have once been a DeSoto-Plymouth dealer that converted to C-P, but I don’t know the history behind how we ended up with so many C-P dealers in the area. The smaller dealer folded in the early 1990s. The larger one still exists, albeit under a different name and in a different location, and now sells Chryslers, Dodges/Rams of all kinds, Jeeps and Fiats.
Plymouth and Fargo. For the US market they are two truck names in the dustbin of history.
Fargo is now an Isuzu van.
Iacocca could have saved everyone a lot of bother down the road by discontinuing Plymouth during Chrysler’s early-80s restructuring. At that point Dodge functioned as a perfectly fine entry-level brand in cars and was, as mentioned, Chrysler’s truck brand during a time when that market was ascendant. And since Chrysler didn’t have money to do more than badge engineer anyway, there was really no reason for Plymouth . . . except to keep dual dealer networks happy.
I guess Iacocca was too busy putting out fires elsewhere to integrate the dealer networks, as was finally done two decades later when Plymouth was euthanized in 2001. That was the single best thing Daimler-Benz did while it controlled Chrysler.
Plymouth actually sold quite well through the 80’s. Many of its cars like the Reliant actually sold better than their Dodge counterparts. Chrysler was actually on the right track in the late 90’s by steering Plymouth towards sporty, small yet spacious unique models such as the Plymouth Pronto (Fiat 500L, anyone?). However it was too little, too late.
What Chrysler also should have done was not move the Chrysler brand downmarket, infringing on Plymouth’s marketplace. Now you have Chrysler 200s priced the same as Dodge Avengers.
At this point I don’t think Dodge is long for the world, either. I can’t see any reason for splitting off Ram as a separate brand except to phase out the Dodge name entirely.
I think just the opposite is true – if Chrysler intended to phase out Dodge cars, why wouldn’t they keep the trucks named Dodge and leverage a great truck brand? By separating the cars from the trucks, they clearly have a plan for the Dodge brand that includes only cars. Personally I think creating a new brand named Ram is a ridiculous idea, and everyone I know continues to refer to the Detroit 3 trucks as Ford, Chevy, GMC, and Dodge.
The one I was sadly disappointed that was never produced was the 1998 Plymouth Pronto Spyder (roadster) concept car. Even if it were sold as a Dodge or a Chrysler, it would have made a great addition to the line-up and generated enthusiast interest. If produed, I’d have gone to the nearest dealer to drive and check out, and possibly buy or order one. Had never previously had any interest in any car (roadster) like that, but that held great appeal to me. Sort of like how some folks are with the Miata. Basically, the Pronto Spyder would have been rather like what the 2000-05 Toyota MR2 Spyder was.
Yeah same feeling here.
I may be wrong here but I think these had the MCA Jet emissions controls.
I don’t have a ton of experience with the Arrow/D50 without small block swaps. Neat little trucks overall and prime candidates for 2.2 Turbo or SRT4 engine swaps.
There wasn’t much to the MCA-Jet system, just a tiny auxiliary intake valve fed by its own narrow passages in the manifold, designed to induce swirl in the combustion chamber:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_MCA
These were great trucks, good looking and dependable. The Plymouth moniker was rare indeed. Also, Stumack is correct, The Dodges were named D-50’s; the Rampage was a pick-up version of the front-drive Omni/Horizon coupes, ever so worthy of their own CC appearance.
I owned one of these for a little while in the 90’s. It was smaller than the other import pickups, as I recall. Handled really well, but couldn’t hold me, my wife and our first kid at the same time and still shift gears!
There was also the Trailduster.
Geez; how could I forget that?
Don’t forget that for a short time there was also a Plymouth version of the Dodge Ramcharger 4×4 – their Bronco and Blazer competitor. It took me a while to find this pic because I couldn’t remember the Trailduster name.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2748/4385154608_74e7096db6.jpg
I remember seeing these around occasionally as a kid, and I think I remember a CARtoon about them- didn’t they have a recurring feature about mini-pickups?
Not technically a Plymouth Down Under in Australia, the Valiant was also sold with an available “ute” version like the Holden and Ford Falcon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctor_keats/3143325069/ or as a “bakkie” in South Africa. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hartog/7289014290/
Close but no cigar… 😉
That “bakkie” is one of the Australian-designed Valiant utes too. I don’t remember if they were exported to South Africa built-up or as unassembled CKD units.
I think there was shipped in CKD units and another difference was the South African version couldn’t got the Aussie Hemi 6 due to tariffs imports and have to use the slant-six.
I stand corrected. There was in Australia, an ute version available at Plymouth
http://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/3730041611/
There was the Valiant ute and a stripped out version sold as a Dodge.
I don’t know when they made the change, but my local Mopar dealer was purely Chrysler-Plymouth in 1979. They had picked up Dodge by late 1983. I only know that because we were invited to the new model introduction party for the 1984 model year, where I went for a test drive of a Dodge Daytona Turbo Z with my dad. When we bought our 1979 Horizon in 1978, they didn’t have a Dodge franchise. Nobody in Charlottesville did at that point. As completely truck-dependent as they were when I worked for the dealership in 1989, it is hard to imagine the car market of the ’70s that let them survive without pickups. People that claim CAFE didn’t drive the growth of the light truck market are wrong.
Mitsu engines were the weak link. Mikuni carbs that were impossible to adjust. “Silent” balance shafts that would seize up when the bearings were starved for oil, then wipe out the oil pump and seize the engine. Talk about the “silent shaft”.
I’ve always heard these engines were problematic as well, especially the carbs and emissions equipment. On the other hand, I used to see plenty of D50 trucks with crazy amounts of mileage and probably very little maintenance. I remember them being a favorite of landscapers in the mid 90’s.
The only personal experience I have with them was tearing one down in my high school auto shop class. It was a sludge filled piece of junk that looked like it had one million miles on it, but had actually come from a late model Mighty Max with only about 100k that had been religiously maintained.
The turbocharged version in the Conquest/Starion was pretty neat but probably a total grenade as well.
Adjust and rebuild those carbs easily they were a doddle, a lot of that era Mistsubishi utes survive here the turbo diesel is the one everyone wanted
I’ve read those Mikuni carbs are really daunting to rebuild, not for first-timers or the faint of heart, and then you’ve got the Rube Goldberg nest of “computer feedback” gizmos tacked onto it over the years for US emissions compliance until they finally ditched all that in favor of fuel injection.
Unless one lives where emissions inspections require all original-spec equipment to be present, nowadays most just swap out the stock Mikuni along with all its feedback stuff in favor of a Weber carb, which is not just simpler but also delivers better performance, fuel economy, and emissions test results.
It’s an interesting study in differing approaches: Mitsubishi and Mikuni started from an older, fairly simple, performance-oriented carburetor design and gradually tacked on gizmos and sensors and vacuum hoses and wiring and electronic control boxes to help it pass ever-tightening emissions, whereas Weber started a new design from a proverbial clean sheet and applied precision engineering and manufacturing principles to achieve the same or better results with physical properties of air and fuel flow management alone.
This is one of those vehicles that I’ve always known about, but I’ve NEVER seen one. Does anybody have any production figures on them? Must have been extremely low… I don’t think I’ve ever come across a Voyager either, not the full-size van version pictured here anyway.
The Trailduster seems like it was the most common of the Plymouth trucks – and why not? “Trail Duster” is an awesome name, although my favorite variation on that naming scheme was the economy model “Feather Duster” Valiant. I’ve actually come across a couple of Plymouth Scamp trucks over the years, but I know they were exceptionally rare as well. It’s been many years since I’ve seen either one of those or their Dodge Rampage twin in active service.
The Arrow was a good looking little truck. I can’t remember what a first series D50 looks like so I’m not sure how different they were from each other. This one looks like it may have been lowered slightly. I’d gladly drive it, although I’d rather have something other than the Mitsubishi four/automatic powering it, and those wheels would have to be tossed in the trash immediately. Considering that the Plymouth brand was still a strong seller at the time, it seems strange that these flopped so hard. I guess maybe the idea of a “Plymouth truck” was just too foreign for most people
I rode in a ’79 Voyager van on a school camping trip in 1992. I referred to it in my ’79 Dodge B100 CC: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1979-dodge-b100-van-is-it-the-real-thing/
The Voyager lasted past the ’70s, in fact it was built right up to the Voyager minivan’s introduction in late ’83.
The Arrow and D-50 were identical, even the grille was unchanged.
Stumack is correct. 1st gen D50 and Arrow pickups were identical in every way except for badging.
Although I’ve never owned or needed a pickup truck, ever since they were new, have always wanted one of these Dodge or Plymouth mini pickups of this era from Mitsubishi. While I’m pretty sure I have sales literature depicting the Plymouth Arrow pickup, not real sure if I’ve ever seen one. I also was very fond of the rare Dodge Rampage pickup and the even rarer Scamp pickup. Oh, and back about 1997, found a 1980 Dodge D-50 in super great shape in SC or GA, which I drove and was tempted to buy but I passed on it.
I always liked these, too. I saw a few of them prowl the streets when they were new.
Plenty of beatup Mitsubishi L200 utes here with Plymouth decals not a one
Edit yes theres a Plymouth version in Napier left hook must be ex US.
As Bryce said, we only got the Mitsi versions here – but there was a Plymouth Arrow for sale here before Christmas. It was an ’83 stepside imported from Canada, and had a Rover 3.5L V8 powering it. Given how rare the Arrow was, would the stepside have been even more so? (Assuming it was factory – it looked too good to be home-made)
I don’t believe there was a stepside verison in North America.
A V8 stepside Arrow pickup?
Homemade.
Wasn’t sold in the USA anyway.
And since 2012 when I wrote that Ive actually seen a LHD Plymouth Arrow ute a very rare critter here.
“Somewhat curiously, this generation truck was Mitsubishi’s first compact truck ever. Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and Isuzu had been building theirs for some time. Dodge and Plymouth were probably happy to finally have a belated response to GM and Ford’s captive import trucks, the Chevy LUV and Ford Courier. Exactly why the Plymouth went away in 1982 is unknown; probably it just didn’t sell well since folks weren’t exactly used to the idea of a Plymouth truck.”
I didn’t know that this was the first generation of Mitsu pickup. I had always wondered why it took Chrysler so much longer than GM and Ford to introduce a captive import small pickup. I figured that maybe Chrysler didn’t think the small truck market was big enough in the early ’70s (or didn’t have the available resources) to justify to doing so. It turns out they simply didn’t have ready access to one.
Another question is why Chrysler called the Plymouth pickup the Arrow. The Arrow name was already being used by Plymouth on a small Mitsubishi-sourced hatchback, and the two Arrows were sold alongside each other for a couple of years.
“Speaking of Plymouth’s brief foray into pickups, there was a corresponding one into full-size vans, for a couple of years in the late seventies. I’ve had my eye out for one for years, with no luck….But that experiment didn’t turn out any better, given how rare they are now….Update: And also the Trail Duster, a Dodge Ramcharger with Plymouth badges on it.”
IINM, Plymouth only sold the passenger version of the van, the equivalent to the Dodge Sportsman, which was called the Plymouth Voyager. It was introduced in 1974 and dropped after 1983, when Chrysler apparently decided to get Plymouth out of the truck business (the Scamp was dropped at the same time after only one year in the lineup), moving the Voyager name onto Plymouth’s version of the new K-car dervied minivan. The Arrow pickup had been dropped after ’82, as noted, and the Trailduster apparently after ’81 (I thought it lasted until ’83, but both Wikipedia and allpar.com say ’81).
Mitsubishi didn’t make any predecessor to this generation of pickup truck, so this was the first-gen. The only pickup they made prior to these was a size class smaller, a flatbed/dropside variant of their cabover-style Delica minivan.
Pity the poor bastard who’s had to bury the accelator to the floor to get any action from that 3 spd slushbox, yet, hope springs eternal for the owner who put them Kragars on! The interior is in surprisingly great nick as is my surprise that the rust monster hasn’t completely eaten through the pot metal old Nikon pickups were beaten together with back then.
Finally experienced “The CC Effect” (a few times in the last week, in fact) – and figured I’d post these pictures on here…
Technically, not really though. What I saw was a 1984 Mitsubishi Mighty Max “S” – nearly the same exact truck wearing a different badge. Not quite as rare, but nearly… can’t remember the last time I saw one, if ever. I’m assuming “S” indicates it was some kinda sport model or package (as opposed to Stripper) because of the trim and a really sweet mid-80’s looking tach mounted on the dash.
Thought I had a picture of the cool tailgate logo too, but I guess not… couldn’t get a good shot of the inside.
Does anyone know if the 1986 Mitsubishi Pickup and Dodge Ram 50 brochures make mention of the 2.3L turbo diesel engine or not?
My first truck was the next generation Mitsubishi Mighty Max. A great little truck, that served me well renovating a couple old houses. Many trips to the dumps and hardware store and it never failed me. Sold it for a not so great Chevy when I moved to Texas because I wanted AC.
You know that’s kind of curious that historically Dodge was considered a mid-priced brand and Plymouth the low-priced brand, yet Dodge was the brand that had the trucks apart from the few exceptions we see here, while at GM and Ford it’s the low-priced brand that’s always made the trucks. Of course by the time this truck was made Dodge’s image had eroded so much it was pretty much the same as Plymouth, but still.
An interesting question and, from what I can gather, the simple answer is that Dodge had an existing truck line when the brand was acquired by Walter P. Chrysler. Because Chrysler already had Dodge trucks, Plymouth was simply their low-priced auto. What was then known as a ‘sedan delivery’ was created for Plymouth, but it was largely based on the Plymouth car. Then, when Dodge got a proper truck that was not based on a car body/chassis, Plymouth also got one.
Unfortunately, a few years later, WW2 stopped all US auto production, When it resumed after the war, any thoughts of Plymouth getting a light-duty pickup truck were abandoned. It wasn’t until the seventies when Plymouth got a few rebadged Dodge, truck-like vehicles (Trail Duster, Arrow) but they didn’t sell well, didn’t last very long, and all thoughts of Plymouth trucks would pretty much be squashed for good when Iacocca came onboard, particularly when Chrysler acquired AMC where Jeep had their own truck line.
So the question is who wants an all original 79 that is currently a daily driver. Im in lexington south carolina. He doesn’t even want money he wants a newer small truck. He is almost 80 and needs something with ac for these SC summers.
If I ever won the lottery or struck it rich, I would go crazy collecting Mopars. Fortunately most of the ones I would want aren’t that valuable and/or much in cost (let’s face it? Who out there–besides myself–is pining for something like an ’86 Lebaron GTS over something like a ’67 Mustang?). I’d actively look for a Plymouth Trailduster and a Plymouth Voyager full-size van, among all the other Mopars I’d have on my wishlist (K cars + variants, B bodies, R bodies, M bodies, D-series + Ram of each generation, LH cars, etc…etc…, pretty much anything from 60s onward to present day). I’d pass on the captive imports, save for the Stratus coupe, *however* I would look real hard for the Dodge D-series with a Mitsubishi inline-6 diesel engine. That would be a very interesting and rare thing to have in a collection.
The only problem is that I could even be a billionaire and still couldn’t do this because of my wife, lol.
About the Voyager fullsize van: Saw one in traffic several years ago. My reaction would be the same as if somebody else saw a Lamborghini (I tend to get excited when I see old/rare Mopars). My wife thought that it was an old, beat-up, scary-looking, monstrous-sized hunk of rusty scrap metal on its last legs (maybe the body but not the Slant Six, if it had one, lol!), probably driven by a sketchy character, and wondered what the heck I was thrilled about. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Trailduster.
I haven’t seen a Plymouth Arrow pickup since the ’80s, and not many then, but I DID see a full-size Plymouth Voyager van just last month! It was outside a kitchen-renovation place with some other vans and I thought to myself “well that one’s starting to get old, let’s have a closer look. And something was off but I didn’t catch it at first. Did Plymouth use a different grille texture? No, but it did have different badging, a different logo in the grille, and a different font for the Voyager script on the front doors. Plymouth only sold these as passenger vans, though it was obvious this one was doing work duty with all the rear seats removed. Across the lot there was this van’s newer sibling, a Ram-badged van with the last facelift/re-engineering it would get, making it 1998 or later. The Plymouth dated from 1979 (new grille) to 1983 (last year for full-size Voyagers), though I can’t narrow it down any further. Despite their relative ages, the Plymouth van was in far better visual condition than the Dodge. I snapped several other pics; will have to figure out how to use this cohort thing.
I wonder if it’s still running ? .
In the late 1990’s my late stepfather had one of these and no, not *quite* exact duplicates of the Dodge D-50 mini trucks .
The issue with the carby was : as an emission control thing they used a sealed wax pellet to operate the choke and when it went bad as most did, you had terrible running issues .
At that time the Ontario, Ca. LKQ junkyard on Milliken had a large area of various mini trucks so after a while I discovered one with an untouched carby, carefully dismantled and cleaned it, then the truck not only ran quite well, it flew through the mandatory annual emissions test .
There were differences between to two in various engine accessories as well .
It seemed to me that these were mostly bought new by older men as the junked ones were always in VGC cosmetically .
The 1979 Plymouth Voyager van’s were beasts, we bought a long body one from /cal. trans and it was still running decades later when the guy we sold it to decided to get the $3,000 for any _Passenger_ vehicle, it took a while to tinker it to fail the emissions test then off it went and he got his $3,000 Gub’mint check .
Sadly, Americans DO NOT WANT little economical pickups else they’d still be importing and selling them .
-Nate
I always wondered how the FWD Dodge Rampage would be with a full load going uphill in slippery conditions. I’d think this Plymouth would do better with some weight in the back.
In 1979 I had a company Plymouth Voyager van for field service. Pretty sure it was the 318 V8, just adequate. The gas gauge didn’t work, would typically fill it soon after 200 miles.
“Curbside Classic: 1980 Plymouth Arrow – The Only Postwar RWD Plymouth Pickup”
Except for the other one..
(100% ex-factory original Plymouth)