(first posted 8/4/2015) After the fuel crisis, it took the major US auto manufacturers the rest of the 1970s to fully respond with roomy, fuel-efficient family cars. They all did it by building compact cars first, and then making them bigger. And they all succeeded, at least on paper, delivering competent sedans that could seat at least 5 without unreasonable discomfort, all the while delivering north of 30 MPG. Even Chrysler, on its way back from the brink again, got into the act. They made all the right moves with their new mid-sized E-Class, except perhaps badging it as a Chrysler.
GM mastered the process right out of the gate. You might never guess that its front-wheel-drive A bodies were based on the X body – they shared a wheelbase and many mechanical components. The X’s capacious interior had been a marvel in the compact class, and its dimensions carried over into the A pretty much intact. But GM did the rest pretty much right, restyling the cars completely. The major criticism might be the long front and rear overhangs to give the car mid-sized length. But otherwise, GM succeeded: the X and the A are even said to drive like very different cars.
Over at Ford, you might just guess that the mid-sized LTD/Marquis were based on the ostensibly compact Fairmont/Zephyr, given the strong family resemblance. I say ostensibly because that original Fox body was pretty large for a compact. The late 70s and early 80s were a transitional period in car size-class labeling and the Fairmont was that transition’s poster child. Upon its release, it was a ton smaller than the porcine mid-sized LTD II, so Ford called it a compact. But as Ford realigned its offerings for a new fuel-conscious world, they restyled the Fairmont (for the better, I might add), called it the new LTD — and declared it mid-sized. Ah, marketing. It was also the only rear-wheel-driver of the bunch.
But Chrysler was still in full-on struggle mode with few resources. So to make its mid-sized E, it started by stretching its front-wheel-drive K – and then kept a good number of K body and interior elements. I’m sure everything from the B pillar forward is the same. Yet somehow, stylistically, it worked. Of the original angular K derivatives, the Es were mighty good looking. Ok, that’s a subjective call. But even if you disagree, it’s hard to deny that the styling was in swing with the time.
The tail lights tell you that this is an ’83 E-Class. For ’84, the tail lights wrapped around the corners.
Hey! I know! Let’s imitate Mercedes with some body-colored wheel covers.
Inside, the E Class was hardly luxurious. It did have upper-level standard features like power windows, but those cloth seats wouldn’t have been unusual in a contemporary Dodge. Maybe Chrysler should have called this car the Newport, for that’s the niche it filled, in a front-wheel-drive way.
And for ’83, that was the nicest interior you could buy in your E-Class. With lesser interiors you lost the pillowy look, and you could even wind up in vinyl. Horrors.
Maybe that’s why Chrysler’s New Yorker crushed the E-Class in sales. It’s the same stretched K; that padded, extended rear roof panel covers up the rear quarter windows. But you couldn’t get leather seats in your E until you stepped up to the New Yorker. Apparently, that’s what Chrysler buyers really wanted in the early 1980s: the appearance of luxury. Because really, the New Yorker was just a smallish four-cylinder car.
But hey, at least you got a crystal Pentastar hood ornament on the E-Class. Thaaaaaaaat says luxury.
Still, the New Yorker’s success is why the E-Class survived just two model years. So that Chrysler-Plymouth dealers would still have an everyday mid-sized sedan to sell, Chrysler decontented the car a little, tacked on a more pedestrian front clip, and rechristened the car the Plymouth Caravelle. It sold for four more years, albeit in about the same numbers than the E-Class. And then Ford introduced its groundbreaking Taurus and the angular Ks all suddenly looked out of date. That didn’t stop GM from cranking out angular As (and making a mountain of dough off them) for another decade, of course.
Somebody clearly loves this E-Class. It’s in fine condition, and is even registered as a collector car. What’s this Colorado car doing in a suburban shopping-center parking lot in Indiana, so far from home?
The owner took great care to park it in an unused portion of the lot so that no neighboring car would ding its finish. Not that the finish was flawless; it shows signs of some wear. But its 30-plus years have been kind to it. And even though I said some blunt things about this car’s place in mid-sized motoring history, I feel pretty kind about it, too. It’s just the kind of quirky old-car choice I’d make.
The E Class made more sense as a Plymouth, and should have been labeled as such from the beginning. After all the “Chrysler class” of buyer would have been drawn to the “New Yorker” name any way. My guess: making it a “Chrysler” avoided the mid ’60s “VIP” / “Newport” issue, – Why buy a high spec “Plymouth” when a low spec “Chrysler” is on the same salesfloor for only a few bucks more?
The E Class fell into the same trap as the Cordoba, the ’79 Newport, the ’84 Laser, all of the LeBarons, the Concorde, the Cirrus, and the ’90s Town & Country minivan.
The Chrysler and Plymouth makes had long been treated as a single division; Chrysler Corporate wanted profits, and they could make more profits by selling more models as “fancy” Chryslers and fewer as “plain” Plymouths. This both sealed the fate of Plymouth (as an undesirable, redundant make), and devalued Chrysler (not a luxury brand, barely even premium).
You are spot on. It got even worse when Plymouth was shuttered and the PT Cruiser and steel-wheel, black-bumpered Voyager gained Chrysler badges. Some people cried foul when Marchionne said Chrysler would become the “mainstream” brand, but it’s been working towards that for some time now…
That column shifter looks exactly like the one I had on an Aussie 1971 Valiant.
I don’t really have any experience with the K car family. Were these really wide enough to seat 5?
I was one of three kids who rode in the back of a Fairmont & then a Celebrity. I would not want to be one of 3 adults in one of them & from the outside at least, the Chryslers look even smaller.
Those cloth seats have probably held up better than the leather would have. Really a remarkably good looking interior for 30 years. I think the only K with collector plates I’ve seen was a T&C convertible.
I second your question about how comfortable three adults would have been in the back seat. My grandparents’ ’84 Chrysler Fifth Avenue M-body was a larger car (externally, anyway), and I remember the back seat being a little bit of a tight fit for three grownups back there.
My parents had a ’83 Plymouth Reliant.
One Saturday we (my parents, younger sister, and me) picked up my grandparents for a 3-ish hour trip from Cape Girardeau, MO, to Memphis, TN. In the back was my mother (at 5’8″), sister (aged 8 or 9), and my grandmother (at 5’10”). Up front, my dad (at 5’7″) was driving, my grandfather (at 6’1″) was riding shotgun, and my ten or eleven year old self (already at around 5’5″) was stuck in the middle.
It was torture having that many people in that Reliant. While the E-Class was longer it was not wider and having five in the car with regularity would have been unpleasant.
Chrysler actually sold these as *6* passenger cars, and in their ’81 K-Car advertising made a big deal about how they could “seat 6 Americans” at a time when all the competing imports (and the GM X, J*, and A-body cars) could only seat 5. The bench seat was a selling point!
The cars were narrow, and not comfortable in the middle position (I never tried sitting in front center). But in the early 1980s when most people were used to RWD cars, the much smaller center floor hump helped compensate for the lack of width.
* the early J-cars, introduced in spring 1981 as ’82 models, were 4-seaters with rear center consoles or plastic spacers; only starting with the ’82 model year proper did they get full-width rear seats and three seatbelts for 5-passenger capability. I had one of those early 4-passenger cars.
Interesting, never knew that about the early “J”s. My friend’s parents got an early Cavalier – the Eurosport model in red – but I remember it having a full rear seat. Liked that car – the Cav was definitely the best styled of of the bunch.
We had an ’83 Reliant SE 4-door in the same blue as our feature car. And have to agree, putting three abreast in the rear seat was definitely a stretch. You have to wonder why Chrysler didn’t widen the K-body as well as lengthen it. Probably more the cost of new drive train components over the body engineering, which was basically a series of straight lines.
That would have made sense. They seemingly stretched it in every dimension except widening it, and it was a particularly glaring omission when you look at the later New Yorkers and Imperials, the latter of which was referred to by some as being a “Virginia slims luxury car”
My favorite K-car derivative is the Lebaron GTS/Dodge Lancer. Even without the versatility of the hatchback, it avoids looking so obviously K-car derived with it’s “gentle” contours. A runner-up is the Chrysler Laser/Dodge Daytona.
I like the Plymouth Acclaim, but don’t care for the Chrysler E-class. It sort of works as an economical alternative to the Ford LTD/Mercury Marquis, but as a Chrysler….it just looks, lame? This should have been a Dodge and Plymouth only car.
BTW, when I try that maneuver of keeping my car’s “skin” unscathed by parking way away from other cars….I still come out of stores to see other vehicles (usually large trucks/SUVs) clustered around it. I sometimes suspect my car has a monstrously huge magnet hidden in it somewhere.
I do the same with my car, and often walk out to find the same situation. It really annoys me. I know all the little scratches all over my car are from ignorant people at the grocery store who either open their doors into my car or leave their shopping cars in parking spaces without returning them.
BTW, I spotted an ’87 Daytona Shelby Z a few weeks ago. Planning on doing a write-up on it within a few weeks.
Ooh! I can’t wait for that one, I hope it’s fairly kind.
+1
I hear you guys on the parking issue! I hate dings with a passion…yet people are apparently drawn to cars that are parked to avoid this. What i do is pick an end space and get all the way over against the curb. Guess what? When you come back there will be a car parked over the paint line in your space even though you courteously left them a ton of space. One time i was sitting in my car and caught a girl red-handed. She went to her passenger side of her filthy, hand me down Volvo to get something and threw the door right into my vehicle creating a paint chip the size of a dime. Did not care at all until I stepped out!
American dogma is that the only person who matters is the deity Me. Advertising reinforces or reflects this.
Well said.
That’s not just America – we have too many of those Me-aholics down under.
I don’t know whether to be glad or appalled to see that this isn’t just an Aussie problem. I also make a point of parking away from other cars where possible (without parking it somewhere remote enough to invite car theft). And I usually return to find other parked cars clustered around me. More often than not, they are large minivans or soccer mom 4x4s that never see the dirt. Even if they don’t bash the crap out of my car, they still make it necessary to reverse out blind because I can’t see through the back end of their fat-arsed vehicle.
On the occasions that I have suffered car park damage, I’ve never been lucky enough to catch the culprits because they have already shot through by the time I’ve returned.
I had been at a holiday lunch with some clients. I was standing at the rear of my almost brand new 06 Silverado pickup talking to a friend when a women opened the driver’s door of an old Astro van and slammed in into my truck, all right in front of me! I proceeded to walk around the truck and start shouting at her, she just stared blankly at me through very thick glasses, and appeared to have an equally thick skull. I don’t know if she learned anything, but it made me feel better.
I hate people who don’t respect your stuff. I go out of my way to not bump other peoples cars.
As I’ve said before, the E-bodies are among my favorite K-cars. I like their 4-window greenhouse which provided some much needed distinction and prestige between the smaller Ks.
I’ve always wondered why Chrysler didn’t just call this car “Newport”. Obviously, “E-Class” was meant to showcase the new platform, Chrysler’s first true mid-size FWD, but “Newport” might have sold better with its stronger brand association. Were it not for the minivans, I bet Chrysler would’ve introduced a wagon E-body.
Front clips at least, did fit both K and E cars. When I was out in California several years ago, I saw this Plymouth Caravelle with a LeBaron front clip – very unusual.
As for why not call it Newport, I think that Iacocca was deeply into the concept of “The New Chrysler Corporation”. I don’t think he was interested in selling to old, loyal Mopar customers, but was after conquest sales. Very few of the legacy names made it onto new models (New Yorker was an exception) and he probably thought “E-Class” sounded so modern and Mercedes-like.
When i hear “Newport” I think of cheesy menthol cigarette ads?
I wonder since when the Mercedes E-Class is called the E-Class. Officially since 1993, when the W124-series became Mercedes’ E-Klasse / Class.
Before that it was E for Einspritzung (Injection), since 1993 E for Executive.
So in 1993 the W124 200E became the E200 and the 200D became the E200D.
I can’t remember that the informal name for the Mercedes W123 (since we’re talking early eighties here) was the Mercedes E-Class. Anyone can ?
I don’t think the W123 or W124 line even had an “informal” name before 1993. From what I’ve seen in press and advertising, the cars were either referred to by their exact model numbers, or simply referred to as “a Mercedes-Benz.” Occasionally they were referred to collectively as the “300 class” or “300 series,” but obviously the series included non-300 models as well.
It seems that MB’s 1993 nomenclature change happened simply so that they could call their car models something.
That’s probably it. When going back to the eighties, I’m sure that the W201 was simply called the 190, or 190-series at best (all gasoline and diesel engines) and that the W126 was called the S-Class. The W123-124…well…just “a Mercedes”. THE Mercedes, for most folks.
Meanwhile they need the whole alphabet.
When the W124 arrived in the US, it was marketed as the “300 Class”, which is why there was a 300 2.6, later renamed E260, after the change to “E Class”.
I recall the “S-Class” designation already being used at the time the E-Class was made, and I assumed the Mercedes reference was the reason that rather odd name was chosen. But that was the only Benz called anything-class back then.
Iacocca’s Mercedes fixation was also on display with this car’s Dodge twin, the 600 ES. The chrome “600 ES” badge on the trunk lid was done in the same font and style as Mercedes-Benz badges of the time, down to the chrome bar underneath the letters and numbers.
I understand the “Class” designation in Mercedes comes from the S-Class in the 70s, and if what Wikipedia says is right, the name makes sense for the top Mercedes.
“S-Class” is the anglicized version of “S-Klasse,” a German abbreviation of “Sonderklasse,” which means “special class” (in the sense of “a class of its own”). In automotive terms it refers to “a specially outfitted car.”
That obviously loses its original meaning when all Mercedes cars are called something-class.
Ramon – After reading your comment, I couldn’t help thinking – DKW had a Sonderklasse…..
I think Chrysler’s purging of legacy names and constant renaming of new models hurt it badly. So many Chrysler names of the ’80s and ’90s didn’t outlast the first generation (Dynasty, Diplomat, Shadow, Sundance, Aires, Reliant, Mirada, Acclaim, Cirrus, Breeze, etc., etc.,) and never got a chance to build a loyal fan base the way Honda (Civic, Accord), Toyota (Corolla, Camry), VW (Golf, Jetta), or Nissan (Sentra, Maxima) did.
I totally agree. I know several people that owned Cirruses/Stratuses and loved them. They always wondered why Chrysler/Dodge stopped making them.
That’s exactly what an ’86 E Class would have looked like, had they kept the model going a little longer.
Put me down as a fan of these. Never before or since, has America achieved such space efficiency. The look of these and the GM A were quickly derided, but in the fullness of time look at what they were achieving. Look at the interior of this example, Mr. Grey describes it has hardly luxurious, I respectfully disagree. Look at the width and the plushness of the old style, twin comfort lounge seat. Look how small the center hump is and how the column shifter frees up space. This car is about the size of a current Corolla, shorter wheelbase, more overhang, less weight. I dare say that it carries itself with more dignity. The 2.2 engine had similar hp to late slant 6s while weighing 800 pounds less than a Diplomat, and getting 40% better mileage. Look at the sightlines, no silly rake of the roofline to pinch windows and have the windshield and dash go on for ever. The trunk is large and conventional, not the current mailslot. Notice I don’t have to site a specific current model, they are all like that. Well not always.
These cars weren’t perfect, but for a change at the time they were progress over what they replaced. The Europeans and the Japanese were not doing equivalents yet, these were as American as a 55 Chevy or a 65 Mustang. I miss that.
I had a 1994 Dodge Shadow with the 2.2 engine. It was rated just a bit under 100 hp. I don’t remember a six cylinder of that time rated below 100 hp.
Having owned a 1984 E-Class bought used in 1986, those cloth seats were some of the most comfortable seats I have ever had the pleasure of driving in. Our car also had that unique two-tone paint with a gunmetal blue hood and a thin area just below the side glass extending to the end of the rear door with the rest of the car in silver. It was a real beauty, which I have described in detail on here several times.
Our car had the 2.2L automatic, power steering & brakes, A/C, AM/FM radio, tilt wheel, but no cruise for some reason. We owned it for 8 years and loved it. When the engine started to go, we should have replaced it and kept it, but we sold it and the new owner fixed it and drove it several more years.
Was there a better car out there at the time for the money? Perhaps, but our car was one we just HAD to buy! We didn’t regret it, either.
That car was perfect for our Colorado vacation in 1989 – plenty of room for us and our two kids. Those seat-back pockets were a life-saver for the kid’s books!
Very nice! I loved the way Chrysler did two-tone color schemes on this car. I think they did a similar layout with two-tone on the Fifth Avenue.
Very nice! I had some wheel time in an E-Class and found them typical for mid level American luxury at the time. Not strippers by any means. The experience was like driving a smaller scale GM B body.
That car is particularly lovely with the grey/black tu-tone paint. Have always liked these cars, they were much more reliable than GM’s X-cars and slightly smaller and more maneuverable than the A-bodies. A pity Chrysler never offered an optional six and no wagon version.
Perhaps the advertising was weak for these vehicles. I cannot recall what Chrysler did for these cars back in the 80’s. Also, GM’s A-bodies sold so well as well as Ford’s downsized LTD and new, revolutionary ’86 Taurus that maybe it hurt Chrysler’s sales numbers on these vehicles. Timing is everything in the car business.
Now that’s an attractive car! I like the styling of these already, and that two-tone is quite nice.
I’ve said this before Zackman but I’ll say it again, I love that two-tone treatment! It makes angular cars look so sharp!
I agree Newport would have been a more fitting moniker for this car. Chrysler die-hards (and their neighbors) would have known exactly where it fit in the lineup and bought accordingly. That said, there was a shift at the time toward the luxury versions of cars, so I still think the New Yorker would have handily outsold this E.
I think Dodge did the best version of this car, though 600 wasn’t the best name. The front clip clearly telegraphed the Dodge brand styling cues, and the brand positioning fit with the cars’ abilities (roomier inexpensive fwd family car).
Not sure how the guy hawking Dodges in the sales training video comparing the Dodge 600 to the Pontiac 6000 would have handled the names though…
A neighbor of mine was on a Chrysler kick in the 80s, and had one of these. It had the nicest cloth upholstery and carpet of any non-luxury car I have ever sat in. Even the 1990 Dodge Dynasty I later had as a company car had remarkable seats and carpeting. The seats were comfy, held their shape, and the patterned cloth showed no wear, even with 180,000 miles. I am not a fan of leather, I strongly prefer sturdy cloth.
I was picking up parts for one of my Volvos yesterday, and saw a new S60 sedan on the showroom floor…with cloth seats. If the dumb thing wasn’t $34K I would have seriously looked at it, but a similarly-equipped Accord is more like $23K, tough to justify the additional $10K.
Premium brands should be a much tougher sell than they are these days. I was thinking that when Brendan did his piece on the Mercedes CLA, that it’s really got nothing that a Focus, Golf or Mazda 3 doesn’t offer for one-third less, plus they have a manual transmission and a real, no off-roader pretenses, hatchback model.
I would gander to say the CLA would have a solid build, moreso than the others except perhaps the Golf. There is more standard equipment. And the brand panache carries a lot of the price difference.
Not for me, but I won’t begrudge those who do feel the name is worth the 30% premium.
A terrific looking car and one I would also be inclined to consider if I were looking for an older car as a driver. Parts would be easy to find, it would be comfortable, and easy on fuel – no downsides there.
Newport would have been a better name, although from what I’ve read Chrysler was contemplating using that name on would ultimately be the Diplomat SE. However, that should not have stopped them as Chrysler Canada had a front- and rear-drive Caravelle for several overlapping model years and it was the north of the border version of the Diplomat and 600. Plus there was that LeBaron habit of theirs…
Jim, I take serious issue with the hubcap statement. 🙂 The earliest example I can think of was the 1958 Edsel having color-keyed wheel covers and it was a staple at Ford during the 1970s. I have to submit Mercedes was aping Ford on this one with Chrysler jumping on the bandwagon – might there have even been ads in Germany once upon a time saying “The Mercedes that looks like a Ford!”?
Others may have invented the look, but M-B did it best and made it popular!
Agree that Ford did a bunch of color keyed covers. On some ’75 -’78 LTD Landaus the color was keyed to the vinyl top and side trim.
Some ’75-78 Marquis and other Mercury products had them. I think Lincoln did a few as well.
Cadillac did them in ’62 and then a bunch of them from ’75 -’79.
The ’70s landau package on Caprice and Impala incorporated them. Even the Nova LN had them.
Olds did some in the late ’70s and early ’80s.
AMC did them as part of the Concord luxury package.
Mopar products were generally late to the party. Can’t think of many before the early ’80s.
The were a bit like covered headlights, popular enough that you saw them regularly, but probably not more than 10% or 15% of cars had them.
The hard part about the color-keyed wheel covers was losing one. They were often extremely expensive to replace and almost always had to be special-ordered because dealers wouldn’t stock one of every single color available. In 1979, a great Uncle of mine had a 1978 dark green Fleetwood Brougham that had the color-keyed hubcaps. He lost one on a trip home from Florida, and when he went to the dealer to replace it, the cost for one of them was crazy – IIRC it was over $200.00 (and that was in 1979!). He decided to put a set of regular Cadillac wheelcovers on instead. I think a set of four were less than the one color-keyed replacement cover! I remember that his Fleetwood didn’t look quite as nice without them and always thought he made a mistake not replacing that one cover.
I’m not surprised they were pricey.
I recall seeing occasional Cadillac covers where the color was peeling back like it was more of a sticker than actual paint. If true, that was a very pricey sticker!
But, they did look really good on Fleetwoods. The most striking one I recall was a pristine ’76 in triple dark metallic blue that regularly visited the store where I worked. The dark cover centers picking up the body color seemed to accentuate the very conservative traditional look of the car – and make it even a bit more massive than it already was.
All of the “color-keyed” trim, so popular in the 70’s and 80’s, was pricey. The 72 Maverick LDO below was hit on the right side on PCH by a stoned surfer in 73 and all of the trim and both wheel covers had to be replaced. Even the bumper guards had color-keyed inserts and since the front bumper was damaged, those also had to be replaced. Fine under insurance but later on when I had a higher deductible and parts were even more scarce and pricier, I swore off “special edition” cars. Relatives and friends who had “anniversary” edition cars experienced the same issues.
Valiant Brougham and Dart SE had them, but I think that was it from Mopar during the 1970s.
The 1st Olds I recall having color keyed wheel covers was the ’73 Cutlass Salon.
Yes – standard on the Salon trim.
The Salon was always considered the Cutlass with the grand touring “European” flair, hence the flag ornamentation. I guess color-keyed wheel covers were a very European touch.
They were also available on Granada and Monarchs as well as LDO package Mavericks.
My 72 Maverick LDO was an early adapter at Ford for the color-keyed wheel covers. Mercedes was putting the body paint color in the wheels/covers in the 30’s.
1937 M-B:
Agreed, I absolutely love color-keyed wheel covers. They may be most strongly associated with the W123, but second most frequent user would have to be Cadillac.
On the featured car with the blue metallic paint, the color-keyed covers look particularly snazzy.
I had forgotten about the 61-62 Cadillac wheel covers. Very nice:
I grew up in a town with a Chrysler Engine Plant, saw tons of these on the roads for the better part of a decade. Rode in a fair share, they were good cheap beaters in the 90s.
Great writeup and pictures, Jim. I must have been a teenager before I figured out the E-body was (ostensibly) a separate platform than the K’s. I knew an E-Class looked different than a Reliant, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was different about it (wheelbase stretch, six-window greenhouse, higher rear deck). Never liked the name “E-Class”, but I also realize 80’s Chrysler was trying to distance itself from 70’s Chrysler in the minds of the buying public, so maybe that’s why “Newport” (or plain “Fury”) wasn’t recycled.
You’re certainly right about that.
CincyDavid,
I guess living close to the Accord plant has it’s perks? I say that because when I looked on Honda’s website a “bare-bones” Accord was $24-$25K, before adding freight….if I remember correctly.
I’ve been watching the tv show Hunter on H&I and noticed McCall had 2 different red Daytonas over the course of the show. Strange, as when they were new I never would have considered these to be a “chick car”.
I think this is the most attractive and well-proportioned car that ever came out on any variation of the K platform. I was always surprised that these never sold better. This one is particularly attractive.
I remember thinking at the time that these were attractive cars. In retrospect, either “Newport” or “Saratoga” would have been a better choice. The name was a handicap, but at that time, Chrysler was trying to run as far away from the “old” Chrysler Corporation as possible.
When this car was introduced in the fall of 1982, the corporation hadn’t fully paid off the costs of its bailout, and the minivans had not yet been introduced. There was no public perception that Chrysler Corporation was completely “out of the woods,” so Lee Iacocca and management wanted everyone looking to the supposedly brighter future, not the recent, not-so-glorious past.
Add me to the camp that liked these, and got a little wheel time in a near new one. Also in the camp that never liked the name – Newport may not have been right for the reasons you mention, but would have been better. I also thought the LeBaron GTS would have been much better named 300. At least it had some sporting pretension / history and would not have been yet another rehash of the overused and sort of pretentious / old sounding LeBaron name.
Agreed. LeBaron was driven into the ground and didn’t really sound that nice anyway. Pretentious and stuffy.
E-Class was a disappointing name, but I guess it’s better than Gran LeBaron, which was also under consideration. Newport would have made more sense.
The seats were really comfortable. My dad had an 87 Caravelle SE, and the seats were a joy to sit on.
This strikes me as a great car to be speeding in, seems that it would be invisible to the police.
I like it but in a “you guys really did this with a straight face” kind of way.
What do you drive?
An E-Class.
Oh wow, a Mercedes?
Nah, a Chrysler.
To the extent you can speed with the 2.2-liter four, yes.
I think I’d do better trying to speed in the 2.2 ltr 4 than in the Iron Duke in my old Celebrity. That sucker ran out of breath at about 65 and hit 85 only if you were going downhill.
I do take umbrage with this somewhat pithy article.
I consider the E-Class the best proportioned, the most attractive of all the K-car variants.
True, it is slow by today’s standards; but for it’s time period it was just about right.
I consider the interiors, even the most upscale option, to be in good taste and quietly conservative. Esp when compared to the loose pillow bordello look that Buick was foisting off on car shoppers.
You remind me why the E-Class did not do any better than it did. By 1983-84, everyone in America (or at least in my part of America) was sick to death of family sedans with four cylinder engines. The GM A body cars offered fours, but they were not big sellers – the lion’s share of production was of the various and sundry V6s that went under their hoods.
Had Chrysler been able to offer a V6 in these cars, they would have been a lot more competitive.
I’m not sure JP, but I’d love to see the production numbers of the 4-cylinder A-bodies. I always figured the majority of them would have a V-6 too, and I’m sure the V-6’s outsold the 4’s by a great margin – but I still think GM sold a lot more of them with 4-cylinders than we think.
Perhaps the rough, tough, vibration prone 4 cylinder models that are still around today were better “survivors” than the more fragile V6 models?
I assumed that GMs sold many more V6 model A cars; but the majority of the Century/6000/Celebrity models that I see chugging around today seem to be the 4 cylinder cars.
Good point. Chrysler started to struggle a bit in the years when there was no six anywhere in the line up – at least cars. The domestic brand FWD mid-size market mainstreamed at 6 cyl. engines by 1985. The Taurus 4 was rarely ordered and eventually phased out.
The 1988 C body cars such as Dynasty and New Yorker may have been the first 6 cyl. mopars since the Slant 6 was phased out. I believe ’88 was also the first year that Camry offered a V-6, Chrysler got into the act none too soon.
Starting in 1984, the Chrysler branded K-cars (LeBaron, New Yorker, E-Class) along with the Dodge 600 can be had with a turbo version of the 2.2 liter engine, putting out 146 horsepower. And I believe the 2.2 went to fuel injection in these cars. A carbureted Mitsubishi 2.6 liter engine was also available through 1985.
I think Chrysler was trying to position the E-Class as a W123 fighter. There are a lot of similarities in the cars, such as Spartan interiors, hubcaps that matched the car’s paint etc and pretense/aspirations of Luxury. While I am not certain if you could get cloth seats in a W123, you could get leather and a vinyl substance called MB-Tex and base models of the W123 had crank windows.
I know what folks are thinking: “what is he smoking? Comparing a Chrysler and a Benz? They are night and day” But in all honesty, the Chrysler E had a better ride, and better pick up then the 240D. Driving a auto 240D was a miserable experience. (I do have to hand it to Benz and Company for convincing loads of folks in the USA to pony up large amounts of money for a car that is essentially used as a taxi in other parts of the world.)
Great find, and write-up. I like these cars for some unquantifiable reason – maybe it’s the C-pillar windows, or the painted hubcaps, but for some reason I’ve always found them to be mildly alluring.
But oddly, until I read your article, I couldn’t have told you that they were called the E-Class. I assumed they had some variation of LeBaron or New Yorker, or some other name, but E-Class just didn’t stick with me. The name may have made marketing sense at the time, but I sure forgot it.
How ironic that Chrysler would use the name E-class JUST before they would merge with another car company that used the same term to describe one of their sedans.
“…they restyled the Fairmont (for the better, I might add), called it the new LTD — and declared it mid-sized…”
Ford did that actaully with the 1981-82 Granada/Cougar, to compete with GM’s Malibu/Cutlass.
The Fox LTD/Marquis were originally meant to be the ‘new’ top of the line Ford/Mercury cars, when gas was predicted to be ‘Euro priced’, but didn’t happen. The big Panthers made a huge comeback in 1983 MY. Who knew that in 1980?
I didn’t mind the ’82 Dodge 400 and Chrysler LeBaron as luxury versions of the K-cars.
But by the time the E-Class and New Yorker versions came out the next year, I wasn’t appreciating the K-car roots so much. I thought they looked too much like the Aries/Reliant. Only super Ks. Of these K-car variants, I did prefer the nose of the Dodge 600, and the ES version in particular.
As others have stated, I thought the Dodge Lancer and Lebaron GTS represented the design zenith of the EEKs.
The Ford Taurus its chief competitor was at least designed NEW from the ground up and its not based on a stretched Ford Tempo to say the least unlike the mutation of the Dodge Aries into a Chrysler New Yorker or the Chevy Citation into a Buick Century.
I understand Chrysler’s desire to distance itself from its recent and unhappy past, but I think the selection of E Class as this model’s name was pointless. Not that sales would have been better, but Newport would have been more appropriate, as that name had lots of goodwill and would have appealed to the Chrysler diehards by offering some familiarity in a changing new car landscape.
Plymouth would have benefitted from the Caravelle in ’82/’83, as there was nothing in the lineup between the Reliant and the ancient Gran Fury. Chrysler’s Celebrity if you will. They would have sold much better.
I was never thrilled with these cars, with its generic styling, jacked up stance, and overall K-carisms. And it bothered me that to get a bigger engine one was required to go Astron.
An interesting footnote in one of ChryCo’s many recoveries.
Still think these are handsome cars, though I never recall seeing many, and haven’t seen one in too long to remember. (There is a Caravelle that I see still running around town though, but this design looks better with the angular nose and Chrysler grille.)
Was there a turbo offered? It seems sometimes like the only K variant that didn’t offer a turbo was the base Aries/Reliant.
Chrysler brand was a mid price line, competing with Olds, Buick, Mercury, not Caddy/Lincoln/Benz. So, the E Class was just a competitor to Cutlass Ciera, etc. The name was too generic though, and confused with K’s.
Would have been better called a Plymouth Belvedere all along. Caravelle sounds like a candy or food product.
Also, Mopar did keep a few older names around during the K car days, like LeBaron(s), Daytona, Gran Fury, and even Duster. And the Omni Charger too
Caravelle was a Candy bar.Milk chocolate covered rice krispoes with a caramel center. Made by Peter Paul,Mounds co.
Ahh, that was it, I vaugely remember that candy bar!
In Canada, we had the Plymouth from the start….remember my dad had bought a 79 Plymouth Caravelle with the 318 and torqueflight. Very roomy. Also had an 84 reliant with the 6 passenger seating. We did a few trips with 6 aboard and remember, as an 8 or 9 year old was tight.
My love of the K-Kars is pretty well known here. I had a Dodge Lancer that I loved, wouldn’t mind having back, either. My one brother-in-law had a Dodge 600 ES that was really not a bad ride, it just needed more motivation than the 2.2 Trenton motor could provide.
From a design standpoint, these weren’t bad cars, just rather plain. I’d always thought the whole “E-Class” nomenclature was a rip-off of Mercedes’ naming conventions. In fact there were so many little things that Mopar did in those days that mimicked M-B that I found it annoying at first, then embarrassing. The big Pentastar logos on all the cars, the monochromatic paint jobs on certain convertibles, even the wheel covers on the featured car.
Everyone who could read knew you were in a Chrysler product, so who were you kidding with all of this? One of the first things I did with my Lancer was to remove (what I thought was huge then) the Pentastar from the middle of the grille. I didn’t want to pry it off the back hatch for fear of damaging the paint…
But, the cars themselves were decent cars with good interiors and good space utilization (thank you FWD!) with decent mileage for the times. The comparisons with the X and A-bodies and the Fox body sedans are still valid.
I had an ’83 Lebaron convertible and the interior photo reminded me of one of my favorite parts of the car: the steering wheel. It may have been the last, old-school, Baklite hard, shiny plastic steering wheel ever used on a domestic car, and I loved it.
The next year, they were gone, replaced by the soft-touch plastic, A-frame steering wheel.
I’m not usually a fan of the body color-matching wheels but on this it just works! These have a very clean design and this is a particularly nice example!
Nice survivor. There sure aren’t many of these around. I just love the front clip of this car and the LeBaron/New Yorker of similar vintage, which all look similar. It’s nice looking and more modern in appearance than what Ford and GM offered. It could have passed for an early-90s design.
I can’t wait to see my girlfriend’s reaction that there is another kind of E-class that didn’t come from Stuttgart. It’s sort of ironic that a little under ten years later M-B has an E-class of their own, and then about five years later, buys Chrysler which technically claimed the E-class name first.
These were decent cars with pleasant interiors in upper trim level. The Achilles heel was the lack of V6 engines until 1984 when the turbo was offered but few of these seemed to be so equipped and when was one was found it had it’s own set of issues. So did the crap 2.6. The best all around engine didn’t come until 1986 in the form of the Chrysler built 2.5 which was more reliable than the 2.6 and turbo and smoother and offered more torque than the gruffer 2.2 which was under powered in these heavier k’s.
A Cutlass Ciera Brougham with the new 3.8 PFI V6, 4 speed automatic overdrive, FE3 suspension, optional floor shifter, gauge cluster and Olds rally wheels would be my preference for the 1984-85 models years. If it had to be a 1983 then it would be the Pontiac 6000 in STE or loaded LE trim with the 2.8 V6.
One of my earliest memories is riding in my mom’s Royal Blue on Blue ’83 E-Class. I distinctly remember the electronic voiceover for various warnings:
“A door is ajar.”
“You are running low on fuel”
“Your headlights are on”
“Please fasten your seatbelts”
To my 3 year old mind, trying to fathom the source of this voice was fruitless. My dad, always the joker, responded when I asked whom was talking to us: “That’s god talking to you; now put your seatbelt on.”
Cue lots of LOLs for decades to come.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this fun fact – The speech module in those Chryslers was from Texas Instruments, hence why the voice sounds identical to a Speak and Spell – because it is! 😊
I bought an ’84 E-Class used in ’85. It had the vinyl seats and the awful 2.6 carbureted engine. This car had a roomy interior because the seats were SMALL! I drove it for six years and got it up to 70k miles before it died an early death. I have never bought any mopar product since and would never consider doing so!
Eric is correct in his earlier entry here. Canada sold the Plymouth Gran Fury M-body as the Caravlle / Caravelle Salon for some odd reason. In 1983, we Canucks received this K-based Chrysler E-Class twin, as the Plymouth Caravelle, 2 years earlier than the U.S. Lucky us! Here is a brochure cover for that year. Note the original grill.
I agree with this author. Chrysler should have selected a less-generic name for this car. What is “E-Class” supposed to be perceived as? Something exotic or imported, such as Mercedes-Benz E-class? That’s a bit of a stretch! Yes, perhaps a name with a historical context for Chrysler, such as Newport, may have made more sense to the buying public, and fared better. Perhaps. The previous R-body Newport did not sell well, for many reasons. How about Windsor or Saratoga? Those could have been interesting name choices.
One of my favorite little features on the 1983 Chryslers was this may have been the final year that any auto manufacturer used an old-school, hard, shiny plastic steering wheel. For 1984, they joined everyone else with an A-frame, soft-feel, dull plastic steering wheel. Might have been safer and more comfortable, but it sure wasn’t as cool.
I got an 83 Dodge 600 in these exact colors from my grandfather back in 1987. One of the first things I did was go to Western Auto and pick up a dark blue steering wheel wrap (remember those) and wrapped it up. It was my first car and I loved it. Perfect size, pillowed seats, chrome and fake wood everywhere. My college buddies were impressed!
Vanilla can be tempting!