In the automotive world, the plain jane American full-size, rear-wheel, V8-powered sedan might as well be as basic as a cup of black coffee. While hardly popular anymore, these were the cars that built American car brands for most of the 20th century, much like black coffee did for coffee chains such as Dunkin’ and Starbucks.
As we all know now, however, coffee shops have become very clever at milking us out of way more than just a simple cup of black coffee, luring us with pricey extras like steamed milk here, flavored syrups there, and even whipped cream and sprinkles. This same approach fairly accurately describes Chrysler’s strategy with the 1982-1989 Fifth Avenue. After all, who doesn’t like sprinkles?
Our featured car’s black coffee origins can be traced back to 1976, with the introduction of the then-new F-body Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volaré. Although these theoretically-advanced replacements for the venerable Dart and Valiant soon proved themselves as lambasted quality nightmares, nevertheless, Chrysler persisted, following with upmarket variants designated the M-body in 1977. Initially sold as the Chrysler LeBaron and Dodge Diplomat, these “senior” midsize cars shared nearly all of the F-body’s mechanical underpinnings, its wheelbase, its roofline, its doors, and its dashboard, among other traits. Where the M-body predominately differed was in its more formal and emphatic front and rear styling, and its more luxurious accoutrements, allowing Chrysler to charge significantly more — think of it as adding vanilla cold foam to your iced coffee.
Things got extra interesting as the next few years panned out. A second energy crisis in 1979 combined with ensuing economic recession hit full-size car sales especially hard, and the full-size car’s days appeared grimly numbered. While Ford and GM scurried, further downsizing their full-size offerings, shuffling nameplates to existing smaller models, and introducing new midsize vehicles meant to take their place, an especially cash- and capital-strapped Chrysler axed its full-size R-bodies altogether in 1981.
This left the midsize M-body as their largest and only remaining rear-wheel drive sedans, and thus, the automaker’s de facto flagship, which Chrysler now called “New Yorker” and marketed as “full-size”. Shuffling the name, positioning, and luxuries of its flagship down to the smaller car, it would be like Starbucks discontinuing its 20-ounce Venti and moving the name to its 16-ounce Grande, yet claiming the caffeine content was still the same as before and charging more for it. Confusing, huh?
In truth, Chrysler did its best to make the 1982 M-body New Yorker’s image and caffeine, er luxury, content the same as it was in the 1981 R-body. Besides a mild restyle, numerous standard features and plenty of extra ornamentation were added to what was previously known as the LeBaron, plus available options like the Fifth Avenue Edition package that added button-tufted loose-pillow seats with available Corinthian leather. Chrysler did some more of the name reshuffling game with the advent of its midsize E-body New Yorker. All 1983 M-bodies were now called New Yorker Fifth Avenue Edition, though by the following year the car was simply called “Fifth Avenue”.
For the remainder of the M-body Fifth Avenue’s life, through 1989, Chrysler enjoyed surprisingly strong sales as a result of subsiding oil prices and a resurgence in demand for traditional full-size cars. Chrysler marketing would play heavily into the Fifth Avenue’s “traditional” qualities, as well as its value for having so many standard luxury features — features Chrysler could afford to include because the M-body’s tooling had been amortized to make for a hefty profit margin on the Fifth Avenue.
From where it all started back with the cheap cup of drip black coffee Volaré and Aspen, Chrysler bedizened it to the far pricey Blonde Cocoa Cloud Caramel Macchiato (an actual drink from Starbucks’ menu) with 1 pump toffee nut syrup and caramel + mocha drizzle swirls Fifth Avenue, and it worked… spectacularly, from a bean-counter’s prospective. First year sales of this “new” New Yorker 1982 was more than the 1981 LeBaron, Newport, and New Yorker combined, and by 1983, the New Yorker Fifth Avenue Edition became the Chrysler division’s best-selling model, a title it would also claim in 1985 and 1986. When you consider the fact that the Fifth Avenue was only available in a single body style and single trim level, it technically was Chrysler’s most popular model consecutively from 1983 through 1987, upon which the C-body New Yorker Landau surpassed it in 1988 — a feat all the more impressive considering it was the division’s oldest model by a significant amount. Talk about making milk money.
Photographed in Hanson, Massachusetts – September 2019
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I always favored the Impala/Caprice, 98, etc. over these when new. Now however, their relative rarity makes them interesting. I do like the wheels and the white walls are period correct to be sure. I’d rather take this to a cars and coffee against the dozens of Mustangs and Chevelle SSs. I had a couple of relatives who were die-hard Chrysler buyers and had these or similar models, so a lot of good memories these cars bring.
I always thought the ’83 to ’88 5th Avenues were classy when my neighbor back in ’86 bought one new. I always admired that car passing my house on his way out. I had never thought of buying one in 2018 until one very low mileage original 1987 would come into a car show with a 4 sale sign on it. I just love this car and can now understand how it put Chrysler back on the map.
I bought one of these for $1000 when I moved home from Europe in the early 2000s as temporary transportation while I got settled. It was so over the top I couldn’t help liking it. And we had one of our better laughs when my little nephew — four or so — proclaimed from the cushy back seat that it was the NICEST car he’d ever been in.
Mike Ehrmentraut did too, an ‘88. I think he really liked it.
Ah, the ride of the world’s most dangerous senior citizen.
An old neighbour of ours had one of these in white as a daily driver for many years. Nice old car, and it was always in good shape. His summer car was a ‘64 Dodge Polara convertible with less than 40,000 miles on it that he’d bought new. Chrysler did a good job on these cars, and it’s good to see one in such nice shape – the blue looks great.
Could these be one of Chrysler Greatest Hits of the 1980s?
This one is nice, nice, nice although the white stripe down the side seems like a more recent addition.
Brendan, good job on sorting through all the LeBaron variants to create the graph. It’s a good thing Chrysler retired that name as it was simply worn out.
Agreed. The sheer amount of LeBaron and New Yorker variants from the 1980s through the early-1990s is dizzying, especially in the frequent years of overlap.
The white stripe and the flag, if present when new, was probably a dealer option.
Yes, you needed a program to keep track of all the names. When you toss in the Diplomats and Caravelles that had a strong resemblance to these, but without the sprinkles, it was a confusing time. I’m glad that these cars did so well, they looked nice.
Mostly forgotten now, but in 1980 there was the Lebaron Fifth Avenue Limited Edition which our feature car was based on. There was also the New Yorker Fifth Avenue Limited Edition, based on the R body New Yorker. Love the feature car! Love black coffee too!
Had five of them. Loved them all.
Hehe! A very nicely worked analogy, Brendan.
Of course, like many folk in many places, I’d just be glad if Starbucks started serving coffee, made from coffee beans from coffee trees. Or at utter minimum, something synthetic even vaguely resembling same.
Then sales wouldn’t be dependent on how many layers of vinyl roof or whitewalls and white stripes on the cup they added.
Not too long ago, I went into a Starbucks and asked for “a coffee.” The woman behind the counter looked at me like I was from another planet. It was annoying, but funny at the same time.
Ah, at Starbucks one must order by the roast (i.e. “I’ll have a tall Dark Roast”) to not sound like a foreigner when ordering coffee.
My grandparents had one of these, and I got to drive it once in the early ’90s. It was the most luxurious car I’d driven at that point in my life, or so I thought. It looked the part but felt like a much lesser car. Pretty disappointing experience.
Great take on this car, and while I knew that Chrysler sold tons of Fifth Avenues, it is somewhat startling to see it was the division’s most popular car well into the mid-’80s.
I see-saw on my views on these cars. On one hand, I like them as a quintessentially American, proudly traditional, stick-in-the-mud from the jellybean-shaped 1980s. But then, it annoys me how Chrysler simply polished up a Volare and sold it as a luxury car ten years later.
I like this ad (below) — the tagline “Luxury With the Utmost Respect for Your Money” is amusing — were luxury buyers who purchased these cars being wise with their money, or being foolish? We could debate that forever.
It doesn’t have a cigarette dispenser on the steering wheel, so it’s not a real Fifth Avenue.
Sorry, you only get that in a ’42 DeSoto Fifth Avenue!
Loved the article, loved the analogy, love the featured car – very nicely done. I also feel like Chrysler did a bang-up job with that “formal” roofline fiberglass cap, which pretty effectively masked the sloping F-Body rear doors.
My grandparents’ c. 1983 NY 5th Ave was a very nicely-appointed car, even if it got a bit tight in there with them, my parents, and my two brothers (the youngest of which was preschool aged) squeezed into it. Actually, even so, our extended family must have made that NY’r look like a clown car upon our collective egress.
I was amazed at how popular these were, but they hit a nice niche. First, there were still some old timers who were Chrysler die-hards so this gave them some red meat (or coffee with cream and sugar). Then there were some who wanted a traditional luxurious car but didn’t want the size of the larger competition. And after GM went FWD, traditionalists shared this slice of the pie with the Ford Panther cars.
I think Lee Iacocca’s public persona also convinced some folks who would never have considered a Chrysler a few years earlier, along with the last 2 big New Yorkers (the 76-78 and 79-81) that were attractive cars for their time.
I always liked them (in a guilty pleasure kind of way) but found the size too small. If I was going to put up with V8 fuel mileage, might as well get the bigger trunk and more room to go with it (and thus multiple Panthers and GM B/C bodies).
When you think about it, since the basis of the Fifth Avenue is the pedestrian F-body Aspen/Volare (I believe the doors are interchangeable), these are the ultimate culmination of the luxury compact class that Chrysler brought about with the successful introduction of the 1974 Valiant Brougham and Dart SE.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/cohort-classic-1976-plymouth-valiant-brougham-least-likely-brougham/
The Fifth Avenue was sort of the Jeep Wrangler of traditional luxury cars, its relative success made almost no sense. They simply were not competitive in terms of performance, fuel economy, and interior and luggage space.
But for the reasons you note, and I’ll add in price, they did sell in numbers comparable to individual Panthers and B-Bodies.
The styling struck a chord even with my ’80s college era crowd. They weren’t likely buyers but as the occasional spring break “large car” rental upgrade, kids suddenly felt like a Rockefeller at the wheel.
This really makes me miss my 1987 Plymouth Fury. If I had lottery money… I’d buy a 59 Sport Fury. But I’d find another Fury like I had and pay a mechanic to completely sort it out, top to bottom and make that my daily again.
“Helen” was, indeed, a beautiful specimen of an M-Body, in a great color.
Dad had one in the late eighties. I liked this car’s supreme comfort but remember it as a terrible, terrible snow car….easily spinning wheels on just the slightest bit of slickness.
I never liked the styling on these. Still don’t. The misalignment between the vinyl-covered rear quarter window and the ever-more-vertical backlight was, for me, the dead giveaway that these were trying to be something they just couldn’t be, while hoping people wouldn’t notice. Like getting an iced-cap from Tim Hortons, if you will.
Nice find. That white stripe is owner add-on, perhaps covering up chipped paint and door dings.
These were very big-selling cars but demand dropped off, because the successfully-targeted demographic did not buy new every two or three years. These cars were also reliable…the F-body issues had been worked out by then and the drive train was bulletproof. So that huge volume of mid-80s sales did not translate to the late-80s. That, and Chrysler’s wanting to close the AMC plant in Kenosha, where these and the fleet-oriented Plymouth Gran Fury and Dodge Diplomat were built (since before the Chrysler acquisition of AMC was finalized) finally spelled the end. They were Chrysler’s last RWD cars until the 2005 MY.
They still look nice today, in a classic sort of way, not pretending to be anything they aren’t.
Imagine walking in to your local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in 1979 and seeing one of these on the floor next to a Horizon.
In a way we kind of did with the higher-trim LeBarons. More so in 1980 with the restyled LeBaron. The difference was that only a few LeBarons were really tricked out with nice wheels and the top interior. Chrysler’s brilliance was that no Fifth Avenue was sold in a de-trimmed version a la the old Newport.
They really should have ditched the Newport and gone with the Gran Fury from the start. With wagon models as well.
There is one of these M-body’s in the immediate family. I’ll have to see if it is still there come Thanksgiving.
We almost always do Thanksgiving down at my BIL & SIL place in Peralta, NM. His Father, his Uncle, and his brothers attend because none of them have any ladies in their lives or anywhere better to be. His Dad has a loaded Diplomat SE in the same color as our featured car and it is pristine, clean enough to eat off of. I believe it is his “Sunday go to church” car and that’s about the only time it leaves the garage (he’s got a truck for the rest of the week.)
I unfortunately have never gotten to witness Dad, Uncle, and one of the brothers piling into the car. All of them are over 6 ft tall and those M-bodies don’t exactly seem roomy.
In January 1990, you could buy a leftover 1989 Chrsyler Fifth Avenue, featuring a carburetor and an airbag. Probably the only vehicle to ever offer that combination.
It was literally a early ’70s design that sold it’s last new unit in the ’90s. Much like last unsold new Crown Vic’s which lasted into beginning of the current decade.
I would go with mid 70s design. The early 70s design that made it into the 90s virtually intact was the Dodge B series van.
Brendan, no matter how many coffee analogies you offer, you must admit that every domestic car can trace its lineage to the Model Tea.
I see what you did there 🙂
“the Model Tea.”
Any variety you want as long as it’s black?
Well played, James.
Quite startling to see these M-Body NY’ers and Fifth Avenues were their best selling models through 1986. But then, reflecting on the era, they were indeed everywhere. Even in our small, rural town there were about a half dozen, all silver or white or dark blue the most popular. In all-white with all the chrome I referred to them a “wedding cake Chryslers” One also knew the driver would be gray-haired as well, none were driven by anyone young. They were good, dependable, rugged cars. Used to see a number of them in the hands of the last owners driving them into the ground, good for miles approaching 200K and over. Since it was the same powertrain as went into the police cruisers, they were up to the task.
I agree with J P Cavanaugh (as usual) these offered a lot of traditional luxury in a reasonable size, especially for people who didn’t need to haul the kids around any more. They were definitely quite comfortable for four adults and cut out a lot of front and rear overhang v. the Caprice/Panther/R bodies.
I knew a couple of people who had these growing up. Lee really hit a gold mine with these cars. Chrysler did opulent American Luxury better than any other car maker and had more chrome, softer, richer leather (even if Corinth was a place in New Jersey), deeper pile carpets, more sound deadening, and more courtesy lights than any Lincoln or Cadillac. The paint was better and richer on these than on the Cadillacs or Lincolns, and certainly compared with a 4100 Cadillac, these would have been more reliable and more responsive.
Additionally, Cadillac at least was still nickel and diming customers with lots of expensive options for what most people consider standard in a luxury car, rear window defogger, cruise, power mirrors, were all extra cost options even though almost all of the cars came with them. These cars were SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than a Cadillac or Lincoln as well and much plusher.
Lee made a brilliant decision when he canceled the R bodies and kept on with the M bodies. The R bodies would never be competitive against the Caprice and Panthers but neither GM nor Ford offered this sort of opulence in a reasonably sized package at a reasonable price. This would have been similar to a Cutlass Supreme four door in size, but the Cutlass didn’t have roll down rear windows and wasn’t nearly as opulent, and would have been about the same price. GM lost interest in the G body, particularly the four doors. The Fox Marquis wasn’t nearly as nice as this car and suffered more from its humble Fairmont beginnings than this car did.
It’s rather a shame that Chrysler doesn’t offer some Traditional American Luxury package on the current 300. I cannot imagine it would NOT be profitable; some fancy wire wheels, a half vinyl top, an extra dose of chrome inside and out, button tufted pillowy leather/velour seats, some crystal medallions and hood ornaments, and extra plush carpeting would be very nice and actually given the super plush direction Lincoln seems to be headed in, would be quite fitting.
No, I am not kidding.
I get what you were trying to do with the Latte analogy, but it doesn’t quite work for me. I think that’s partly because I tend to associate Fifth Avenues with Mike Ehrmentraut from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and Mike Ehrmentraut definitely seems like a man who takes his coffee black. But more generally, Lattes are what hip, young people drink, particularly back then (actually I don’t think think fancy coffee drinks were really a thing until the 1990s). You yourself point out that Chrysler emphasized this car’s “traditional” qualities. Lattes are anything but traditional. I’m thinking the New Yorker is like a more expensive brand of regular coffee, but still just regular coffee, not that trendy stuff.
I’m not sure where you’re located but at least here in East Coast metro areas, people of all ages drink lattes… although I personally am a proud black coffee drinker like my grandfather. I don’t do dairy and don’t need all the excess sugar and calories of those crazy drinks.
I’ve never watched Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, so I’m sorry that I don’t fully understand the reference. And again, I assume I’m younger than you, but considering they’ve been popular since the 1990s, a regular plain caffe latte is “traditional” to me versus a Blonde Cocoa Cloud Caramel Macchiato 🙂
Regarding Mike Ehrmentraut, all you really need to know is that he’s a very “no nonsense” character, and he drives an old Fifth Avenue.
It may be an age thing. I’m in my late 30s, so not *that* old but old enough to remember when lattes and the like first became popular in the 1990s. So I was thinking more in terms of what would have been considered “traditional” in 1985 when this car was new, not what might be called traditional today. The person who this car would have appealed to in 1985 wouldn’t have though of a latte as traditional.
I am virtually never seen in the vicinity of a popular coffee stop, but I’ll fill my insulated tumbler at any free coffee stand in a hotel lobby or my work commissary.
A coworker dragged me into a Starbucks many years ago. He ordered a 32 syllable whatever. Mine? Black.
His comment: “Starbucks is completely lost on you.”
Like you, I just can’t justify a liquid calorie bomb landing randomly in my day.
Just a fine looking pimped out taxi/squad car. Amazing what some frp roof parts and extended end caps can do……..WOW!!
The automotive oriented Company I worked for in the DFW Metroplex had me study what variations could be further spun off this base vehicle. Quite a bit more could have been done with relatively minimal co$t! 🙂 Limos and roomy taxis were at the top of the possible list of spin offs. DFO
The taxi company I worked for in the early 90’s had a whole fleet of M-bodies which I became intimately familiar with. It got to the point where I could change out the standard TorqueFlight in about 2 hours. This was because the pump in that iteration didn’t run in park and cabbies spend a lot of time in park and end up torching the fluid as it pooled in a hot transmission. Otherwise, they were good solid automobiles and I remember them fondly.
This article sums up these cars perfectly. The restyled 1980 LeBaron really didn’t go anywhere in the market…but turning it into the Fifth Avenue resulted in a very profitable and popular car for the corporation.
Given the desperate situation Chrysler Corporation was in when this car was conceived, it outranks the 1968 Continental Mark III in terms of pulling a (very profitable) rabbit out of the hat at exactly the right moment.
These are now turning up for sale at the Carlisle car shows, and most of them are in excellent condition. The asking prices are still reasonable, too.
Chrysler could come up with some nice wheels when they put their mind to it. Those are gorgeous!
They were usually seen on 1981-83 Imperial’s too. They do look great!
What a great-looking survivor! I’m not usually one for all the gingerbread on these as opposed to a no-nonsense Diplomat, but this one has everything working well. And the wheels do complete the whole package in a great way. The white stripe even matches the whitewalls. An excellent find! And yes, regular coffee for me, preferably the “bold” bean of the day if there’s a choice.
The nose of the base Dodge Diplomat and the Plymouth Gran Fury were rather…let’s say, “inharmonious.” Maybe on purpose, to suit their “police car” personalities?
The Chrysler obviously got all the stylists’ attention and it paid off.
Remember, however: this car was one of Paul’s Deadly Sins from his former gig:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/08/curbside-classic-chryslers-deadly-sin-2-1987-chrysler-fifth-avenue-edition/
The company pool cars would occasionally be out of stock at my Father’s employer. The pool was usually filled with well optioned Oldsmobile Delta 88s, so any rentals to cover high use periods had to be something similar.
My Dad brought one of these C 5As home one night. Triple deep red, an Iacocca broughammobile that wore its vinyl covered fiberglass toupee proudly. So wrong, and yet it could just inexplicably draw you in. I don’t recall most of his rentals, but that one night stand still stands out.
A co worker bought one of these brand new. While the bones of the car were archaic, even then, the execution of the construction and detailing were quite well done. I drove a lot of Diplomats in my time, and while they were not very spacious, they were better than any personal luxury car like a Monte Carlo or Cordoba. They were kind of a cozy personal four passenger car. My biggest beef would be the poor fuel economy.
Thanks for this, Brendan. Always a pleasure, and I did like these old barges (still do, actually- but today I don’t know that I could deal with the wheezy old 318 and A727 Torqueflite, both of which were old as dirt even in 1982).
Anyway- constructive criticism: there is an error in your chart data somehow. Both the K LeBaron and M Fifth Avenue have no data points between 1986-89, causing their slopes to be drawn both linear and nearly parallel. That’s simply not how life works / worked. I suspect those data points were either missing or not picked up by Excel (or whatever spreadsheet you’re using). Also, you shouldn’t depict non-sales years at all, because doing so implies explosive growth when even one unit would make that slope. Instead the line should simply start at the first year offered rather than the zero-point the year prior – just change the chart series ranges to miss the zeroes and start on Production Year One for any given model.
Not that I live in spreadsheets all day or anything. Would you like to see my Army PowerPoint Ranger tab? 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks again sir!
I’ll first say that I make no claim to be a data spreadsheet and graph expert… I hated statistics class in college.
Here is link to the spreadsheet I put together for actual production figures by model for each Chrysler 1983-1989 to see for yourself: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gzwmZ4fx8u_B15NOXuvpMixZS3nAZ6Ynk03dRPpi3bQ/edit?usp=sharing
As you can see, K-body LeBaron and M-body decreased by virtually the same percentages each year over those years resulting in very linear and parallel lines.
I don’t see any issue with just showing a snapshot of a given period but maybe this is going against some MLA-style statistics format. Anyway, it took me over an hour to pull individual production figures out of my big book of American Cars and I wasn’t about to do any more years 🙂
I thought the chart was very helpful, and like I mentioned above, I hadn’t realized that the Fifth Avenue was the Chrysler nameplate’s top seller in the mid-1980s. Astounding.
One of the things that Adam suggests above is to leave cells blank when there is no production data for a given year, rather than entering a “0”. The reason is that Excel will actually plot a “0” value, and give a visually distracting impression of sales growth/decline when in fact there is none.
Below is the chart with that change — cleans it up a bit and makes it easier for viewers to spot the trends.
Excel’s tough to figure out — lots of quirks — but in my opinion charts like yours really help to tell the story.
Thanks for making this chart Eric!
Eric – Thank you, you beat me to it! 👊
Brendan – I apologize for coming back late, but what Eric did is exactly what I was suggesting (no “0” values which create slopes that don’t represent real life). Interesting, though, that the K and M did indeed fall off at just about the same rates. I fully intended to redo the chart as Eric helpfully did, but the last two days of work and school left me no time and I’m just now getting back here. 😣
I just can’t get around the fact that under all that glued-on posh is a Plymouth Un-Reliant. I’ve trusted old alcoholics more than the Un-Reliant and Dodge Ass-backwards.
I keep thinking, “what if they based it on a good car?”
This is just me thinking, but doesn’t that front end scream “Lincoln Town Car” to anyone? Except of course with a Chrysler Pentagon hood ornament in place of the Lincoln Continental star. The Chrysler M-bodies seem to have Panther-influenced styling in the front.
That Lincoln Town Car front end screams Rolls Royce. What man doesn’t want to have something impressive out in front of him?
That’s a PENTASTAR, not a PENTAGON… very different, ha! 😁
Great read Brendan. These 5th Avenues were not my favourite cars, and definitely my least favourite of the M-bodies. The formal roof line, the excess gingerbread and tacky interiors were not my style at all. I always through the parking lights above the headlights looked wrong too. The Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Gran Fury/Caravelle were much nicer looking IMO. These cars were truly the old person special car when they were new. Every one I saw was being driven by a older person, typically with above average income and taste.
We had an ’86 Fifth Avenue It was an okay driving car, but it was terribly unreliable. It seemed to have constant little issues and eventually a failing ECM (mounted on the breather) left it stranded on the side of the road several times. The 318-2bbl was torquey, but hard on fuel and pretty lethargic overall. It could barely out drag a GM 307 powered wagon. The 318 in ours became an oil burner and leaker in old age. These M-bodies did feel somewhat more agile than the bigger B-body GM cars and Ford Panthers. Overall though, the GM and Fords were far better cars IMO, and they certainly seemed to hold up to the test of time far better.
Even though I am probably the most unapologetic Panther Fanatic on here, I REALLY like these! This one looks so sharp with those wheels–in fact, I prefer the ones that sport these stylish looking rims over the fakey-fake wire wheel covers. Ever seen one of these in a two-tone finish? Stunning! I love their plush, cushy interiors and they are dead silent inside. They have a good, soft ride, too, even given they are using leaf springs at the rear. And, just like the Panthers, they are at heart a cop car underneath all the gingerbread and plush goodness, so they are solid and dependable. Nice write-up and great pictures.
Well, I really never drove exactly this car, rather a relative (1977 or 78 Dodge Diplomat) during my 2 year stint driving summers for Hertz (I was a car transporter while between years at college). I don’t think my location stocked Chryslers, but I did get to drive Diplomats and some Aspens (the Aspens were pretty plain, so these were the fancy version of the Aspen to me….except the 2 door Diplomat was quite a different body style than the 2 door Aspen…really liked the “boat tail” action (not quite a ’72 Riviera….but different than the Aspen. Strangely, I don’t remember any Plymouths at all….would have thought they’d be popular rental car (most of our cars weren’t fancy at all…especially since rust soon took its toll on any car whether it was high line or otherwise.
For some reason I always think of Montpelier when I think of the Diplomat…it was the shortest distance we drove from our home location (South Burlington Airport)…maybe 35-40 miles. Went to Harold’s Gulf station as I remember that was the location that Hertz had there…must have been a popular rental at the time for that location, as I don’t really know why I think of that particular trip when I think of these.
A few years later (7 or so) I’d moved to central Texas, and the metallic paint on my Scirocco was quickly sun baked and I was having it painted…couldn’t have the car for about a week, back then we still had a rent a wreck location (whatever happened to those?) and I rented an Aspen wagon. It was probably a late 70’s car, flesh colored, but it worked fine for me….I put my bicycle in the back and when I was done renting it rode from the rental office to my home (not sure but probably also rode my bicycle to pick up the Scirocco from the body shop)…..summer of 1985 I I think. That was my last time in one of these….though my Dad later bought an ’86 Dodge 600, which was my last time in a Dodge (my sister ended up totaling it just a few years later in 1989.
It was my Dad’s last Mopar (after starting out with a ’56 Plymouth Plaza, his first new car, after he got out of college).
Once it was realized ChyCo was not “going out of business” in 1982, then loyal Newport/NY’er owners traded in for M bodies. Or, some came in looking at a K car, then savvy salesmen said “we still have a big plush RWD car, by the way”…
The comeback of ‘full sized’ RWD cars in 1983-85 was astounding, considering ‘gloom and doom’ predicted for gas prices in 80-81. “We all will be in fun to drive compacts by 1985!” Car and Driver predicted gleefully