(first posted 7/31/2013) A nice breeze, at least in meteorological sense, is lacking during these brutal summer heat waves. Fortunately, there seem to be a fair amount of Plymouth Breezes out and about, soaking up the sun and satisfying my Curbside Classic fever.
I spotted this excellent gold Breeze a few weeks back. It was near-flawless and still glistening, at least until the arrival of an impending thunderstorm overhead. With some original wheel covers, it would look good as new!
This black Breeze was a little more sun-burnt, with faded, peeling paint and a bit of rust–but it did have all four original wheel covers.
This design was new for 1999, the Breeze’s last full model year. I was surprised Chrysler shelled out the money to stamp the Plymouth logo in the center.
Introduced as a 1996 model, the Plymouth Breeze was the third JA car; its Chrysler Cirrus and Dodge Stratus siblings had bowed as ‘95s. Much like the preceding R-body Gran Fury, M-body Gran Fury and E-body Caravelle, the Breeze seemed an afterthought. Because of their names, the JA trio are often referred to as the Cloud Cars. It’s always been something of a mystery why the Breeze wasn’t called the Plymouth Cumulus. In any case at least Breeze sounded better.
The Breeze/Cirrus/Stratus were fairly significant cars for Chrysler as its first realistic competitors to Accord and Camry. They were direct replacements for the AA-body Acclaim/LeBaron/Spirit, whose discontinuation signified the much-overdue end of the K-car era. Introduced at the height of Chrysler’s mid-‘90s renaissance, the JAs naturally bore no resemblance to the Iacocca-dictated boxes of yore.
They instead used the cab-forward architecture pioneered by the 1993 LH sedans. Consequently, the smaller JAs looked far less radical than the LHs, and their more conventional look remained contemporary even years after production ended. To my mind, the Cloud Cars represent the pinnacle of cab-forward design at Chrysler.
The interior was spacious and airy, with a curvaceous dash that was a breath of fresh air compared with the sharp-angled Acclaim’s. Lost, however, were some of the Acclaim’s more interesting interior color schemes: No more blue or burgundy; instead, buyers would have to make do with the available gray, tan or black. Those who did want a bit more flair could find solace in the “rhythm” cloth found in the Breeze Expresso, which added specks of bright color to otherwise dull grayness.
Although the latecomer to the trio, I doubt the Breeze’s belated introduction caused much disorder for Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. The Cirrus was available in less-plush LX trim, and the Plymouth Acclaim was still around for early ’95 as production came to an end.
The Breeze wasn’t available with many of the options that could be had with a Cirrus or Stratus, including a V6 engine, leather seats and alloy wheels. Nonetheless, Breezes came decently equipped and could easily be optioned to meet the standards of most midsize sedan buyers. The 1999 and later models gained a host of previously extra-cost features as standard, including power windows and a power-adjustable driver’s seat.
A good family friend in Virginia Beach owned a leather-equipped Stratus V6 (in the same gold color as our featured Breeze) for some time. I recall riding around in it for a lengthy amount of time during one particular visit. It was a very comfortable highway cruiser, with excellent visibility from inside its spacious cabin. Also, the leather felt real, unlike that of the fast-approaching Daimler-era cars.
The design of the first-generation Cloud Cars has always been attractive to me, with a particular elegance that their fleet-queen successors failed to replicate.
Cost-cutting measures were all too obvious in the 2001-2006 JAs. Not only did material and build quality suffer, but the cars just looked cheap. And they felt that way too: When I was in fifth grade, my mom got a base Sebring sedan as a loaner when her Jeep was having collision work done at the dealership.
Even at 10 years old and hardly the interior-quality snob I am today, I knew the thing was a piece of junk. Despite being a new car, the heater would only work at full blast. The week we had that Sebring was an endless cycle of heat on, heat off, windows down and repeat. Keep in mind this was during snowy February in Massachusetts.
One point I forgot to mention was that the Sebring name had made its way onto Chrysler’s midsize sedans in addition to the related convertible and unrelated coupe. Dodge’s sedan was still called Stratus, as was the replacement coupe for the Avenger–but what about the Breeze?
Breeze production wound down quickly after Daimler-Chrysler’s 1999 announcement that they would discontinue the Plymouth brand in 2001. The last Breeze rolled off the assembly line in January 2000, making its run of ’00 models much shorter than that of the other Cloud Cars. Chrysler-branded cars continued their downmarket trend to cover the gap, and the vintage-1928 Plymouth brand was gone…like a Breeze.
Sad end for Plymouth, but not expected as Plymouth really had been irrelevant in many ways, beginning as early as the late ’50s when planning was underway for Dodge to get the “Dart” – car that competed more with Plymouth (sapping Plymouth’s sales) than it was for Dodge to drop down a notch into the low(er) price field.
Known fact that with further control by Daimler, the entire Chrysler line got cheaper and cheaper. I remember being at the Phoenix Car Show in November, 2008 and looking at (and sitting in) a 2009 Chrysler Sebring. Very low cost, hard plastic (with sharp edged) door panels; what appeared to be a cheap interior that looked, felt and smelled like a 1986 base model Hyundai Excel). The only thing worse was the 2009 Dodge Avenger which was a de-contented Sebring, if that is indeed possible.
Daimler in it’s efforts to get costs under control, swung the axe and carved with their knives deeper and wider on the Chrysler products (a fact well known) . . . . no “marriage of equals” – Daimler ass-raped Chrysler and used the large profits (at the time of the merger) to use for R & D of Mercedes models . . .
The buy-in by Fiat was the best thing that could’ve happened to Chrysler in recent years. The difference between 2010 and 2011 models across the board was a night and day difference. Quality of materials, assembly MUCH better than before.
If I recall, not only was the Plymouth Breeze available in four-cylinder form only, but the only four cylinder available was the 2.0L, shared with the Neons. The Dodge and Chrysler got the bigger 2.4L four. Here in the islands, you see a Plymouth Breeze of this vintage (and Voyager minivans) on a regular basis from horrible (but running) condition to . . . . cherry.
A little off topic, but the Daimler acquisition of Chrysler was no “marriage of equals” as purported in the shareholder proposals. It was the Rape of Auburn Hills…first the bank accounts were looted; then personnel were guillotined in large numbers. This is not conjecture; it was established in later shareholder lawsuits.
The only nod towards “product development” was to give the few remaining Chrysler engineers a castoff Mercedes platform to use as their “new” models.
The greatest tragedy in that saga was the extinction of the Cab Forward cars…the models and the design language. Troubles and development problems aside, I think the Chrysler design people had a winner in this. It should have lasted twenty years; and the T-drive technology should have inspired the industry to try something other than the same-old transverse installation…a design with utility but as a standard, boring and predictable.
In particular, the longitudinal layout should have re-revolutionized the minivan. Imagine the engine put where it’s not intrusive…either further forward, or further rearward, with FWD and room for feet? Cab-forward, indeed.
Instead, the LH and JA and whatever future plans there were…are all gone. And we all are the poorer for it.
Sorry but the windshield forward cars were already on their way out before Mercedes took over. The plans for the LX cars were already done, pretty much all that was left to do was order the tooling. Then Mercedes stepped in and said hey we’ve got these parts, go back to the drawing board and make them fit on your car. So in all actuality Mercedes gave a short stay of execution to the LH cars.
As I happened to point out on TTAC today (and Eric V. also points out), the most common misperception about the LX/LY cars is that Mercedes simply gave them the W210 platform after they were done with it. I think it was a review by Jeremy Clarkson that started this rumor. However, if you look on Allpar, the LX/LY platform was in fact an independent Chrysler development. Parts from various Mercedes models were shared, but only to keep costs down.
Clarkson is a know-nothing assclown.
The later Breeze models did get the 2.4.
A friend had one with that engine and it served her well. It was very roomy for its overall size, and comfortable. It had enough (groany, long-stroke) power and was good on gas.
Seems like they’d make a good beater, except they’re kind of hard to work on.
None came here that Ive seen we got the Neon and the PT Cruiser but neither were much of a success so they didnt bother
We got Neons and Cruisers,Cruisers have a cult/scene following but Neons never really caught on,they’re either immaculate ones owned by old people or ratty heaps full of scrapes and dents.
These look so bad in the Breeze trim. An early Cirrus with the chrome grille and other brightwork was a pretty car. Like the Sundance/Shadow these were wide for their short overall length. Unlike the S/S the cloud cars handled great.
It’s fitting that the Breeze was the last Plymouth (well, for general consumption, unlike the halo/niche Prowler) becasue it exemplifies exactly how Chrysler killed the brand by neglect. Even on the few occasions when Plymouth was given a versiion of the latest product, the only styling change was a rather dowdy egg-crate grille.
Long gone were the days of distinctly different Plymouth styling. Seems like the 1974 intermediates were the last year that Plymouth had specific sheet-metal stampings. If it weren’t for the runaway success of the minivan (when Chrysler was selling every one they could build), Plymouth would have certainly been terminated much sooner. By then, Plymouth had become nothing more than the Chrysler division that would get a car only if the other two couldn’t keep up with demand.
I seem to recall that the first generation Stratus could be had with a 2.0 engine and manual transmission. I think I performed an engine R&R on one with that combo after it was driven too long with a blown head gasket.
The Cirrus was the best looking, although the Stratus/Breeze weren’t bad. I liked the JA cars because they were easy to repair. Much easier than the LH cars.
I remember when those cars came out, they were touted as genuine Camcord fighters. I dont think that comparison lasted long but I still see a lot of them on the road today with over 200K on them, particularly the 2.4L fours so they couldnt have been too bad.
Oddly enough (for being a die hard Mopar guy) I never cared for the styling of these Mopars. About 2000, while in college, I was driving a 1993 Dodge Spirit and my best friend bought a 1996 Stratus. I hated riding around in it because I was so used to seeing the hood out in front of me and for being a much newer car with A LOT fewer miles, it had tons of problems. My Spirit never failed me once, until that one time that it did. And I still miss it
Hard to beat the roofline on that Acclaim though.
My best friend and his wife had a Stratus – I think it was a 96. It was in great condition when they got it until they hit a deer with it on a major highway. It actually fared quite well (even though the deer didn’t). They never fixed it and slowly that car deteriorated due to neglect. It was very durable and a very comfortable car to drive and ride in. Its life came to an end with about 160,000 miles on it with a blown head gasket. They sold it for parts on Craigslist for $300. Overall I was always impressed with that car. I think if it were properly maintained it would easily have lasted well over 200k miles.
That 160,000 mark seemed to be when many of them needed head gasket repair in my experience. Sometimes they would leak oil so badly that it would coat the entire underside of the car from the back of the engine to the rear bumper!
Very shortly after the JAs had made their way to rental agencies, I rented a Stratus for a week-long trip. I have to say, I was impressed. Having had experience with the rattle-trap K-derived boxes of old, the JA was more than impressive. Especially in one area: handling. With their wide track and long wheelbase, the Breeze gripped for far longer than it’s fleet-spec curling-rock tires had any right to do. Steering was a little numb but decent, ride was firm but not jarring. It was one of the best handling Chryslers I had experienced since my late, lamented Omni GLH.
The Cloud Cars were definitely better than the Ford Contour that came out at the same time. (When was the last time you saw one of THOSE on the road?)
That said, the only family member I knew with a Cloud Car had head gasket issues.
Ford Contours are actually quite common around where I live. For example, I just saw one earlier today in the local Goodwill parking lot.
I can’t say I see too many Contours on the road but I don’t see any Cloud cars either. Both have pretty much disappeared from my area.
I now live in Brooklyn. In the NE there are very few cars around from the Breeze period. I haven’t seen either generation in years. Bodies seem to be galvanized these days but rust in suspensions and other underbody bits because of the use of salt-like stuff in the winter does cars in.
I had a 1990 TransSport until last year. Of course the plastic body was fine. But the coil mounts in the rear suspension were rusted out and about to fall apart. The spare tire, hung on a cable in back, had disappeared a few years ago. No doubt the steel bit at the end of the cable rusted off. There are reports of engines/transaxles dropping out because of the collapse of the rusted crossmember holding them up.
A year or two before in order to rotate the wheels they had to use a sledge hammer on the tires to get them off. Aluminum wheels, iron or steel backing.
Just one car, but no doubt indicative of why there are so few older, and not that much older, cars around.
But then there’s the early 70’s Chevy II or whatever it is that is parked on the street in my block, vanity plate JOE 36.
Anyway, in the 90’s I often drove various versions of the cloud cars as a government employee – both generations. More engine and road noise than ideal. The second generation was better. But other than that fun to drive cars with good handling.
One more thing: the upholstery with flecks in other colors: does any car do anything as nice as that today, or is it all (like on my Forester) penalty box gray or black or leather or nicer leather (my Forester).
I just have to look in my driveway. ’96 GL, 95k on the clock, wonderful beater car.
Every day. There is a scabrous Contour that has taken up a parking space next to me at the gym. I no longer park there.
My neighbor across the street from my house has a gold Contour. I think it is a 2000. It was bought new and now has a few parking lot dents.
OK, to be fair, the Cloud Cars have disappeared en masse as well. Perhaps I just notice them more than Contours because of the styling?
I just happened to park a couple of spots down from a Contour at the store this evening. It was actually in pretty good shape and was the V6 model.
“…not only was the Plymouth Breeze available in four-cylinder form only, but the only four cylinder available was the 2.0L, shared with the Neons..”
Why did they even bother? Could get an import compact with a better 4 or v6 for near same price. Or even a Stratus with more.
Some Mopar fans want Plymouth back as a ‘value’ brand. But, from 1990-2000 its cars were decontented Dodges, and new car buyers don’t want “cheap” anymore. Plymouth did best when it was on same level as Chevrolet and Ford, the Low Price 3. But, now, with Fiat back, there is simply no room at all for yet another old brand.
What next? DeSoto? Nash? Hudson? Rambler? Eagle? It’s not the 1940’s.
Bahahahahaha. Bring back LaSalle. Papa needs a CT6-equivalent…with a $20K built-in discount.
Not bad cars, except for endless failure of tie rod ends (both front and rear) at 20K miles and hard to change timing belt on the 2.5L. I’m not even going to mention the infamous 2.7L engine issues like the water pump and timing chain.
I bought a brand new Cirrus in 1997. In dark green with a tan interior it was a real looker, and a nice drive. Unfortunately, I drove it into the side of an F-150. Put a dent in the truck, totaled the Cirrus.
I went to the Chrysler dealer with the insurance money, intent on getting one just like it. They managed to upsell me to a Concorde, which was also really nice but waaay to floaty for my tastes in the long run. But my wife enjoyed riding in it on long drives.
Brendan, it is great to see your Cloud Car write-up. The Breeze is an interesting choice to feature, as it has to have been the lowest production of the trio. I rented a number of these back in the day, including a gold Breeze much like the one pictured. I really liked the styling (still do), both inside and out. The packaging was impressive–they were very roomy with big trunks. I did not like the plastic quality, but thought the upholstery was nice. Overall the cars seemed solid enough, with pretty good handling and competent powertrains. To me, they were hands-down better than their domestic competitors at the time. When the Clouds were introduced, Honda and Toyota were fielding some of the best versions of their Accord and Camry, respectively. If I had been in the market then, I would have bought one of those over a Cloud. But … the Chrysler products really caught my attention and made me look, which is more than I can say for the offerings from GM or Ford or Nissan or Mazda.
Seeing the pics of the JA successor in the same piece makes me cringe. How far they fell! Those cars were dreadful, and after suffering through a few as rentals I avoided them like the plague.
Thank you GN.
I wanted to check about Breeze production figures, so I went to my Encyclopedia of American Cars. Although it’s hard to believe, Breeze production was actually greater than the Cirrus for 1996 (46,355 Breezes vs 43,367 Cirri) , 1997 (70,549 Breezes vs 27,913 Cirri), and 1998 (66,620 Breezes vs 37,920 Cirri) model years.
It dipped to a few thousand less than the Cirrus in ’99, and 2000 Breeze production was just over 2,000 units. For some reason, 1995 Cirrus data isn’t included, so I’m not sure if total production of the Breeze was higher than the Cirrus. Stratus production was undoubtably far greater.
Very interesting, and not what I would have expected. Makes sense though, in the historic Chrysler brand ladder scheme, that the value-priced Breeze would outsell the more expensive Cirrus. For whatever reason, I just don’t remember seeing as many Breezes on the road, where the Stratus were prevalent and there were plenty of Cirrus around too. In my mind, I had written off the Plymouth brand at that point, so probably just assumed that they weren’t out there in as much volume.
Fleets could have accounted for the high number of Breeze sales. Seems like exactly the sort of car rental agencies would love.
Plus they were the ones getting significantly higher scores from the consumer surveys on quality because of their simpler running gear and fewer options. They were cheaper and were perfect for that traditional Mopar customer – looking for a cheap, decent, basic sedan. The nicer versions had to split the customer pool between Dodge and Chrysler versions.
I remember calling these the “shoulder” cars, because you could actually see the shoulder of the person driving the car. Now on most new cars, you just mostly see the head and neck popping up from the high sides.
The front guard of that gold one looks to have maybe been repaired? Slightly different shade of gold, and an enormous panel gap between it and the door. Really, really nice looking the cloud cars, I’m always disappointed we never got them.
I really liked the cloud cars and wanted to buy one to replace my old Chevy Beretta when it came time. But I had three kids and only something with three rows of seats would do.
When the Cloud Cars arrived, I went wild over them. I initially wanted a Stratus, as I had a rental in Chicago on a business trip in 1996.
I also found the Breeze attractive in white with the bright blue accents around the bumpers.
We bought a brand-new 1999 Stratus – actually driven off the showroom floor! It was white with a unique gray interior with a hint of green just to make it different. I haven’t seen another like it.
Our car was our first with a sunroof. A nice car we kept just before the warranty ran out because Wifey fell in love with the CR-V and we bought a 2002 model which we still have, but it only has 106K on it.
Our last Chrysler product bought new. During our ownership, not one single problem.
I had a 2nd-gen Stratus for a rental in 2003 and I agree, it was a cheap piece of junk.
And Plymouth closes the circle as it closes the doors. It both started life and finished it as a basic, no-frills four cylinder family sedan.
I read that the Breeze (which was, I believe, limited to the four cylinder powerplant) was the one of these to get, and actually showed up quite well in consumer surveys. I always kind of liked these.
I have read that when Daimler took over Chrysler, they completely blew up the platform team approach that Chrysler had adapted from AMC. Daimler had at least some experience in larger cars (though none in Chrysler’s price class) but had zero experience in small cars, which were basically farmed out to Mitsubishi and upon completion, had a machete taken to materials costs. Morale sunk like a stone because the Daimler people treated the Chrysler people as morons who knew nothing about building cars.
Every small to mid sized car that came out under the Daimler reign was a horrid thing, and the blood is on Daimler’s hands.
Based on the account of an ex-Chrysler engineer on Allpar, it sounds like there were some problems with the platform approach even prior to the merger — not insuperable or crippling ones, but issues that needed to be addressed — which the Daimler executives of course saw. Since the platform concept was very different from anything Daimler-Benz was accustomed to doing, they concluded that the whole platform development system was wrong-headed and broken and needed to be scrapped, rather than that it was a basically sound (if different) idea that needed some tweaking.
It’s worth noting that the merger took place during a period when Daimler-Benz was getting into aggressive cost-cutting with Mercedes, as well, even on bigger, more expensive products like the W210 E-Class and W220 S-Class, both of which took a lot of flack for it. If they were doing that with the S-Class, it’s not a stretch to see how they’d approach Chrysler, which was supposed to be the cheaper mass market brand.
(On a related note, Chrysler’s pre-merger management doesn’t necessarily get a pass on the ill-advised cost-cutting, either, considering the stories about the last-minute cuts on the LH, Neon, and other programs.)
The commonly asserted notion that Daimler-Benz had no experience in smaller cars is not exactly correct. It ignores the W168 A-Class, which debuted in Europe months before the merger. Admittedly, the A-Class was a very unusual and radical design and had its own issues — the rollover scandal with early cars had Mercedes on damage control for quite a while. But it was a C-segment car and more or less priced as one.
Also, let’s not forget that in Europe, Mercedes had sold an awful lot of de-contented four-cylinder W202 C-Class sedans at about the price of a decently equipped Mondeo. In the U.S., there’s a big gap between D- and E-segment family sedans and the German premium brands, but that is not true in the European market, where BMW, Audi, and Mercedes have been playing in that price class for many years.
I’m not defending the situation at Daimler-Chrysler, but I think it needs to be viewed in context.
It’s a shame that Daimler wasn’t open to learning from other sources.
Daimler…traditionally, has always built cars for a market where cost and price are not major considerations. Chrysler, by contrast, had just been reborn as the major automaker with THE lowest overhead cost and the fastest lead time. And most of that came from the AMC approach.
Why Daimler wanted Chrysler was easy to understand – it was a way to get into a whole ‘nuther part of the market. What is completely unfathomable is why, having bought the joint, they couldn’t just sit back, watch and see how it worked…let it alone while it was pumping out money.
I’ve seen this in other mergers as well, including one involving my employer. An attractive, performing business is purchased by a larger but less-well performing outfit; but immediately upon close of the deal, everything that made the performer perform is destroyed, scattered, fired, demoralized, and driven to quit.
It is a real tragedy that the major players in Chrysler of that time are too old now to recreate it – because it would be an off-the-shelf winning management-and-design team that could revitalize any automaker open to trying it.
There’s a tendency among enthusiasts and historians, particularly in the U.S., to say, “Oh, Mercedes was used to high-end, cost-no-object engineering and didn’t know how to deal with cheaper segments,” but while I’m sure that would gratify their marketing people, it wasn’t really true. Mercedes did build high-end cars that approached that definition (the 600, which toward the end of its run was a $75,000 car in German), but for every one of those, there were thousands of smaller, cheaper four-cylinder and diesel cars.
Before the ’90s cost-cutting binge, the smaller Mercedes weren’t necessarily as ruthlessly cost-engineered as many cheaper rivals, in part because Mercedes didn’t have the economies of scale of Ford or Opel or VW, but by the ’80s, Mercedes was competing pretty actively in the European D- and E-segments. One of the ongoing questions for buyers became whether you should choose a loaded Granada or Carlton V6 or a comparably priced but stripped-down four-cylinder Mercedes or BMW.
I think the outcome of the Daimler-Chrysler merger had more to do with Daimler’s attitude toward Chrysler and what Chrysler should (or shouldn’t) be than that Mercedes was just not used to smaller or cheaper cars.
Same thing happened when Ford bought Volvo in early ’99. They went from sound, stodgy but reliable cars to cheap, cost-cut lemons. My dad bought a brand new, black over black V70R about two weeks before the buyout, and it was a solid, reliable car. The ’00 model V/S70 were much cheaper, with fake wood replacing the real tree trim, and other nickel-and-diming under the skin, I’m sure. The ’01 V70 and S60 were disappointing too.
I wouldn’t consider any Volvo from the 2000-03 model years, for that reason. Lots and LOTS of electrical problems with those cars.
After renting Stratus after Sebring after Stratus from Dollar in the 2004-2007 timeframe, they became so familiar. I think I put more miles on those second gen cloud cars than my personal car at home. While cheap junk, they rode fairly well. The four was underpowered but handled better, the six was fairly zippy. The longevity of the six was suspect due to all the “sludge” reports, so I never considered buying one.
The new 2007 models came out, with an even more ridiculous name (Grrrr, AVENGER!) and worse dynamics. The chassis felt much tighter and the handing remained adequate, but the interior plastics went further downhill and the transmission stopped talking to the engine. So the engine spent its time bellyaching and groaning everywhere you tried to take it. Yet I’d now like to test drive a 2013 version with the big six and the six speed auto. What sucked at 150 horses may not suck with double the power?
The first generation of clouds were not at all that bad, especially compared to the K cars, which were antiques by this point. I never much cared for the Breeze. The interior has much lower quality materials and the 2.4 litre was about the roughest engine I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. The idle was so rough that the steering wheel would shake like crazy. The early ones weren’t bad but they weren’t cheap either, so they did little to bring in new customers. Most were moving up from whatever K thing iteration they had.
The upper model Sebrings, especially the early onces, where nice cars and it’s a real shame they never put the 3.5 litre out of the LH into it. That was a real romper stomper motor for its day. They’d make an early LH go just fine and in a JA it would have been great.
Interestingly, our 1999 Stratus had that 2.4L and ours drove (to us) like we had a V6 under the hood. It always ran very well and I was impressed with it.
For us, it was a good car, but just a temporary one, as I was searching for something better.
As the Stratus was Wifey’s car, when some of the guys in the place where she works bought CR-Vs… well, the rest is history!
I sold the Stratus to a friend who’s daughter needed a car, and ours was still under warranty for a couple more months. She beat up that car real good, wrecked it three times and drove it for years until she married! I don’t believe it ever let her down!
I drove a 1996 Ranger.
hi.this is my first time visiting this site&found it very interesting.i have a question from you car experts(since I am not one)I am planning to buy my neighbours 78 Chrysler le baron (v8 318)with 124k miles on it which runs&drives fine for 600 bucks.car looking good,good paint&no rust(phoenix car),I was wondering if with that mileage is going to last me for a couple of years or I should pass on it.?been driving camrys all my life&do not know much about other cars.your opinion would be appreciated.have a great night.
Are you looking for a car or a relationship? If you are looking for cheap wheels with little or no drama, stick to Camrys. If, however, you are looking to amass a lifetime of stories and experiences, then go for it. A few things. 1978 was not a good time for Chrysler cars. However, one that gets this old with this many miles must have been one of the good ones, so we can move on. Has the Lean Burn system been disabled? I am guessing yes, but you will want to know this. Go to the Allpar website and read up on Lean Burn and the ways to disconnect it.
The basic guts of this car are pretty stout, but remember that we are dealing with 35 year old electrical components, wiper and blower motors, etc. And a carburetor. You will learn the art of starting a car with a carb. Everyone should know how to do this at some point in their lives. One of these should be supported on the aftermarket about as well as any Mopar (the later M bodies made into the 90s were this same basic car) but if you want really good aftermarket support on an old car, stick to Chevy.
If you get past all of the above, this car could be your gateway drug into Mopar-Mania. I am a former Mopar addict who has been clean since 1997 (unless you count my 99 Town & Country experience of a couple of years ago as a relapse) but I would do it all again. Maybe even more. But then, my cars were never cars. They were relationships. Often maddening ones, but the highs balanced out the lows.
actually I just found out that the system has been removed and carb is almost new(1 years old)bought the car&still got my 99 camry as first car.will see if it is going to be a good experience or bad one.thank you very much for you advise.
Do I hear the click-clack of the keyboard for a “My Curbside Classic” piece? 🙂 I, for one, would love to see it.
A friend had one of the cloud cars – can’t remember which. When I discovered I needed to take off the LF tire to replace the battery, I told him, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m never working on your car again.”
Oh, those government car were fours, of course.
Re: complaint about the non factory wheel covers: When I lived in San Francisco and parked on the street I had a 1988 Horizon. It originally had chrome lug nuts and whatever you call the chrome circle around the wheel, because it dated to 1978 and they had copied VW Golf. They just kept making the same damn thing because apparently no one was paying attention. Anyway, I put cheapo wheel covers on it and was happy with the result. Then because of parallel parking and curbs and wheel covers having to cover FWD wheels they would get cracked. So I would buy a new set in a new style and the car looked great again. I think it wore two or three wheel cover styles over its life, which ended when I rolled it.
Ein neues Kleid eine neue Frau machen.
So anyway the inauthentic wheel covers on that Breeze are fine.
I bought a 1997 Cirrus Lx as a used car in 1999. It was a very comfortable car, and with the 2.5L V6, it was a bit of a sleeper. Because of the “old man” chrome grille on it, it flew under the radar as well.
The Cirrus had quite a nice interior, in my opinion. The seats were tan with a light brown pinstripe on them, which I found quite attractive. The car was quiet and comfortable too.
I had a 2nd gen as a rental car one time and I agree that it was a step backwards from mine.
Unfortunately, our apartment at the time was just up the road from a paper mill. Every morning I would go to the car to drive to work and it would always be covered in a fine dust. After only about 18 months, the hood started rusting badly, with holes underneath. I’m sure the dust was responsible.
We decided to trade it in on a 1999 Caravan to get rid of it before the rust got too bad. The van was the least reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned. I think that was the worst automotive decision I have ever made. I miss the Cirrus.
I replaced my 1990 Plymouth Acclaim LX with a 1996 Breeze in 1998. Horrible car. Noisy, slow, uncomfortable, no headroom (I’m 6’2″), with a cheap, nasty interior. I got rid of it after two years and bought a five year old Taurus wagon from my father in law. A much better car. I still miss the Acclaim, though.
My dad owned a Stratus when I was younger. That was an awful, awful car.
Due to poor engine construction, a little piece in the engine which should normally be tapped and plugged was instead just plugged with a metal stamped piece. In our Illinois cold/hot cycles, the thing got loose over the course of about a year and a half.
Then it failed. Engineers often use the term “catastrophic failure” to describe something like this, because when it went, it started leaking oil so badly that it caught on fire. Dad was on his way to work and had to pull over because the car was burning up. If an elderly couple with a truck and a fire extinguisher hadn’t pulled up, that car would have quite likely burned to the ground.
… but instead, it lived on. It was (gasp) still under warranty, so the dealer replaced the engine and transmission for no charge to us. The car was never the same again. Their new engine’s wiring harness did not match our car, and the electronics never worked after that. The turn signals would engage the fan intermittently. A/C would only work occasionally (perhaps in third gear?). Other problems began to crop up soon as well.
That thing was dying and we needed to get rid of it. Dad was pre-planning his trips to reduce mileage, as we were rapidly approaching its pitiful 30,000 mile warranty.Soon, Dad drove it to the dealership with only 20 miles remaining in its warranty.
Just as he had finished signing the car off to the dealership (a deal on which I guarantee they lost money), a tornado siren went off. They went into the tornado shelter (read: bathroom) and waited for the storm to pass. While no tornado touched down near the dealership, winds whipped up significantly during the storm.
They walked outside to find that the dealer’s sign had fallen on the car, totaling it.
Having just signed the car off, it was the dealer’s problem. Dad caught the bus home and said that he couldn’t stop laughing. “Good riddance,” he said. I can’t agree more.
Funny story! Serves the dealer right for doing such a shoddy engine replacement (assuming it was the same one).
I’m 6’5″ tall and hated getting in and out of any of my Cloud Car rentals.
In the 90’s the U.S. governments motorpool was packed full of Breezes. I remember them as rather innocuous, bland things. They were as basic as basic could be, but they did the job as basic transportation. Carried 4 folks comfortably. Got decent mileage with the 4 banger/automatic. Can’t speak to reliability,as they were rotated out and auctioned off after around 30,000 miles.
The Breeze was a stylish entry level family car. Windows/Locks/A/C Automatic, lots of space and some style for not much cash. That’s what a lot of people want and it was there. I always thought the ‘cloud’ cars were quite nice looking and aged better than any of thier domestic competitors at the time (Contour, GM N Cars). In the sportier specs they handled quite decently, too.
The frontal looks so poor with that grille, but its rear lights are nicer than the ones of Cirrus and Stratus, it should be used in the Cirrus.
Wasn’t it obvious that Plymouth was on the way out when they switched from cheap plastic badges, to cheaper gray decals?
I always thought the first generation cloud cars would have been attractive two door coupes. Kind of a smaller 1971-72 fuselage style cars. These things rusted terribly here (Iowa).
Some Mopar fans think Plymouth should come back as a “value brand’, but didn’t they already try that with the Breeze, essentially a stripped Cirrus? The Breeze was a model year after the Cirrus, 1996, and was a last gasp for the brand, coinciding with the return of “Mayflower” logo.
But Plymouth’s long slow fade started with the 1960 Dodge Dart, a “low price” car for Dodge dealers to sell, and they openly competed with Plymouth.
The last thing FCA needs right now is more brands.
Well now they call me the breeze
I keep blowin down the road
I wonder if someone at Chrysler’s marketing department was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan…
This car was sold as the Volga Siber in Russia for a few years.
Yes, made in Russia after it was supplanted in the US. Sort of like Fiat tooling being repurposed into Ladas, but after the fall of the USSR. They had a bigger Audiesque grille and other facelifts.
I wonder what that factory is making today.
These failed and were pulled after 2 years. Planned to sell 40k, annually, but only 9000 sold between 2008-10.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ_Volga_Siber
The Volga Siber got much better, much more performant headlamps than any of the Chrysler-Dodge versions.
The “Total POS” component of the Clouds started to become apparent after they got to be a few years old and repairs were needed.
As someone else already noted, you have to remove a tire to access the battery. By itself that’s a petty inconvenience, but as I recall there are key electrical components on top of the battery as well, like a computer or maybe a fuse box?
I’d only seen one once, 4-5 years ago, and was surprised.
The friend who’d worked on it noted they were fine, but then went onto note an issue with MoPars from that timeframe in general.
If an ignition module failed, it wasn’t a DIY repair. The computer had to come out and go to a ChryCo dealer for reprogramming when the module was replaced, about a $100 procedure plus the travel time and down time.
Since this was also an era in which the electronics were also “decontented,” components that simply didn’t fail – or were an easy and/or inexpensive fix on a competitor’s vehicle – became catastrophic on many MoPars in general as they aged.
We generally avoided these like the plague at the car auctions because they mostly had hidden issues that would be costly to repair. Our neighbors 1996 with the Neon 2.0 and 4 speed automatic was a good case in point. After the warranty ran out the head gasket failed followed 6 months later by the bottom end rattle after the head was replaced. Next was the transaxle that puked a year later followed by most every part of the front end including tie rods, wheel bearings and axle shafts. The last straw was the A/C quitting on a very hot Summer day with a shot compressor and numerous squeaks, groans and rattles. And all this with under 80 thousand miles. It was their first and last Chrysler product after a very reliable 1983 Caprice Classic and the replacement for the Breeze was a clean light blue 2001 Grand Marquis that also served them well.
ChyCo fans go on and on about how “they were flying high in the 90’s and were doing well without Daimler”.
Well, with all the poor quality issues [see above] with Neon, Clouds, and LH cars, they would have still lost sales, and looked for a partner in 2000’s. All the cars with “fantastic styling” ended up junked in less then a decade.
Had a run-in with 2 Breezes over the yrs…first was a first yr 96, with a 5 speed !! Fun car, bigger and bulkier than the Neons, was all set to get it then a 1 off Neon came up….another story.
Later, a 97 came up cheap, needed an infamous A604, so swapped it in, nice needed a car, but several months later, came back with a failed trans. Another trans & off she went. No love lost….
There is a home about 3 kilometres from where I live, where one of these resides. Decent condition for its age, though tired-looking. With pop rivet sheet metal patches at the rear of both rocker panels. Paint is reasonable for twenty-five years old.
Stylish for their era. What strikes you upon encountering one of these today, is how small they appear. And how low and squat they are, in the context of so many CUVS on the road.
A bona fide flash in the pan.
Imagine if Chrysler had been the dominant partner after the ‘merger of equals’.
I always loved the look of these cars, so light and airy, almost Honda-esque, and was so disappointed in the subsequent design direction. But then, design is one thing, living with the car seems to have been quite another thing.
Think we might have dodged a bullet not getting this one.