(first posted 4/6/2013) Eugene is K-Kar heaven: every permutation of Lee Iakkoka’s Karmagination is on display, everywhere. Sometimes even two at a time:
I was shooting this lovely Daytona in a 7-11 parking lot when a brown Reliant came into view as it was leaving the gas station across the street (above). I managed an iffy shot of it behind its sporty offshoot. But then, instead of turning left, towards the intersection, it shot across the street and through the 7-11 lot to short-cut the poky red light at 6th. It just had to get a little closer to the Daytona and give me what might appear to be a perfectly staged shot (below). Thank you, impatient Reliant driver!
We’re going to save the Kreation story of the Kars for another day, and focus on this particular variant. Dodge and Plymouth already had twin sporty FWD coupes, the Omni 024/Charger and the Horizon TC3. Based on the K-cars’ spiritual and technical predecessor, the less-than-handsome coupes made themselves most notorious with the wild turbocharged Shelby Chargerversion. It was a raucous and woolly little beast that surprised more than a few Mustangs and Camaros in its day, if one could keep it in a straight line.
By 1984, Krysler was ready to supplant the ugly twins with the much more contemporary and sleek Daytona and its virtually identical twin, the Chrysler Laser. Tagging a sporty little FWD coupe as a Chrysler was typical of the Plymouth self-mutilation that the Pentastar had been practicing for decades until eventually they accomplished their presumed goal. Chrysler buyers used to rich Corinthian leather and padded vinyl topped Fifth Avenues were rightfully confused by the Laser’s less than laser-sharp brand identity, and left it to die on the vine within a couple of years.
But the Daytona knew where the Dodge Boys hung out (at the 7-11?), and it sold a decent 50k or so units for several years, despite the in-house competition from the little Charger for its first few years. Three versions were on tap: the basic Daytona like this one came with a 99hp version of the venerable 2.2 L four. The Turbo kicked out 146 hp, and the Turbo Z added a body kit to make it look a lot more dangerous than it was.
In 1987, the Turbo Z morphed into the Shelby Z, now with 174 hp and non-optional turbo lag. But the best was kept for last: in its final three years (’91 -’93), the wildest Daytona became known as the IROC (R/T beginning in ’92), and these used the mythical Turbo III engine sporting a Lotus designed DOHC 16 valve head. It made a whopping 224 horses from 2.2 liters; no big shakes today, but eye-popping stuff in its time. The Turbo III regularly popped more then just eyeballs: its reliability issues are as legendary as its rarity.
By 1990, Mitsubishi’s tame and less self-explosive 3.0 L V6 appeared in Daytonas, and the Turbo III died along with the Daytona after the ’93 model year. But the Daytona IROC R/T and its Spirit R/T brother were colorful additions to the performance car scene. They may not have been everyone’s cup of tea (like mine), but they pioneered FWD high performance at a time when that was almost an oxymoron with the conservative RWD-only US pony-car crowd. But more than a few Mustang 5.0 drivers learned to expand their horizons beyond just worrying about a Camaro taking them out.
We’ve let our Kreative imaginations stray pretty far from this actual gutless Kraptastic Koupe, whose distinctive wheezy 99 horsepower moan through its 3-speed slush box was so eloquently displayed by the brown Reliant as it merged hurriedly into traffic. That flooded me with memories of driving an identical brown Reliant for a few months in LA. We’ll save that highlight of my autobiography for another day. Meanwhile, wish me luck finding an IROC R/T in Eugene; but than stranger things have happened. After all, this is Kurbside Klassik.
I had to double-check the byline to make sure this one wasn’t written by Kim Komando.
Or J. P. Kavanaugh? I trust that our royalty check for this Kurbside Klassic is in the mail. 🙂
According to our extensively-negotiated license agreement and our current revenue projections, It appears I owe you $.43. Where shall I mail it to?
Brings me back to a time when I had a little thing for LAPD Detective Dee Dee Mccall.
These always remind me of her too. Just like every time I see a pea green 70s donk I think of Fred Dryer.
Did she have a Daytona or a Laser?
Daytona.
“Works for me”
My uncle had a black Chrysler Laser in the early 90’s. He got it after his beloved Triumph TR6 was totaled by an idiot driver in a full size Chevy van.
It was a sleek looking car being all black with dark tinted windows. My uncle was in his 20s and I was just a kid so it added to my perception of him being one of the coolest human beings on the planet.
I remember going with him to the self serve car wash when he ran out of quarters with the car covered in soap. The change machine stopped working. No one was around and the store across the street wouldn’t give him change. He was so pissed haha. We had to drive to my great aunt’s house, soap drying on the car, to rinse it off.
He was so mad but now it’s one of those things we laugh about.
Unfortunately it wasn’t long before that car fell apart. I can remember him telling my mom when we had to go pick him up “It looks good but looking good isn’t doing a good job getting me to work!”
And it turned out it had been wrecked with frame damage, the dealer didn’t tell him that and somehow he got them to take the car back. He ended up with something a few years older but still pretty cool, an ’83 Celica.
This car really had a nice look with smooth, rounded, contemporary lines. Since most…eh-hem… Kryslers of the day looked like shoeboxes, this design was really refreshing.
My older sister bought an identical Chrysler Laser new in 1984 with a maroon cloth interior and the 5-speed stick. It served her quite well – she got a good 10 years out of it with few problems, though it was starting to get a little rusty thanks to our salty Ontario roads. I haven’t seen a Laser or its Daytona cousin in quite a long time. Again, the kreativity koming from the original K-kar koncept keeps on kruising. Okay, I’ll shut up now. My spell-check is starting to smoke.
I thought these were decent looking cars back in the day. I think every one sagged after a couple of years, but oh well. The Mitsu 3.0 that eventually ended up in FWD Mopars was a decent engine, I remember them to be notorious for oil leaks. Then there was the segment of owners who neglected the timing belt replacement.
Every time I see this car I am reminded of the movie The Wraith, where a truly scummy, scenery-chomping Griffin O’Neal got sent over a cliff while driving one. That’s how bad this car was, my overriding memory of it was as cannon fodder in a schlocky Chrysler-fest movie.
I had a black ’93 Daytona, red interior, base engine with five speed. A very, very nice budget GT car. Reasonably quick on the twisties, yet comfortable for 300 mile trips. Unfortunately, it was a jinxed car: First, I hit a deer. Six weeks after that was repaired, I get hit in the driver side door while parked at the local mall. Two months after that repair, I’m sideswiped by a drunk at an intersection. At that point, I decided that no matter how well the car was operating, I’d had it with body shop visits. Besides, my re-enactment sutlery had outgrown my bottom-of-the-line ’91 Dakota, so the two of them were traded in on a ’94 Dakota 4×4 long bed.
I was pretty much a Dodge loyalist during the ’90s, mainly because the local Dodge dealer was run by the guy who was my father’s used car manager during the Chevy days, and his son (my best friend in high school) essentially ran the business by that point. Combination of an acceptably good product plus excellent dealer backup keeps the customer coming back. Moving to Richmond in ’98 killed that run (the local dealers didn’t exactly thrill me), and the Johnstown franchise was killed during the Chrysler bankruptcy. They’re still around as an independent used car lot.
One of my brothers had both a Shelby Charger (blue w/silver stripe) and a Laser Turbo (this color red). Both were good cars; the Charger set a new standard for torque steer. The Laser was far more docile in its road manners.
I could never get past the way the rear side windows looked like they were arbitrarily shaped; they didn’t relate to any other lines on the car.
I must confess that in 1985, I had a serious thing for this car. A black Turbo 5 speed Chrysler Laser was exactly what I needed. As a Class-A Mopar fanboy at the time, I was ready to trade my 77 New Yorker in on one. My world was open to anything cool, but this car had the inside track.
Then one Saturday I went to drive one. The salesman at the Chry-Ply dealer asked me a question: “Are you going to buy a car today?” I told him no, but that I was going to buy a car in the very near future and was seriously interested in one of these. His reply was “If you are not going to buy a car today, then I can’t let you drive it.” Wow. And he was completely serious.
I drove lots of stuff, and maybe even drove a Daytona, but somehow I got grumbly every time I thought about a Laser after that. It’s starting to come back. I did drive one, but recall being fairly disappointed in the body integrity and the experience in general. Who knows how my life may have been different had I bought a black Laser instead of a black GTI.
Reminds me of the serious thing I had for early-nineties Chrysler LeBaron convertibles. Great looking car, especially with the top down.
Then we rented one for our honeymoon in Maui. Open air bliss cruising in paradise (especially the Hana highway), but it cured me of actually wanting to own one. Switchgear from Toys-R-Us, strange noises and rumbles from the steering, not remotely as solid or sharp to drive as my 8-year-old Celica. Too bad.
Wow. If a salesman said that to me, I would make it very clear that not only was I not going to buy a car from him that day, I was not going to buy a car from him or his dealership as long as he was working there. I would make sure his manager knew it, too.
I did that very thing. Called the manager when I got home. He was apologetic and told me I could come back and drive one. I told him not in this lifetime, or whatever we used to say in 1985. Funny, as I think about it, the Honda dealer did the same thing – only buy just ignoring me for 20 minutes in the showroom when there were 2 or 3 salesmen there and no customers. I never went back there either. But I suppose you could get away with that if you were selling Hondas. Chryslers, on the other hand, . . . . .
The only K-Kar not affeKted by the Brougham-ifiKation of AmeriKa.
I repossessed a Daytona version for the firm circa 1988 or so. I recall driving it back to the office and whilst accelerating around a standard Korner, the turbo Kicked in, the Kar wanted to go sideways and it damn near K-k-killed me. If you were unfortunate enough to drive it over a frost heave, manhole Kover, or any road inperfeKtion, the whole suspension would also skip sideways. I have to give Chairman Lee Kredit on all the different recipies that he could come up with the basic ground beef K cars, but they were fairly Krude Kontraptions.
Broke my neck in 2 places while a passenger in a Daytona. Seatback broke in a rear ender. Very poor seat design. Feeling pain 23 years later just looking at the pictures.
Owww. That’s serious.
Yup. Apparently many cars (except German and Swedish cars) of that era had negligible setback strength as it was not then mandated. Have only owned German and Swedish cars since the accident. 23 years of pain because of Krap!
Marcus, really sorry to hear that. But at the least, you are still here to tell of this accident.
Oh god, yet another ROAL (Rentals of a lifetime). I walked up to the Hertz counter at LaGuardia one day in 1985, and they offered to upgrade me to a sports car. I was thinking Corvette, or maybe Camaro or Mustang GT at worst, when the clerk told me they had a Daytona. My jet-lagged brain immediately thought “Ferrari 365 Daytona? No way!” Of course not, it was dull beige Dodge Daytona automatic, with what I discovered as soon as I got up to speed in the Bronx, was a flat rear tire. Not that it made much difference to its dull handling. BTW my favorite rental from that series of business trips to New York in ’85 and ’86 was a V8 Fox LTD. A very pleasant car that cruised nicely at 85 on the Taconic Parkway.
It’s hard to imagine that world now, but when these came out our dealer was still having receptions to reveal the new models. We were invited, having bought a Horizon a few years earlier. There was free food and booze, and test drives of the new models. I assume this isn’t how it would be done today. My father and I went for a spin in a 5-speed Daytona Turbo Z with a boost gauge in the dash. We were impressed, and it planted a seed that led to a 1985 Dodge Lancer ES Turbo a year later. Unfortunately, the Lancer was a disaster. This car has the same 14 inch wheels that our Lancer had. I’m amazed by the presence of the center caps. Keeping them on my father’s car was a full time job. Eventually, we gave up. This was after replacing a few, and wrapping all their little tabs in sticky electrical tape to increase their purchase on the rims. Other problems with the car meant that it was gone with less than 30,000 miles, three head-gaskets, and a black void where once were digital instruments, but we had it long enough to give up on the center caps already. The Lancer replaced a car we’d had 14 years, but it was gone after less than 3. Heck, the car it replaced as my father’s then went to my sister and then to me. It was probably still on the road when the Lancer was retired.
Ironically, the mechanic we gave the Lancer to never had any more luck than we did. He never titled it either. Many years later, it came back to haunt my parents when the man’s house was foreclosed on and it was rotting in his yard. The state tracked down my parents as having the last known address of the car’s owners. It had been off the road for years, still with less than 30,000 miles. Whenever I hear about a car company with a bad reputation using a long warranty to move their stuff, I think about Chrysler’s 5/50 protection plan. They had enough outs and deductibles, combined with no provision for loaners, that we gave up long before either figure was reached. Who cares if they warranty the car if you pay a big deductible, it breaks constantly, everything is a battle, and you’re left without a car for weeks at a time?
We inherited a champagne-colored 1987 or so New Yorker, complete with a burgundy interior like the inside of a clarinet case. Our daughter was about ready to get her license but let us know about her reluctance to be seen driving or even riding in such an old person’s car. Driving by the Mopar dealer in Tacoma I saw a Daytona on the lot, and after driving it for a few blocks around town discovered that with my eyes closed I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between that and the New Yorker.
AMT makes a pretty nice model of these. Their most recent release was as a “Muscle” car, 1988 Dodge Daytona, with the flip-up lights. MPC did a version like the car featured. Monogram had a version of the Shelby Charger. Snap kit, but still had some nice engine detail.
Here is the AMT Daytona.
This is getting spooky. Last night I saw this exact car in front of the liquor store you had in your Caprice listing a few days ago. I didn’t have my camera (damnit) but I thought of CC when I saw it.
I always thought those coupes were Mitsubishi-based, didn’t realise they’re K-cars. Not that we ever saw any here anyway. That Daytona is quite a decent-looking car – even the long front overhang seems to work ok.
They do look similar to the Mitsubishi Starion, but I don’t think they’re mechanically related.
No, the Starion was RWD, it did have a rarely seen Chrysler counterpart called the Conquest.
The Laser/Daytona were as close to FWD Pony-Cars that we ever got, remember that the rwd Mustang and F-body were all dead, with $4/gallon gas looming on the horizon, they were going to be downsized to, GM spent tons on the GM-80 program which would have been a FWD/AWD F-body replacement, and Ford Probe was GOING to be the new Mustang, badges were already on the prototypes, but the rwd Fox Mustang got an 11th hour reprive.
The trip down memory lane continues. Soon after I got my first car, a 1984 Plymouth Turismo, in the early 90s, the parents of one my best friends bought a 1984 Laser for him to share with his brother. I drove it once, and while it was every bit as slow as my 2-door Horizon (same 2.2L/ 3spd AT) it did feel more substantial and refined…. Such as that was for an 80s Mopar.
I never understood the thinking behind the complex curve door armrests on these. In a decidedly rectilinear cockpit, why use a component that manages only to look like melted, deformed plastic?
The K Car was really an amazing vehicle. With Lee Iococca at the helm this car was a Chevy Malibu competitor, a station wagon, a luxury car, an Italian luxury super car(sic), a ground breaking, first ever mini van and this, a pseudo pony car. I remember when it first came out, it was Car and Driver who touted it as “What the Camaro and Firebird should have been”. Yeah, right. Well, I don’t know about that, but there is a future collectable in the Shelby Turbo Z, thanks to the Shelby connection with Chrysler. In it’s time, they were to be found everywhere. Today? I can’t remember the last I saw one. The rear side window had a sort of Porsche 928 look to it and I thought the overall dimensions were pleasing to the eye.
But it appears the execution did not jive with the concept, according to what these entertaining stories by previous owners tell us. All the same, I kind of admired Iococca and everyone at Chrysler; they had the noose around their necks and a target on their chest, but boy, they made some interesting cars during this time frame….all from that “K” car……Just a shame that some of the buyers here financed a lot of their shoddy workmanship!
Yeah, but it didn’t play all those roles as well as others, its like saying hamburger patty is a great frisbee, doorstop, bookmark, hat and food.
I guess you kan akkuse me of drinking the kool-aid, I thought these cars were neat. I was a fan of the styling, it almost seemed impossible to me that the lowly Reliant begat this thing. In the early to mid 80’s most FWD sport coupes were oddly proportioned (IMO), particularly if you were used to RWD sport coupes.
I knew several guys who had these, they were mostly pretty decent cars, but we were all in our 20’s and changed cars every couple years it seems as soon as the next “new” model rolled around. I myself didn’t really start hanging on to a car long term until after I was married.
I ended up with my own Turbo Dodge, but it was a Lancer ES five door, a car that I now wish I could get back. Nothing has quite the mix of performance, utility and economy that car did. I could live with it’s foibles (premium fuel, an appetite for IAC valves and stiff ride) again. Probably.
I never bought one of these because I knew Ford was going to release more powerful Mustangs throughout the 80’s and I had to get in on that action. But there was a Daytona that I saw almost everyday in a nearby neighborhood that I really liked. If I had been tempted to go FWD Mopar in 1984 instead of 1988, the pictured car would have been it.
For whatever reason, I think these are utter cool, specially the turbo ones. Turbo II for me, please.
Anyone remember in which of the Cannonball Run movies it appeared? Yes, it smoked everything else.
Cannonball Run II. Frank Sinatra was driving a red one at the end blowing past two other Rat Packers in a Corvette. I was always amazed that out of all the cool cars in that movie…Ferraris, Lambos, Porsches, Trans Ams, etc,the Chairman of the Board gets put in the most low-level sports car in the entire series.
That’s only because he was friends with Iacocca. Heck, he even got an Imperial named after him…
Looks like a cross between a Starion and an RX7 – no bad thing
Ha! Paul, I caught you!
This is a re-post of the same Kurbside Klassic you for this car when you were linked to The Truth About Cars website.
i remember commenting at the time that :
“My best friend had a Chrysler Laser Turbo version of this car. At the time I thought it was coolest I had ever seen and the hottest car I ever drove. I find it amazing how badly these cars have aged. Turned out it had all of the lovely reliability issues Chrysler was so famous for.”
I have no problem with you doing a re-post, but you may want to let people know that it is one
It does say “Classic” right 🙂
I’ve been bringing all of those posts over, since the beginning of CC here. I think most readers from the other site recognize that and don’t have an issue with it. And we have many newer readers. For a while, I called them “Classic Curbside Classic”. But that seemed a bit fussy. And I do make changes to them.
I’m very busy building a house, so you can expect to see more CC gold here, until they’ve all migrated here.
Too bad this one is in such decrepit shape. Ive always loved these cars, especially the ’84-’86 models with quad sealed beam headlites and an actual grille. Granted Im a total Mopar fanboy but these were a LOT faster than F-body or mustang 5.0 drivers want to remember if they had the Turbo II. The bodystyle had since succumbed by the aerodynamic filth that was infecting cars by the time the IROC R/T came out but that thing was an absolute MONSTER of a 4 banger fwd car. I remember reading that it and the Spirit R/T were the fasted fwd cars available at the time, and in the case of the Spirit, only a couple bimmers were faster when it came to sedans.
My Daytona/Laser would be a pre-facelifted model with T-tops painted electric blue, black leather interior 5spd manual. Id keep the 2.2L block but swap up to the16v DOHC crossflow head from a turbo PT Cruiser or SRT4 neon–a popular upgrade for these. While you could use the standard 2.4L engines head (still DOHC/16V/crossflow design), the head from the turbo is a little different. I owned a PT Cruiser GT, and after doing some research, the turbo 2.4 isn’t just the standard engine with a turbo and I/C slapped on, its actually engineered with some upgrades. Working over a hybridized 2.2 like that, 300 hp is a very conservative goal. That’s well under capacity for these cars without major beefing and it would still go like stink!
I personally never liked the K Kars or Iocoocoo. Those were dark days for Chrysler. Fortunately them days are past, but more dark days are in store with Fiat at the helm. I just hope Chrysler can survive them.
A high school acquaintance of mine had a learning disability, but whatever his brain was doing wrong in terms of learning had the side effect of making him a brilliant artist, in his case a photographer.
While everyone else was tooling around in sub-$1000 beaters, Bobby shows up one day with $13,000 cash in his hand from selling his work and went off to the Chrysler dealer to buy a Laser. Everyone around him questioned their entire lives that day.
I had a ’90 blue Daytona ES (with the 2.2) from 1998 until 2003. My ’85 Olds ’98 had seized from a failed oil pump in July, and the oldest son of a physician colleague of my father’s had permanently lost his driver’s license from his fourth DUI, and the wife of the colleague took a check for $2,200 and forged her son’s signature on the title transfer.
It had ninety thousand miles and looked to be in reasonably good shape. The foglamps were decorative, and never worked. The pop-up headlamps broke in the up position in 2001. Over the next five years I gave it new brakes, a starter, both front bearings, and a gas tank/fuel pump in exchange for ninety-seven thousand more miles, many of which were spent cruising the limited access highways of central NY and the Tri-State Area. I epoxied the rear-view mirror to the front glass four different times. It could go 500 miles on a fillup, and one memorable 1999 fill-up, on the Tilton Road in Northfield, NJ at a gas station that no longer exists, cost me eight dollars, at the absolute nadir of oil prices. I moved away from college with that thing loaded to the gunwales, and it still made seventy-five on I-86/NY17.
I decided to get rid of the car abruptly in October of 2003 when I was driving back with my fiance (now wife of seventeen years) from her grandparents house, on the road from the airfield where the Hindenberg crashed. The two-lane highway’s shoulders were blocked off by Jersey barriers on both sides during a road-widening project, and a head-on collision was only averted at the last second when the car attempting to overtake in the oncoming direction swerved at the very last possible second.
One airbag was not enough. I donated it to the Chabad in Atlantic City for a $500 tax deductible receipt. I still get a kick thinking of a Lubavitcher with streimel and luckchen driving that thing.
I always wanted one of these, and I still love how they look.
People shouldn’t forget the Probe WAS going to be the FRONT WHEEL DRIVE, Mazda-based Mustang of the future. GM was going to take the same route. Don’t forget either that the Fox body Mustang could be had with an 88HP 2.3 I4. The GM F-bodies? Why, yes, you could get a 2.5 Iron Duke. It’s factually and historically inaccurate to make fun of the 99HP 2.2 TBI Chrysler made standard in these. Some folks like to cherry pick their history and leave out the things they don’t like!
The difference? Bigger companies have bigger budgets. Let’s not forget that Ford was facing imminent bankruptcy in the opening of the 1980’s as well.
If gasoline had actually spiked and stayed up where it was predicted to be, ONLY Chrysler would have been well positioned to thrive.
How insanely different things may have been….
That exact car is sitting in my garage right now. Good Lord. I need a life.