The ’70s had certainly been a rough decade for Chrysler. After barely surviving, a renaissance of sorts had been in the works with the K-Car era that arrived in 1981. A series of modern and practical FWD products, pragmatic almost to a fault, ready to serve a world still carrying the uncertainties left by the previous decade. Yet, by ’84, the corporation had recovered enough to offer fun motoring again. Reasonable and cost-effective fun, mind you, appropriate for the decade.
So, for ’84 the Laser/Daytona sports car duo arrived in Chrysler’s G-platform, a derivative of the K-platform. All part of what became the corporation’s endless proKreation of K-derived models. And befitting an era of more responsible fun, the models used Chrysler’s 2.2L inline-4; either normally aspirated or sexily turbocharged. Specs for the turbo were very good for the times: 142 hp at 5200 rpm, 0-60 in 8.6 secs and 23 MPG fuel consumption.
As R&T’s insert chart shows, the turbo’s numbers were quite competitive against Ford’s and GM’s performance cars.
As period advertising suggests, Car And Driver was particularly taken with Chrysler’s new sports car, with the Daytona even appearing in the magazine’s Ten Best for 1984.
Road & Track, however, wasn’t quite so enthused. An assessment they held on most of the K-cars of the period: Vehicles that were the right concept, but in need of refinement.
R&T’s test model was a Chrysler Laser XE. Being a Chrysler, it was the upscale version of the duo, carrying luxury trim and options as standard. (FWIW, back in ’82 R&T believed the sporty duo would appear under the Dodge and Plymouth umbrellas).
First the mostly-positives: “The Laser/Daytona is a good package, with clean styling, a well thought-out interior, a potent turbo engine, and capable if not ultrasophisticated handling. The exterior finish and fit are up to the standards of the Laser’s class, while those of the interior are somewhat less so.”
More thoughts on the interior followed; “… the driver’s seat is very well designed… the steering wheel also satisfies in position and feel, if not in aesthetics… Rear seating is inadequate for adults… Overall, considering it as a 2+2 coupe, the Laser has good interior accommodation.”
The car’s forte was straight-line acceleration; 0-60 arrived in a very competitive 8.6 secs, and the quarter mile in 16.2 secs at 82 mph. Slalom and skidpad numbers were just as good.
Meanwhile, the 5-speed manual was considered well suited to the task, but vague and somewhat clunky. In regards to the vehicle’s handling: “Torque steer, to the right under power, is an annoyance… Otherwise, the handling is capable; you feel the car is controllable when driven hard.” Last, the brakes offered good stopping power, while the clutch pedal effort was deemed heavy.
Overall, a rather “strong running package”. All, except for the car’s engine; “Chrysler’s ubiquitous 2.2 transverse four turbocharged to a healthy 142 bhp… It starts easily, has good driveability, produces enough torque… and its turbo effect some in with reasonable smoothness… The one reservation… The engine has a constant booming resonance that intrudes at anything over 2000 rpm… it’s a resonance that fills the head rather than delights the ear.”
R & T summed up; “Although we applaud the concept and basic execution of the Laser, the car badly needs refinement.”
Quite different from the “The competition is good, we had to be better” Iaccoca attributed lines from period Chrysler advertising. Statements aside, like many products during that tortuous transition, the Laser/Daytona duo arrived as works in progress. Not that such a thing was rare in Detroit at the time, and Chrysler did work to make the sporty cars deliver on their promise.
Or more precisely, they worked to make the Daytona deliver, as it was the longer-lasting model. While its sales figures were often in line with its Dodge sibling, the Laser line was dropped for good in 1986.
That aside, as mentioned, Chrysler took to fixing the sporty pair’s rougher edges. In 1985 a new shift linkage arrived. For ’86, a 2.5L inline 4 with much-needed balance shafts became available (not turbocharged, however). Meanwhile, a Shelby suspension package also appeared that year. More distinctive styling arrived in 1987, with the Daytona going solo until the end of its run in 1993, all while enjoying a rather wild career thanks to hotter versions such as the IROC R/T.
But we’ll leave those events out for now, for those belong to the Daytona’s days as a solo act.
Related CC reading:
Parking Lot Outtake: 1984 Chrysler Laser Turbo – What Kind Of Person Is Still Driving One Today?
eBay Find: 1984 Chrysler Laser Turbo – Mopar’s Answer For The Hair Metal Set
I spent a lot of time one like this in the early 90s. My girlfriend ( and later fiancé ) at the time had a used one she drove to law school and back. But is was a stripped down automatic , non-turbo version. I don’t think it had AC but oddly had the rear spoiler over the glass hatchback , which she didn’t feel offered much visibility and had her dad remove it. Consistent with Lee’s strategy , it was all show and no go with badging and ground effects and was an attractive package at a lower price. I had a lot of wheel time on long trips and it was a bit of a dog as you would expect. Served her well enough, but then and now Chrysler was not known for great and long lasting transmissions, and it failed causing many tears due to the unexpected expense.
I had a good bit of driving time with one of these cars because my parents bought a used 1986 Laser Turbo for my sister, when she was about 21 (and I was 16). It was fun – especially for 16-year-old me, but definitely not refined. For folks who didn’t particularly care about refinement, this was a good car for the day, and a decent value as well.
I wrote this before on CC, but my sister’s Laser suffered an unfortunate fate, breaking down on I-95 with transmission problems. The cost of repairs was more than the car was worth, so she scrapped it. This may not have been entirely Chrysler’s fault, since my folks bought the car used with a salvage title, which was a bad idea. But on the bright side, as for driving it around, I liked that car, and missed it when it was gone.
I had a big crush on these when they came out, but never got to drive one. I tried once, but the salesman was a jerk who refused to let me drive a car unless I committed to him in advance that I was prepared to “buy a car today.” I told him that I would absolutely not buy a car today because I was comparing, but that I would absolutely not buy one that I could not drive first. I got home and called the manager, who apologized and offered me a drive if I would come back. I told him I was never, ever going back to that place – and never did.
In my area, the turbo 5 speeds were not very common, so I somehow never found another when I was in my test drive phase.
Always liked the looks of these, it’s kind of the best of the Fox era Mustangs and 3rd gen Camaros. I knew someone who had a later Daytona and while it was crude and a bit willowy (t tops and 20 years of Chicago salt ravages) it was remarkably fun.
Very typical American sports car – vented disc brakes on the front and drums in the rear.
Maybe we need to wait for antilock brakes before we get the rear discs.
Two of my brother’s friends bought black/black Daytona Turbos at the same time. One wrecked his in a couple of years, the other cracked his engine block driving through a puddle.
My Dad and I went for a test drive in a Chrysler Laser XE Turbo at my local dealer’s new car reveal party for 1984. It made an excellent impression that night, and my father probably had it in mind when he ordered a Dodge Lancer ES Turbo sight-unseen a year later. Did it need to be more refined? Not to sell to people coming out of Detroit cars. Did the turbocharged ones need better engineering to be reliable and durable? Yes.
I just love these, especially now. I was really surprised in the charts provided that: a.) It was priced like a Mustang GT (and more expensive than the Trans Am); but also was less than a second slower to 60 and delivered such substantially better fuel economy.
Always loved the print ad campaign with the blonde, tuxedoed model – that image was seared into my brain as a kid.
The shape was derivative, but a very good-looking one. A college buddy Dennis had a red, ’86 Laser XT Turbo that was beautiful, inside and out. I didn’t even mind sitting in its rear bucket seats for hours on a hours-long road trip. Couldn’t do that today. LOL
I sometimes search the web for nice examples. Very memorable cars.
I remember when the first news of the styling on these came out that it was a cross between a Porsche 944 and 928, and it seems like this is exactly where Chrysler missed the boat. It might have ‘looked’ that way, but it was nowhere near the refinement or performance.
Still, Iacocca tried to market it as an upmarket Chrysler, and no one was fooled. If the Laser had, instead, been a Plymouth, things might have turned out differently, not only in sales, but lengthening Plymouth’s lease on life.
Who would expect Porsche refinement or performance under $15,000?
Did you?
It definitely would not be beyond Iacocca to try and compare the Laser with Porsche.
It’s no more far-fetched than when he was at Ford and tried to promote the Granada as an alternative to Mercedes.
Scratching my head at those comparison test figures from R&T, especially for the V8 cars. Are those for 1984 models? Even so, they seem a little…well, slow. What did they do, count “one thousand one, one thousand two” after winding out a gear before shifting to the next? The trap speeds seem lower especially compared to contemporary tests of the period.
I think, at least in those days, R&T drove cars more like the person making the payments and paying for maintenance did. C&D, Hot Rod and others drove them a lot harder to get better numbers. It’s also likely that most magazines actually tested the same press cars, so if your magazine got one after it had been flogged by the competition it may not have been at it’s best.
I still get a laugh from people who take decades old road tests as gospel for what a given car can do at the dragstrip. A lot of them were 99% BS and 1% imagination. I think R&T, whatever its other faults, tried to be realistic on acceleration times.
Perhaps. I could see higher ETs due to more conservative launches ( and in deference to clutch life, which I agree with ), but the trap speeds should be nearly the same. What’s interesting is my first time out at Englishtown dragway in my new ( but past the break-in period ) 1985 Mustang GT, after a few practice runs, was able to match exactly CDs figure of 14.9 @ 91. I did lift throttle shifts and shifted at maybe 500 rpm past the 4600 rpm power peak. I wouldn’t consider that grievously abusive if done occasionally.
They did seem to my fellow motor heads to have an innate bias against domestic V8 performance cars. Their test of the ’85 GT, especially the trap speed would indicate an engine producing 40 or 50 horsepower less.
From the time I was growing up in the 80s I haven’t been able to comprehend Detroit design proportions. Until the 2010s it seemed like everything out of the US had tiny wheel bases tucked into ludicrous overhangs, with narrow tracks disappearing into oversized bodies like a kid wearing grandpa’s overcoat.
Absolutely baffling. Nearly everything suffered to some degree, but this thing is a poster child – the rear 3/4 view makes it look like they put the wrong bodywork on, and the side diagram shows nothing but air for the first 18″ of body, presumably in the service of making the car look like Cyrano de Bergerac.
I guess people expected it, and liked it, but to me, from day one as a kid, it just made everything Detroit tried to make aggressive seem cringeworthy.
Yarrrgh, this wasn’t meant as a reply. Second time this threading UI has kicked me in the shins!
I never drove one. I rode (once) in the back of a silver non turbo owned by the local hair metal guitar hero. No fun (I’m 6’2″). We were on the way to rescue his girlfriend whose maroon turbo one of these left her stranded due to an electrical fault. We got it running but I don’t remember how. I do remember hers was an automatic. Both cars were long in the tooth as such things go, this being about 1990. They were all over the Shenandoah Valley at that time but vanished very quickly, especially relatively to the Foxstang and the Camaro/Firebird, so I’m thinking they got beat on just as much as one would expect.
I’ll second the somewhat dismal performance numbers for the competition. High output 5 liter Trans Ams and Mustang GTs were faster than that in 1984. More in the low 7s-very high 6s 0-60, and quarter mile times in the mid to low 15s. Those times posted for the Laser/Daytona are on point, so the competition should reflect that as well.
That being said, I did like the looks and “turbo cool” of these cars back in the day ( I was 13-14 when these came out). Wrong wheel drive and a certain clunkiness about them kept me from wanting one more than a Trans Am or Mustang GT though.
Love this format of fwd hatchback with 2 long door practical for tall leg people .As long as it’s angular like the Daytona, a second-gen Scion TC is a more reassuring purchase in terms of reliability and even driving pleasure.
I got a bit confused between these and the much earlier Dodge Omni/ Plymouth Horizon Coupes, they seem similar but of course the Omni came before the K car so if these are based on the K car, they would be on a different platform.
About 39 years ago I used to pass one of these in the parking lot where I worked, a beautiful copper color. Much as I like these, and the Omni (my Dad bought an ’80 new), I was driving a ’78 Scirocco at the time, which although lacking a turbo option, I liked much better. Glad I got sporty coupes out of my system then, as they seem to have just about disappeared in the moderate price offerings. That and I’m no longer a scrambler, even my now daily driver Golf seems a bit low at my age, and the Scirocco was lower still. Luckily I don’t have to ask my sister for a ride often, she has a ’97 Nissan 240SX which is similarly low. Guess car offerings have followed the baby boomer population, favoring taller vehicles as we’ve aged.
Oh, neither my Scirocco nor my Dad’s Omni had air conditioning, we moved from the northeast to central Texas shortly afterward and didn’t want to add air conditioning so both cars were traded (though we held out for 4 years each) on others that were so equipped, my Dad getting a new ’86 Dodge 600 (his last Dodge) and I stayed with VW getting an ’86 GTi.