My 86' Plymouth Horizon

[dodgeariesguy]

I will be getting more pics soon from the seller!

[dodgeariesguy]

I'm feeling so thick I bought her blind and having not picked it up yet my previous posts are a bit wrong it has a 2.2 and a 3-Speed Auto. I dont know if its a turbo or not but I will when I get more pics this weekend. Sorry for confusions!

[84Aries]

Nice Will, I have the 2.2 - 3 speed auto in my Aries. Its decent but less acceleration. It was a SOHC, cam went last year replaced it with a DOHC. A buddy of mine has a 86 Daytona Turbo Z. Its rotted frame & floors & firewall, but runs good. Was thinking buying it off him and putting the turbo on my 2.2. Don't know much about the Turbo's though. Can I run it with the 3 speed auto? Anyone know?

[89ARIES]

Nice car Will. If there is a car product that is in more need of a club than us, it is the L body. I would love to test drive one of those loud babies. The pre 85 L bodies are going to be extinct soon, at least for finds on the net. They'll probably be a survivor tucked away here and there. Here in So. Cal, I still see the occasional Omni/Horizon on the road between 1985-1990. Other than that, I have given up trying to find earlier models. I did see a living beat-up 82 Omni on the road six months ago, an 82 Charger last year only ONCE, and I have seen a few Shelby Omnis and Chargers. I have even seen the Rampage about 6 times in 2 years. Anything before 1985 needs someone like us to keep it alive. I missed out on the sale of a 78 Horizon last year. Also, according to sources, most junkyard parts for Omnis dried up by about 2000. Yet, the early models came with an underpowered VW 1.5 motor. Keep them Ks rolling.

[dodgeariesguy]

Nice car Will. If there is a car product that is in more need of a club than us, it is the L body. I would love to test drive one of those loud babies. The pre 85 L bodies are going to be extinct soon, at least for finds on the net. They'll probably be a survivor tucked away here and there. Here in So. Cal, I still see the occasional Omni/Horizon on the road between 1985-1990. Other than that, I have given up trying to find earlier models. I did see a living beat-up 82 Omni on the road six months ago, an 82 Charger last year only ONCE, and I have seen a few Shelby Omnis and Chargers. I have even seen the Rampage about 6 times in 2 years. Anything before 1985 needs someone like us to keep it alive. I missed out on the sale of a 78 Horizon last year. Also, according to sources, most junkyard parts for Omnis dried up by about 2000. Yet, the early models came with an underpowered VW 1.5 motor. Keep them Ks rolling.

Thanks Guy I'm happy with my semi-smart buy and now have the K's 1 step down brother. Actually early models came with 1.6L Peugeot/Simca 4cyl., and 1.7L VW 4cyl., you were just a little off in displacements just a correction

[82Lebaronconv]

Nice old Horizon! This brings back memories of the Horizon that my wife bought brand new in 1988. I'd like to share the story of how we came to own this car.

In the fall of 1988, Dawn, my then fiance, was in desperate need of a new car. About a year earlier, she had lost her 1980 Chevy Citation to an engine fire and the 1972 Buick Skylark we had bought from a friend's sister as a stopgap measure was on its last legs. So we started going around to the dealerships, looking for an inexpensive means of transportation. The only requirements were that it had to be small, a four cylinder and an automatic. Given that Dawn had very limited funds at the time, we were only looking at each manufacturers bottom line models.

The Yugo had recently been launched in the U.S. and was being heavily advertised as the cheapest new car sold. We took a look at one of these pieces of junk and were so horrified that we decided not to even bother test driving it. To me, it looked like someone had built it in their garage from a kit. The seats felt like you were sitting on sandbags. To this day, I still don't know how this clunker was ever let onto the market.

The Huyndai Excel was another heavily touted economy car in 1988. A new dealership had just opened in Hartford, Connecticut and they were taking out full page spreads in the local paper advertising new "well equipped" models for the unbelieveably low price of $5,995. But when we drove up to take a look, all they had in stock were fully loaded models with sticker prices of $11,000 or more. They had no cars for $5,995 and had no idea when or if they could even get one. "Gee, nobody really wants a car that stripped" we were told by the salesman. Talk about a bait and switch. We left in disgust. A good thing too. The early Excels were total pieces of crap. They sold over a million in their first year on the market and I'll bet there are none left today. They were pretty ugly also.

After that, we decided to look at what the domestic brands had to offer. The Chevy Cavalier was nice, but was more than Dawn was willing to spend. Plus, she was a little afraid of Chevys after what had happened to her Citation. We looked at a Ford Escort and it was also pretty nice, but she wanted to keep shopping. That brought us to the Chrysler Plymouth dealership next door, Burnside Motors in East Hartford, Connecticut. I was driving an '84 Lebaron Convertible at the time, so I had become somewhat partial to Mopars after years as GM man (my dad worked for GM for over 40 years). You guys would have been in heaven that day. The lot was jammed with brand new Reliants and Horizons. The salesman showed us a new 1988 leftover Horizon in Ice Blue. I was very impressed with how plush the interior was on the Horizon in comparison to the base models from other manufacturers. The car rode comfortably and had plenty of power for a four cylinder automatic. They were willing to let us have it for the rock bottom price of $7,000. Dawn still wasn't sure and wanted to make one more stop.

That brought us to the Toyota dealership. Everyone who had a Toyota was bragging about how reliable they were. But walking into the dealership turned out to be a very unpleasant experience. The salesman were a bunch of snot nosed kids who were trying every high pressure tactic in the book to get you to sign. They had all the lights turned on in the showroom and it was so bright in there that you needed sunglasses. Loud rock music blared over the intercom. Our salesman was trying to pressure us into a stripped down, standard shift Corolla even though Dawn had told him that she had to have an automatic. Dawn mentioned to him that we had been shopping around for some time and he asked her what other cars she was considering. She mentioned the Horizon.
"A Horizon?", he yelled. Chryslers are pieces of sh---!" I just started laughing. At first he couldn't figure out what was so funny, then he looked out the window at my Lebaron. "Is that your Chrysler ragtop out there?" he finally said. "Duh, nice car"!

Well, we left and went back to Burnside Motors and put a deposit on the Horizon. We drove that car for almost 12 years and had very few problems with it. Not long afterwards, the Toyota dealership had its license revoked by the State of Connecticut for engaging in "deceptive sales practices".

Thought you would all enjoy this story.

[88 aries]

nice story, i wish i could see what it was like in 1988, i have an commerical for luke potter dodge on my I pod it shows, at least 10 K-cars and a handfull of dodge shadows,and dodge caravans, Ah the 1980's wish i could of seen that era

[89ARIES]

Great Story. 88 Aries, I find it funny that you say you wish you could have seen what it was like in 1988. I have said I wish I could have seen what it was like in 1978. You see, I was born in 1981. I remember 1988 and have memories of going shopping and seeing rows after rows of boxy cars. Of course, I couldn't tell any of the cars apart except from the shape. I knew nothing about cars until I bought my first car, an Aries, in 2003. I always recognized the 80s Caprice and am glad that that model seems to have survived fairly well and is become popular among car clubs. Also, I posted a while back two youtube videos of someone driving through a city in Ontario, Canada in 1988. It was shot in color from a camera hoisted on his dashboard. You see TONS and TONS of K-cars of all ages and you see a lot of models you just don't see anymore.

[dodgeariesguy]

I made another mistake its actually a 1987 same as my Aries and thats my bad all other info is correct it has no turbo. I love all these stories and comments that you guys are posting anyone got any better ones of buying an 80's Chrysler new? All I can remember is the only car my parents ever bought new a: 1995 Dodge Caravan in Forest Green. Basically a stock van but I was pretty young seeing as I was born in 1992 so I was only 3 at the time but they made a fake news article and a calender when we picked it up they took a picture of us and put it on the calender and the news article thing. Ya not much of a story but thats all I really remember.