by Pete in NH » Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:02 pm
Well, I have to say to me it looked like "real car guy" Jay Leno was just looking to get a few cheap shots in on the poor lowly K car. That's nothing new its been going on for 30 years. What he did manage to show was a lack of any knowledge on automotive engineering.
In many ways the lowly little K car is quite a good piece of engineering design. it was designed to be a low cost, practical, reliable automobile to get people from point A to point B. If you have spent any time working on these cars you will see that almost everything in its design is simply and elegantly done. Almost any engineer can design something by throwing money at the design. Real engineering is making something strong, reliable and long lasting without throwing a lot of money at it. I'm a retired engineer so I have some experience in this area. The K's were built to a price point and they succeeded very well, beating the competition nicely. The General Motors X cars were cheap, shoddy junk that disappeared quickly and no one can even remember the offerings from Ford. The k's are still out there surviving and doing what they were intended to do. They were the last efforts of the legendary Chrysler Engineering group of the 60's and early 70's. The 2.2's and 2.5's borrowed tricks learned from the indestructible slant 6. The transmissions followed from the best in the industry 904 and 727 Torqueflites. And, the little lowly K car saved Chrysler and thousands of jobs, while Chrysler continued to steadily improve the design.
They were not flashy, fast or powerful as people think a real car should be but, they were an amazingly successful design in the ways that count. So, okay Jay you've had your laughs, but, some of us know better.