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My wild guess that today’s Kurbside Klassic Konvertible had a degree of rarity has been confirmed. According to Jamie who has his ’86 ragtop posted at cardomain, only 4,759 of these un-Grosser 600’s were made. And he also found a period ad for our car. Now we know that the little buzz-bomb 2.2 turbo was a real sleeper, and could whip the 600ES to sixty in…wait a minute! I just looked at it a again. It says zero to 50 in 5.8 seconds. And I thought (wrongly) that the pathetic 0-50 bragging rights era had ended by 1986. Full ad after the jump (too big):
28 Comments on “1986 Konvertible Ad; Rareness Validated...”
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In all fairness, 0-50 in 5.8s isn’t terrible performance, even now.
Yea, 0-50 in 5.8 seconds. And then 50-60 in about 4 seconds, LOL!!
I can’t believe 0-50 is an issue. How much longer would it take to get to 60? How about not much? The turbo put out 146 HP in 1986. That was plenty of power then. A 2800-3000 lb. weight will do that for ya. Today you would have to have at 200-250 HP to similarly motivate a 3500-3800 lb. whale of a compact/midsize. Ain’t progress great?
An American Revolution huh? Wow. I think GM and Chrysler should just pass that slogan back and forth.
Wow, GM had to rip off an 80’s Chrysler slogan. There should be a deathwatch just on this topic.
They musta had a really good photographer. That thing looks pretty good in that photo. And 0-50 in 5.8 sounds excellent for that era. If I didn’t know better. . .
Well, in the defence of the ad, 60 MPH was illegal everywhere in the USA back then.
That’s pretty impressive for that time. To put it in perspective, the 95 maxima automatic did 0-50 in 5.7 secs.
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/112_9502_1995_nissan_maxima/test_data.html
I had an 85 Reliant with the mitsu 2.6. My dad had an 86 with the 2.5. Both were indestructable and gave us many years of reliable, problem-free motoring. After chrysler abandoned the K platform in95 their reliability went to shit. When it comes to reliability the intrepid/stratus/neons had NOTHING on the 600/aries/shadow/horizon. Long live K CARS!!
I love vintage car ads, especially ones from the 70’s and 80’s. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. However, you can ask me about all the old ads I posted under my Cardomain account that I titled the “Museum Of Wholesome Automotive Goodness”. Dan, you would really get a kick out of it. If anyone want’s to see it, head over there and search for supremebrougham (yeah, I use that for everything)…
Supreme, you want a little irony in your Sunday AM coffee?
I remember, back in the early 90s that my grandparents were selling their Palos Verdes CA condo and moving back south (TX). I was sitting in the garage, going through shelves of old NG issues from the decades prior. Cut out the old car ads, mainly Ford and Mercedes. I no longer have them anymore…time marches on I guess, regretfully.
Now for the irony, I was squeezed in between the bookcase and my grandma’s 1979 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham. Pale yellow, tan “leather” interior, wire wheel covers, 36k miles (in 92). I never realized, back then, that it would be given to me to drive. Another poor decision, sold it when I moved to Utah-wouldn’t be good for the mountains and snow. I regret that as well. However, posted on Autotrader and some guy came from Wisconsin to Houston and bought it. $8k with 81k miles in 2003.
TEXN3 You’re killing me!!! First of all, Olds did offer “real” leather in the Broughams that year (I have the showroom brouchures), so you had the good stuff.
Now, moving on, I’ll retell my “Supreme Brougham” story. In the fall of 1995 I was I was barely 20 years old, and was itching for an Olds so bad I couldn’t stand it, despite the fact that I had gotten a new Corolla the previous fall. You would think that in Central Florida that there would be tons of them, well, you’d be wrong. I picked up a copy of Auto Trader and there was all of one in there that matched what I was looking for, a 1987 Brougham coupe, Light Chestnut, 73k, $4000. Naturally I made the trip to Orlando and snapped it up from the well-to-do owners who had owned it for some time. I put about $2500 into it, new paint, vinyl top, tires etc. and drove it off and on till 2000 (it was my special occasion car) and put 30000 miles on it. I had to sell it because by then I was living in Northern Michigan and it was sooo not a winter car. The nice thing was that after all that time, I sold it for…$4000.00. So I guess the lesson here is that not all GM cars have horrible resale value!
I still miss that car. Badly.
-Richard
The only reason I ever look at old National Geographic magazines is for the car ads. That mag had the coolest car ads and I think it was because of the reader demographics, you’d see everything from Cadillac to ads for a Datsun Z.
It’s scary how much you remind me of well, me! I have three binders full of NG car ads!!!
Kopius Klassic Adds!
http://www.adclassix.com/
I think the same engine was good for something like 224 hp and 0 to 60 in 5.8 in the Dodge Spirit.
Don’t think it was quite the same engine. The Spirit R/T had a Lotus-designed 4-valve/cyl head that was specific to the R/T. The other Turbo 2.2s didn’t have that head.
I do believe your hp and 0-60 figures are correct for a Spirit R/T though.
My late grandfather had a 1982 Dodge 400 convertible as his second car. Red exterior, red vinyl interior. Very nicely loaded for an early ’80s ride–stereo cassette, A/C, power windows, power top, and (IIRC) a digital readout. The four cylinder was a WHINY one, though! The backseat was completely useless though, except for kids. I I loved that car when I was little just because it was a convertible. Even though I know the K-platform is a piece of crap I get nostalgic when I see the convertibles.
He held onto it until 2001 (so I even got to drive it some near the end of it’s life!) It should have been retired long before then, I know, it was full of problems by the time he finally gave it a proper burial.
I didn’t have the convertible, but I did have an ’85 Dodge 600 coupe, the last year with the “mini-Mirada” front end styling, from ’94-’96. Had the standard 2.2 with fuel injection; I believe that was the first year for that. Say what you will, but that tough little car got me to hell and back for a long time, and was simple and cheap to fix in the driveway. The biggest issue was that the belt pullies were not properly aligned, so it had a perpetual belt squeal, which leads to this story…
I was bringing my 2-year-old daughter back from a weekly visitation, 75 miles one way (she’s now 17, and I’ve raised her myself since she was 3, but that’s another story). I had dropped her off and was on my way home on I-94 coming down from Port Huron, Michigan, Sunday night, 8:30 pm. I noticed the lights were dim and the temp gauge was climbing, so I pulled over near a rest stop to investigate. Damn – the alternator/water pump belt was gone. Assessing the situation, I decided my best option was to go hell bent for leather down the freeway until either I could find help or the car blew up, whichever came first. I drove maybe 20 miles with the temp gauge slammed on H and single-digit battery voltage until I reached an exit near a Meijer store. (Meijer [pronounced like Meyer] is a regional chain similar to a Wal-Mart Supercenter; they sell “everything” and are open 24/7. For you in SE Michigan, this one was at 23 Mile and Gratiot.) Meijer has a surprisingly good automotive department, and they had a lot of belts in stock – unfortunately, the one I needed wasn’t there. Shit.
Would you believe the car actually started after that? It didn’t run too well because of the low battery voltage, but it did run, and I was going to do whatever it took to get home. Headed south on Gratiot, headlights so dim I might as well have turned them off, still overheating, revving the engine in neutral at every red light I was unfortunate enough to encounter, and made it about 7 miles to a full-service station in Mount Clemens (MI), which I decided would be either my salvation or my car’s final resting place. The service station had a staff of exactly one, and it was after 9:30 Sunday night. This guy not only cross-referenced belt sizes for me and found one that would work, but installed it in between customers who wanted gas, then volunteered to jump it with his car. Over 15 years later, I’d like to buy that guy a beer.
The car sprung to life with the boost, the battery got a nice charge on the final 15-mile trip home (to Warren, MI, where I still live today), and the car was none the worse for it. I kept it until the fuel pump went two years later; car had 214,000 miles and still ran great. Sold it as-is for $200; I assume the buyer installed a fuel pump and continued to drive it.
Yeah, bag on the poor old K-car all you like, but it was the logical successor to the Dart/Valiant, and was just about as simple and reliable. I still see some form of K on the road every day here, and I can’t say that about any of its contemporaries. No, not even Hondas or Toyotas. One day I’ll tell you about my awesome Dodge Dynasty…
I’m all ears! For some reason I am a sucker for those boxy Dynasty/New Yorkers. Must be because my folks had a Dynasty when I started driving, back then that thing was c-l-a-s-s-y !!!
BTW, I’m in MI too so I could relate :)
LOL, you guys just made me remember only “yuppie” family in the rural Ohio community I grew up in. Dad was a lawyer and mom I think was an office manager, 2 kids, dog, renovated an old farmhouse. The thing was is that the dad had grown up in the area before he went to college and was from a Mopar family. They had a Grand Wagoneer and a…. Dodge Dynasty. The son, a classmate of mine, blew the transmission in the Dynasty by trying to do “reverse cata**es” in the parking lot of the local sportsmen’s club.
I remember my neighbor, in Westlake Village, CA having a maroon 600 convertible. His wife had the uber-upscale LeBaron convertible. Both turbos. The LeBaron had the wood trim, classy. And then we brought home a futuristic SHO to complement our Sable. American Revolution, indeed.
I’d like to see some more K-Car Curbside Classics (Kurbside Klassics?) articles. I find it very interesting that Chrysler was able to survive on nothing but basically umpteen variations of the same mediocre platform for about ten years. How the hell did they do it?
I think you answered your own question- they basically only developed one car with their first bailout. They really only had four distinct passenger vehicles for most of the 80s: the K-platform, the M-body (which was a variant of the F-body), the Omnirizon and variants thereof (a Simca/Rootes Group design), and the trucks/vans.
I’ve always been impressed with how much variation they wrung out of the K-platform that they could survive on it for so long.
We’ll do one big KKK (oops) on the whole K-car story, and shorter pieces with pics of all the offshoots. It really is one of the more remarKable auto stories of the post-war era.
“I find it very interesting that Chrysler was able to survive on nothing but basically umpteen variations of the same mediocre platform for about ten years. How the hell did they do it?”
Mmm… maybe it wasn’t a mediocre platform after all? It was almost infinately adaptable/expandable, and as some have testified, very reliable, and simple to maintain and repair. I guess 1980’s Audi’s that break down often, with outrageous repair bills, hard to find parts, but drive well is an example of a “great” platform?
“They really only had four distinct passenger vehicles for most of the 80s: the K-platform, the M-body (which was a variant of the F-body), the Omnirizon and variants thereof (a Simca/Rootes Group design), and the trucks/vans.”
The Omni/Horizon (L body) and it’s variants (TC3/O24/Charger/Rampage/Scamp/GLH) was it’s own design, not simply a ported over Simca from across the pond.
Drove an 88 Plymouth Reliant 2.5 L 410,000 miles without any engine or transmission work! These “Ks” were great and cheap to run!
It really is one of the more remarKable auto stories of the post-war era.
RemarKably bad. The K helped steer a whole generation right into the showrooms of Honda and Toyota. Never to return.
The celebration of mediocrity is how the ‘Big 3’ lost the market. The K was as mediocre as mediocre can be. Especially compared against a then new Accord, Celica, or even Civic.
This is funny reading about it now. But in 1986 ANY car that went zero to 50 mph in 5.8 seconds was big news. For those out there who are to young or wore not born then, the Federal speed limit was 55 mph or the “double nickel” as it was called by many…On every intersdtate hightway and all state roads. The majority of the Asian cars took like 75 seconds to get to 50. As did a lot of the Big Three econo boxes.
You know the Ford 5.0 V8 mustang made, if i remember right, only made around 175HP ditto for the Camero/Firebird and these cars did the 50 jog in around 5.4 seconds..And still had 70’s era gas mileage to go with it..somewhere around 7 or 8 mpg in town, if you were lucky 14 on the highway. The Prices for 80’s Vettes are still the lowest. At that time they turned out around 215 hp and should have been let die in 79. The Price, or bang for the buck wasn’t there, even the mighty Vette and Porsche of the times managed 6.2 seconds zero to 60mph for them.
Point being, Performance had died in 1974 for the Big Three and would not return untill the last 5 or 6 years for them. The turbo 4 cylinder engine, GM, Ford and of course Chrysler saw that as a way to improve performance and keep the EPA happy.