On Friday, our fancy-pants Associate Ed asked what you’d like to see out of a FCA-PSA shotgun nuptial. The answers were varied as they were predictable: 208 GTI, Panda, and the like.
Alert readers with long memories will certainly be quick, and correct, to point out this is hardly the first time Chrysler has gotten into bed with someone from France. Today, we ask you: what product couldah been a contendah the last time Franco-American relations were undertaken?
Your author will select a brace of sedans for this exercise: one developed under the AMC banner and a rebadged Renault. The Eagle Premier used some French underpinnings that were Americanized for consumption on this side of the pond and, while it looked boxy, it was apparently more aerodynamic than a same-year Ford Taurus. Front-drive but longitudinally engined, the Premier lasted only a handful of model years despite bearing a pleasant interior and acres of space. A badge-engineered Dodge Monaco had a shorter lifespan yet again.
Loitering for even a smaller amount of time in showrooms was the Renault Medallion. Yanked from the French marketplace for duty here, it was on sale a short time — as both a Renault and Eagle. With a phalanx of sedans already in the showrooms competing for customer eyes and salesman attention, the Medallion was abandoned (and, yes, where was a wagon version).
What other models can you think of that didn’t get a fair shake? Doesn’t have to be a Chrysler-related product. Sound off below.
[Image: Fiat Chrysler, Renault, Murilee Martin/TTAC]
According to Bob Lutz the LH platform was heavily inspired by the Premier, so it sort of had a long life.
Plus, if you go off the Mopar party line that the LX is more modified LH than old E-class then the Premier has had a *very* long life.
it kind of had to be since the LH cars were being built in the same Brampton plant (acquired with AMC) as these cars. Upshot is that it enabled them to turn it into the RWD LX platform.
and no, that’s not the “party line,” that’s what happened. The RWD successor to LH was already in process when Daimler came in.
I didn’t mean to imply they were lying and I’m no expert on the fidelity of the LX platform.
I know Chrysler was working on a RWD car when the merger occurred but I don’t know if there has ever been a definitive breakout of how much of the final product was LH, how much was Diamler, and how much was brand new.
IIRC the idea that it was the “E Class” platform was because early in the development they modified the architecture to use some Mercedes suspension and chassis components.
The LX used old S-class front suspension, E-class rear suspension and the 5-speed automatic was Mercedes-Benz. The LH and LX both used the 2.7 liter V6 though.
You can really tell when you start looking under the clothes of the Premier and the LH’s. Most of the architecture is the same, especially the Audi-style longitudinal engine/FWD configuration.
My dad-in-law had a Premier and it was junk. My wife & I had an Intrepid and it was a great car, never had a tow truck ride. Chrysler turned the Premier duck into an LH swan.
I don’t think they share anything other than the layout; it was probably more cost effective at the time to adapt the LH to the plant tooling than to gut and re-tool the plant completely. The transaxle (42LE) was the guts of the 41TE with a different differential/final drive to turn it north-south.
Yeah the LX was really the rwd LH plans dusted off and pretty much ready to order tooling when the take over occured. The Chrysler engineers were sent back to the drawing board to make it so that Mercedes bits could be used instead of tooling up for unique bits.
Yes the LH was originally conceived as being a FWD, AWD, or RWD configuration. They didn’t want to loose the police sales. However money was tight and they couldn’t afford to do the AWD or RWD at launch and shelved those designs.
joke at the time was that the platform was codenamed “LH” for “Last Hope.”
About the only thing I can think of would be the Renault Fuego sold through AMC dealers between 82 and 85. I remember these as being slick little coupes, but only ever saw one on the road – purchased by my high school English teacher who had a thing for oddball little European cars as I recall.
I’m not exactly sure what the issue with these was, honestly. Chrysler was well into offering rebadged Mitsubishis and AMC branded Rennaults like the Alliance were around so why didn’t this little car grab any attention?
I think it may have been the turbo. It took Americans a while to get used to turbo charging. There were some turbos around, but I don’t think they got real mass-market traction until 1984 or ’85 so maybe this car was just ahead of its time?
My flight instructor had a Fuego. Not sure if it was cheap for a flight instructor or if he liked odd things.
I remember wanting one. Futuristic and very French. I think it had reliability issues — but in fairness, it was the malaise era for virtually any marque that wasn’t Japanese.
“What other models can you think of that didn’t get a fair shake?”
The Mazdaspeed cars. This could have been a brand-wide trim level. Instead everything but the Speed3 was short-lived and poorly supported. Mazda’s heart didn’t seem to be in it and they soon decided they were fine with “not slow”.
And now they want to be luxury cars.
Speaking of Mazda luxury – where is that beautiful RWD 929 ?
Or the Millenia?
No French Connection, but Diahatsu made some darn good vehicles that never got any traction here in the U.S. The Charade was a great answer to a question nobody in the U.S. was asking – a high end small car. In Japan where small cars are a matter of practicality the Luxo-mini made good sense. Here where in the land of “more-is-more” nobody was willing to pay for that.
” The Charade was a great answer to a question nobody in the U.S. was asking – a high end small car.”
the name was a liability too.
DMC DeLorean. Yes, I know the cars were built in Ireland, but, DMC is of New York, NY. Its lovely (Italian) body and period correct interior was letdown by its big meH of a French drivetrain. Then, well, you know what happened with DMC…
Franco-American products that failed? All of them.
Chrysler imported the Simca 1204. Front drive, transverse powertrain, hatchback and wagon. Gone before most people knew they were here.
Worst failure has to be the Alliance/Encore. Renault put about $130M Reganbux into state of the art equipment in the Lakefront plant to build it: robotic framing system, robotic paint line, automated door assembly system, automated front cradle assembly system. But nothing invested in designing for US conditions and supporting the car to meet US customer’s expectations.
The Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon and Omni 024/Horizon TC3 were relatively successful variants of the Simca Horizon
GLH-S please
>>The Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon and Omni 024/Horizon TC3 were relatively successful variants of the Simca Horizon<<
Better dealer network than AMC, and only a cosmetic resemblance to the Simca, what with the switch to McPherson strut suspension, Chrysler transmission and a VW engine. In spite of that, the early Omnirizon's quality and reliability were horrible. In R&T's owner survey, the Omnirizon set a new record for the number of systems with a high failure rate, exceeding that of the Lotus Elan.
But, yes, Chrysler got it sorted out, and the Omnirizon was a long lived success.
The early Omnis and Horizons weren’t all that bad. We had a 1979, and it was much better than later Chrysler products in terms of reliability and assembly quality. The Triumph TR7 was Road & Track owner surveyed before the Omni and still holds the records for the worst quality and reliability statistics.
I can’t find the Road & Track article on line, but I found the Popular Mechanics owners surveys and dealers were a bigger issue than the cars, which about 80% of buyers said they would buy again. That was an excellent percentage of happy buyers for a Detroit car in 1979.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Uc8DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=ROad+%26+Track+omni+horizon+owner+survey&source=bl&ots=aHHCK_ODCi&sig=ACfU3U3S6SwixJwfhajEIgr-0vTpUZxbTQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirku3899PlAhXGg-AKHezUAQQQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Steve my Dad had an Alliance as a company car and it was slow but rode nicely for a small car. Probably not long term reliable but can’t speak to that as it was new at the time.
>>Steve my Dad had an Alliance as a company car and it was slow but rode nicely for a small car. Probably not long term reliable but can’t speak to that as it was new at the time.<<
AMC did make some changes around 85-86, particularly a more robust cooling system. I know a guy who had an Encore. He bought it from Coon Brothers in metro Detroit. Coon had been an AMC dealer since before there was dirt, a good one. Frank drove that Encore for 8 years, without a lot of failures. I can't help but wonder how much of that Encore's reliability was due to it being serviced by a good dealer that bothered to learn how to service it correctly.
On the other hand, another guy I know ran the parts department at another AMC dealership. He loved the Alliance, because he made a fortune selling replacement parts for them.
AMC put together this film about it's factory investments. The "Gilman machine" was reprogrammed for the Omnirizon, but I suspect that, when assembly operations were closed in Kenosha, almost all of this equipment went to scrap.
Chrysler Europe-the Rootes group vehicles.
The “captive import” Sunbeam Alpine (Post roadster small Barracuda)
The Plymouth Cricket (Sunbeam Avenger) Only was available here from 71-73 and had its reliability issues and was undercut by the Mitsubishi built Dodge Colt that came here starting in the 71 model year to compete with the all new Pinto and Vega.
My parents had a guy renting their other house back in the day with the sporty “whited out” version of that Premier – ES model or somesuch. As a kid I thought it was the cat’s meow. Oh so European!
Sure looked a lot like the 929 I later owned, although the Mazda was proper RWD.
Man there’s 2 cars I could drive around for 6 months straight and not see ONE on the road.
With a little bit of eye squinting the Medallion looks like a same-vintage Subaru Legacy.
Considering it was federalized and likely slated for sale at the time of Chrysler’s AMC buyout, I would have liked to see the Renault Alpine GTA end up here. It still would have been a novelty, and wouldn’t have sold in huge numbers, but it would have been here at the right time to compete with some of the Japanese sports cars that are pretty fondly remembered right now (and would have fizzled out in the mid to late 90’s as it did anyhow).
I’m not sure if I’d say it didn’t get a “fair shake” but I do think GM should not have shut down Saturn, although they admittedly had mismanaged it towards the end and maybe they thought it was not recoverable. Saturn had the advantage that the average non-car person wasn’t aware that Saturn was part of GM. They were boring but decent reliable cars, and the “different kind of car company” sales model was attractive to some people. Saturn should have been the brand for the Volt, Bolt, and future electrics.
My aunt had two Saturns, one of the original S cars in 91, which replaced an aged Sunbird, and an SC in 1999. She would have bought another, but the brand was axed and she defected to VW. VW took over the building of her preferred dealer and had a Beetle convertible.
To this day, she won’t consider anything else under GM’s umbrella.
I’ll give basically the same answer here I did in the last thread: Citroën CX. It would have shown up all of the Detroit 3’s efforts at brougham, with palatial interior space and a hydropneumatic ride. But, as in its home market, it needed an engine. Even in the late malaise era, the NA 2.4L four wouldn’t have cut it (the 168 hp turbo came much later). An I6 wouldn’t have fit for packaging reasons, so the right engine would have been a V6. The V6 options at the time were less than ideal, but (I think) would have been enough to get the CX a loyal niche market like those enjoyed by Volvo and Saab at the time.
As it was, a very few CXes were imported by grey-marketers for diehard fanatics.
How about a Valiant/Dart with nice French seats?
I had a Monaco as a rental car when my girlfriend totaled my Jetta in college. It was a great rental car. The ride was serene and the dashboard had a neat gimmick where all the secondary controls were on panels mounted off the steering column, so they adjusted with the wheel. Maybe the instruments too, but it has been a while and I’ve been in a bunch of 928s more recently. It’s funny how blocky the car looks in the photo above. In a parking lot full of 1992 GM rental cars, it looked rather refined and sleek. It did seem very derivative of the Audi 5000S.
The Premiere/Monaco deserved to succeed. Perhaps with a better V6 they would have.