It’s time once again to dive head first into the automotive kitchen dustbin of the past, rummage through the vegetable peelings of time and uncover another lost mouldy potato of history. Welcome back to The Carchive
Last time we pondered on the almost unimaginable grandeur and luxury enjoyed by the owner of a Vanden-Plas 1500. Today we head forward in time to only twenty-three years ago to have a look at what Dodge could offer us in 1992.
“At Dodge we listen to you. And we respond. With products that meet your needs… and exceed your expectations”.
Take a seat and peer through misty eyes at what Auburn Hills could offer you, the valued customer, in the early ’90s. As always, click to enmassivate the images.
“Spirit. A serious driver’s car that rivals Japan’s best in terms of safety, reliability, comfort, value and quality engineering”.
This is where The Carchive goes interactive. America: what’s your opinion on the above statement? Did Dodge truly have the measure of the Camry and Accord in the Spirit?
I travelled only once in a Dodge Spirit, with the 2.5 Turbo four, as a guest of a (now sadly departed) HAM radio friend of my Dad, during a holiday in Florida. He took us to visit an Orlando radio specialist, and sadly the car was probably the least interesting part of the experience. Though I remember the fuel computer telling us 16.4 mpg.
“If you want a car with the style and versatility of a smooth, aerodynamic liftback profile, you’ll like the Shadow.”
They then boost this claim with:
“Fact is, Dodge Shadow is the lowest priced American car, with or without a top.”
I always quite liked the Dodge Shadow, though I was looking at it through the rose-tinted specs of a ten year old English schoolboy who was highly unlikely to ever come into physical contact with one. It always seemed quite a nice looking car on the pages of the Observers Book of Cars… though I remember being distressed that a rear screen defroster was optional. In fact, it never occurred to me that the Shadow was really just the pentagonal marque’s Ford Escort chaser.
Dodge Shadow seemed quite a dynamic name, too. Much more so than Plymouth Sundance. When teamed with the available 152hp 2.5 litre turbo four and manual ‘box, I imagine it was reasonably fleet of foot, too, if less so than the no-longer-available 175hp mill.
“Let’s face it. Big spenders are out, Smart buyers are in. And today’s smart buy is the Dodge Dynasty. A sensible car for sensible times.”
Is this the least aspirational way a car has ever been sold? At 192” overall this was Dodge’s upper-midsize offering, yet despite that you could still encumber its slabby, formally-styled form with the normally aspirated 2.5litre four mustering just a hundred horsepower. Of course, a manual gearbox was forbidden (three on the tree or nuttin’) so the sense of misery here is palpable. Of course, things probably livened up a bit with the three-litre Mitsubishi-built six, or Chrysler’s own 3.3 litre, 147hp unit. You got an extra cog in the slushbox with the V6’s, too.
New for 1992 was the option of an exquisite padded landau vinyl roof which offered “classical elegance”. Yes, really. I’d be editing the badge to “nasty”.
“With a drag coefficient of 0.31, it is one of the most aerodynamic cars in America”.
Yes, we all came here for the Dodge Monaco, didn’t we? Ah, the Monaco, Dodge’s rebadging of the Eagle Premier, which itself was a reworking of the European Renault 25. It appeared in the Dodge range at the very top, deposing the former Diplomat.
Power came from an enlarged variant of the classic Delorean-motivating PRV V6, boosted to 3.0 litres and feeding through the front wheels. The Monaco was only on the books for two years, it can be regarded as a bit of a dress rehearsal for the Dodge Intrepid and its Eagle and Chrysler sisters. It was quite a classy looking machine, if possibly a little faceless.
“Colts are handsome little creations…with plenty of distinctive design elements, adding up to a whole that is better looking than many of their rivals”.
I couldn’t agree more. Of course, there was even less indigenous Dodge here than you’d find in the Monaco. Yes, the Colt was straight outta Kurashiki, upholding the proud tradition of rebadged Mitsubishi’s which had been a thing since 1971, when the first Galant crossed the Pacific, receiving Mopar branding on arrival.
I always rated the Colt as a bit of a looker, even more-so with the sporting accessories worn by the Turbo GT model, which, of course, by 1992 were no longer available.
That seems to be the story of Dodge for ’92- “we used to make some pretty sporty cars”. Well… this isn’t the whole story, is it? There was a Dodge “Performance” catalogue to supplement this one, with such wonders as the Spirit R/T, the Daytona IROC Z, and something called the Viper.
Stay tuned to see if this publication ever shows up in The Carchive.
(All images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of, presumably, Fiat. It’s a strange world we live in.)
The Carchive: The 1992 Dodge Collection
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Shadows held up to abuse surprisingly well, which is to say I knew a lot of people in high school who had them and they tended to be the kind of car that high school students did very stupid things with. For example, the night I went out with some girls and we decided to see if we could get air with it, or a different friend who ripped off the front bumper of his when he tried to see if it could climb out of a sand pit. They weren’t particularly inspiring to drive, but they were plucky and sturdier than you’d think.
My enduring memory of the Dynasty is that the right resonant frequency would shake all of the interior trim off, a frequency a friend who filled his with subwoofers dutifully found.-
“They weren’t particularly good, but they were plucky and sturdier than you’d think.” Sums up most MOPAR products. My dad’s ex-company car, a Dodge Caliber with a CVT went over 250k miles and still drove like crap.
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As I’ve said, MOPAR tends to head to extremes – awful but sturdy, or wonderful cars that fall apart if you look at them funny.
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My dad received an ’88 or ’89 Dynasty as a company car. He hated it almost immediately, which is really something considering that it was a brand-new “luxury” car and the car it replaced was a Chevy Celebrity. Even he — who has often and happily claimed that he knows nothing about
cars except where the gas nozzle and ignition key go — realized that the car was complete crap. I believe he actually said “Good Riddance!” out loud as he handed the keys to the guy who came to pick it up when he retired. -
I were once the victim of being given a 1991 Dodge Spirit. Two very good friends of mine inherited a better car and foisted the Spirit off on me.
It were winter in Boston, see, and they felt bad about me riding my bicycle 8 miles through the snow to get to work. I tried to explain, but in the end it were easier to just accept the Spirit in the, er, spirit in which it were given.
It had nearly no left front brake rotor left on it, so I had to drive it as little as possible, and stay off the brakes as much as I could. So I resolved to only drive it on the snowiest, most gruesome weathered days Boston could come up with. Because why drive with dodgy (hah!) brakes on a dry, clear road, right?
In the spring I drove it into the junkyard and left it running while I popped the trunk, got the bicycle out and ran in and threw the signed title at the guy. -
‘A serious driver’s car…’ sounds like propaganda from behind the wall, or perhaps the opposite propaganda celebrating its recent fall, but then it’s immediately undermined by making the car a ‘rival’ to the best of Japan. Not a nemesis, not an archenemy, not a worldbeater, not a superior example, not so competent as to be above comparison. A rival, like a corporate softball game.
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I couldn’t agree more. What a revealing brochure striving to instill a serious reception and immediately tapping the general notion of the superior Japanese product – even the rebadged inhouse version. Wow. I get the same “Japan is taking over the world”-feeling that Hollywood action and political movies exhale from around the turn of that decade.
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“3 on the tree” isn’t the term to describe a 3-speed column shifted automatic.
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I’m not a connoisseur, so what is the term, and what does 3 on a tree actually stand for? I always wondered, but now is the time to ask!
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It’s slang for a 3 speed manual column shifter. Some cars and trucks used this mostly from the 1950s thru the early 1980s.
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For a time, manual gearboxes often used a column shifter. It’s still an H-pattern, turned on its side, above the keys, just with the lever where you’d expect an automatic. These were almost entirely three speeds, occasional but rare 4-speeds, and I’ve seen at least one 5. But 3-on-the-the tree should generally be contrasted with 4-on-the-floor, which located the manual lever for a four speed in the conventional position to the right of the driver, shift boot on the actual floor before big center consoles were common.
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OK thanks, so the point of the rhyming names is that they are manuals.
Speaking of Fiat, anybody has a catchy name for this gear lever arrangement? It’s not on the floor, neither on a tree…
http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/5/1/6/4/9/8/Fiat-Multipla-Cockpit-Armaturentafel-729×486-bc26f3cd520545ed.jpg-
Whoa, messy design! Adjust your sense of orderness with this pic of a Honda Stream dashboard:
http://static.classistatic.de/imagegallery/honda/stream/honda-stream-hon_str_02_gr_5t_test_6.jpg
Also, this should be the “four on the tree”-pattern of the Trabant 601 (don’t let me down, Google):
http://home.balcab.ch/cheesly/bild20.jpg -
What is the difference, aside from having everything symmetrical and accessible for the passenger in the Honda? Joke aside, my sample of Multipla owners I talked to (one) reported that everything looks quirky, but the interior is (surprisingly?) functional. Having three-on-a-… row enforced unusual solutions here and there anyway, I assume.
That 601 pattern: I think I mentioned it here already that turning left and shifting into 2nd by sticking out a finger while turning the steering wheel is a great experience. There are not too many great experiences one could have with one as a guest driver nowadays.
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I believe that could best be referred to as a ‘shift dongle’, or if you prefer, a ‘long dongle shifter’.
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-dongle-2013-3?op=1 -
Maybe you could call it “hash on the dash” if the shift pattern roughly approximates the # symbol (although I suspect it’s a 5-speed, not a 4-speed).
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Your second question has been answered, but to address your first question, I’ve never encountered a catchy term for a column-shift automatic, just variations of “column-shift automatic.”
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I had a friend who referred to column-shifted automatics as ‘Tree Prindals’, or sometimes just as a Prindal – prindal, of course, being the correct pronunciation of PRNL (Park Reverse Neutral Low)
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I like “tree prindal” but I’m still fond of Ford’s candid admission that automatic transmissions are nothing more than P. R. ‘n’ drivel:
http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4013/5078979187_5e3b2c1d6d_z.jpg
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Well, for the sake of simplicity, there are three speeds and they’re not on the floor….
Dynasties used to be everywhere around here. They were, I think, for those people who weren’t quite able to get the standard white or silver Buick. Haven’t seen one in years now.
Friend of mine back in the day had a Spirit R/T. The turbo had long given up charging and he was too broke to fix it so he just drove it that way. That was one of the saddest cars I have ever encountered.
1992-me looks at this brochure and thinks “Advantage:Dodge?!? More like Advantage:Ford”. (Though I think even 1992-me would grant that the Tempo wasn’t terribly compelling vs. the Spirit.)
It’s kind of amazing to think how different this brochure would be in just a few years. Instead of Colt and Shadow, Neon; instead of Spirit, Stratus; instead of Dynasty and Monaco, Intrepid.
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