Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The K-Car time machine

Quick, get me Lee Iacocca
London, ON
November 2014
Thematic. Metallica. Here.
‎You don't see a lot of these on the road anymore. In their day, Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant coupes, sedans and wagons (remember those?) dominated the North American concrete jungle. They were cheap, simple, and relatively huge on the inside. As the typical vehicle like this was often the only car at that price point that could seat six, it often won the buy decision based simply on its carrying capacity.

Alas, they were, um, not all that refined. I'm being gentle here. They may have singlehandedly saved Chrysler from oblivion, but in the near-post Malaise Era‎, when vehicle quality was something of an oxymoron, the K-Car twins defined the worst of the lot.

Still, there were enough made that they continued to clutter around for years, and now that their slow fade to the junk yard is almost complete, seeing one in the wild has become something of a special occasion.

So I did what any dark geek would do: Grabbed a few pics of this ancient conveyance before the owner returned and busted me. Until Mother nature turns the rest of this tired old car to rust, I see life in her old bones yet.

1 comment:

Max Sartin said...

I actually have a soft spot for the K-Car. It's just so boxy and quirky and so many different variations of the same car. The convertible ones look like a big cereal box on wheels with a flap sticking out the top (windshield) and the trim around the fake wood paneling on the wagons was thicker that the doors themselves. And the basic silver-grey-blue 4-door was used in so many movies as the ultimate FBI/undercover car that when I rented one my friends drove around town in suits and sunglasses trying to look all official everywhere we went.