Any love for non-turbo K-cars?

K-cars have a cult following for sure. Not sure why, but I like full-size station wagons so who am I to judge? A few years back, Car and Driver listed them as their #1 worst car of all time citing that it was the most flexible unibody production chassis ever built. I remember when they came out with the Shelby hatchback with a whopping 224 hp and they had problems with ripping the engine mounts right out of the subframe.

My buddy had a 2-door Reliant in college that he bought for $75. The door fell off in a mall parking lot one day when I opened it so we just put some cardboard over it. Then we decided to cut the top off the car. I put a metal blade in the saw and started cutting. About 3/4 of the way across the roof, the car started to buckle and put a bind on the blade. We decided to leave it and get drunk instead. The next morning we awoke to find the car had collapsed in the middle which was good news because I could get the saw blade out of the roof. He had the junkyard come get it and they gave him $75.

The moral of the story is, K-cars hold 100% of their resale value regardless of condition.

curtis73 wrote: K-cars have a cult following for sure. Not sure why, but I like full-size station wagons so who am I to judge? A few years back, Car and Driver listed them as their #1 worst car of all time citing that it was the most flexible unibody production chassis ever built. I remember when they came out with the Shelby hatchback with a whopping 224 hp and they had problems with ripping the engine mounts right out of the subframe.

The 224hp cars weren't Shelby's they were Dodge Spirit or Daytona R/T's. Shelby's all came with a max of 175hp. The Omni/Charger GLH-S even used the speed sensor to control the boost curve (via computer controlled wastegate solenoid) to save the transaxle.

Shelby ended his partnership with Chrysler before he could produce a 224hp Shelby. Shelby left Chrysler after they screwed him on the price of the Dodge Shadow's and other cars he was using for his Shelby CSX (Chrysler charged him full price for the cars) and Chrysler also kept producing their own version of his cars the year after his, only with all of the stronger parts that they denied him after he helped develop those parts (87 Shelby Lancer/88 Lancer Shelby, 89 Shelby CSX-VNT/90 Dodge Shadow VNT, etc.)

All of that said, one of the main reasons I stopped messing with the Turbo-Dodges was the inherent weakness of the chassis. It wasn't any worse than the VW Rabbit or other FWD Performance cars of the time and it could be overcome, it was just annoying dealing with bad seals, worn door hinges, etc. for a DD. I still miss having an L-body to bomb around in, just so damned tossable.

Anyway, Chrysler in their infinite wisdom had been trying to improve the NVH of the cars since their inception, they used motor mounts that were way too soft and they failed quite easily causing the mounts to collapse and you get all of that intertia banging back and forth so something had to give.

I think k-cars are one of the strongest 'light' cars there is as far as suspension durability and taking light hits. It's about as 'ZAV' as an open-diff fwd can get in terms of being able to run it into/over E36 M3. Very easy to get a lifted suspension too! I agree the L body is one of the floppiest turds i've experienced, but the K never gave me that impression and i never ripped any body parts off or broke any welds with anything i've put mine through. I HAVE seen an omni with the struts punched into the hood after bombing through a ditch. I've accidentally made the same maneuver in my 89 Aries with no noticeable effects to the structure.

Hard to believe anyone could call the k-car the worst anything. Almost every other 80s domestic i've worked on seemed much E36 M3tier in pretty much every way with the possible exception of style or ergonomics.

LuxInterior wrote: There are a lot of things I'd collect before k cars....like stamps, scars, diseases.

I nominate for "Say What?"

turboswede wrote:

curtis73 wrote: K-cars have a cult following for sure. Not sure why, but I like full-size station wagons so who am I to judge? A few years back, Car and Driver listed them as their #1 worst car of all time citing that it was the most flexible unibody production chassis ever built. I remember when they came out with the Shelby hatchback with a whopping 224 hp and they had problems with ripping the engine mounts right out of the subframe.

The 224hp cars weren't Shelby's they were Dodge Spirit or Daytona R/T's. Shelby's all came with a max of 175hp. The Omni/Charger GLH-S even used the speed sensor to control the boost curve (via computer controlled wastegate solenoid) to save the transaxle. Shelby ended his partnership with Chrysler before he could produce a 224hp Shelby. Shelby left Chrysler after they screwed him on the price of the Dodge Shadow's and other cars he was using for his Shelby CSX (Chrysler charged him full price for the cars) and Chrysler also kept producing their own version of his cars the year after his, only with all of the stronger parts that they denied him after he helped develop those parts (87 Shelby Lancer/88 Lancer Shelby, 89 Shelby CSX-VNT/90 Dodge Shadow VNT, etc.) All of that said, one of the main reasons I stopped messing with the Turbo-Dodges was the inherent weakness of the chassis. It wasn't any worse than the VW Rabbit or other FWD Performance cars of the time and it could be overcome, it was just annoying dealing with bad seals, worn door hinges, etc. for a DD. I still miss having an L-body to bomb around in, just so damned tossable. Anyway, Chrysler in their infinite wisdom had been trying to improve the NVH of the cars since their inception, they used motor mounts that were way too soft and they failed quite easily causing the mounts to collapse and you get all of that intertia banging back and forth so something had to give.

I thought the Shelby Daytonas were the 224 hp. So this car was the 175 hp version?

Nope:

http://www.allpar.com/model/daytona/chronology.php

It's been done though and it all more or less bolts in (though the SRT-4 drivetrain is more reliable and easier to acquire, if not a little harder to install).

gotcha. I learned.

Finally got pics of the car. It's not a Reliant, its a Caravelle...not that it matters much. It definitely doesn't look like a turbo car to me, and while it doesn't appear rusty it's not exactly in good condition either.

So I'm still not sure if it's worth the expense/trouble of making an 8-hour round trip to get it, then go through the process of getting a title from the estate through the state(not difficult, but takes a few weeks and would be about $140). I think it would be hard to get $1k out of the car - and that's only if it's in decent running/driving condition.

That is a $200-300 car if not running and a $600-800 car if running.

Even i wouldnt go out of my way to get that thing. There are too many more interesting variants of the k-car that are still silly cheap to spend time/money/energy on that particular car.

Just my .02 as a k-car lover. I've owned some boring variants but i've kind of narrowed it down to only owning the 'cooler' stuff now and i still didnt pay much of anything to get any of them other than one car that had a full paint job+bodywork and a running SRT4 swap.

I have a turbo/5spd spirit, a turbo Lancer Shelby, a Dynasty with a lot of suspension work and a big v6, two turbo caravans, a factory-stretched new yorker, an old lebaron convertible, and my old Aries challenge car which is the only one that started with basically no redeeming qualities other than lightness but is now fairly interesting.

Where in Illinois?

In reply to Vigo:

Yeah, that's pretty much my thought too.

In reply to stroker:

It's somewhere in southern tip of IL, near Marion IIRC. I'll double check the nearest civilization when I talk to him tomorrow.

Speaking of cheap turbo Dodges, a friend forwarded me this today: http://tippecanoe.craigslist.org/cto/4780007156.html Seems like you could probably get it for challenge $$.

All these type of cars are perfect for teens because they serve splindedly as birth control. In my case it was a Dodge Dart... quite effective.

yeah i wouldnt bother with the hassle for that. i paid less for the turbo sundance i recently sold. Now that i drive something with an N/A 2.5 i really miss the turbo version

You seemed kind of determined to not be interested in that thing while you had it.

A stock turbo Sundance is not the best thing ever but they have run 13.3@100 in the 1/4 mile on the stock tiny turbo and NO INTERCOOLER.

Vigo wrote: You seemed kind of determined to not be interested in that thing while you had it. A stock turbo Sundance is not the best thing ever but they have run 13.3@100 in the 1/4 mile on the stock tiny turbo and NO INTERCOOLER.

That was part of my leftover hate from my first dodge project. while far from perfect the turbo car actually moved out well for what it was. I was impressed at the way it handled the abuse i tossed at it. The n/a 2.5 in my dakota isnt generating any love though

I think non-turbo K's are one of the quintessential Grandma cars. My Grandmother's last car was an'88 or '89 Dodge Aries 4 door. Burgundy, burgundy cloth interior. Just like this one:

It was the most boring car she had ever owned. This was a lady that at one time was sporting a Karmann Ghia and then a grabber blue Maverick. I guess there wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with the Aries, but I can't see anyone loving that car.

Where in IL is the car?

In reply to moparman76_69:

Fairfield, IL - looks about 40-minutes south of Effingham.

I guess there wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with the Aries, but I can't see anyone loving that car.

You have to want the styling of a huge american land yacht with the weight of a honda crx and the torque of a corvette for a challenge budget. Some assembly required. I did it and it wasn't hard.

If you dont want those things, you won't love it.

I looked at this from my own perspective (which I know has nothing to do with anyone else's), but here is how I approached it.

When I'm faced with a free car like this, I look for something of value to me... not necessarily financial value, but something that makes my hootus tingle and makes sense to procure. I break it down into individual parts; engine, transmission, drive axles, interior, body, chassis, etc. In the case of a K-car it has zero value to me. Even if someone dropped it off in my garage for free, I would gently push it outside and write $150 on the windshield. None of its parts are exciting, valuable, or neat. It has very little value as an upgradable car since it has a pretty squishy chassis.

I have been known to buy worthless cars just for a fender, or a transmission, then scrap or sell the rest, so I will never criticize someone's choice of a car. I once bought a Chevy Beretta strictly because they have excellent interior acoustics making them good for stereo competitions. But really, there is nothing about a K car that I can objectively look at and say, "this car is good because of its..." I have never encountered another car with less flavor. Its not even vanilla. Its water-flavored.

The only real reason I could see to get it is if you are particularly passionate about K-cars... which is a valid reason, but (to me) in this case, its a bunch of worthless parts that go together to make a worthless car.

... edit... I did think of something. The engine might be neat in some oddball conversion like a dune buggy because of its reliability and cheap parts. There. I said something nice about a K-car.

Sounds like they are crap, I would just pass. Not worth the project or headache.