Look up “notchy gear shifter” and you’ll likely find a picture of my Lancer! Myself, I liked the Malibu Maxx SS version. Mine came with the farm tractor-grade manual transmission. I ditched the stock rims and bought a nice set of five-spoke alloys, then built an incredible custom stereo (I was just shy of 20…what was a guy to do?). We made great efforts to collect all of them, but its amount is so immense that we could easily miss something. Brake Pads; The rest of the interior, namely the dashboard, seemed to be an afterthought though.Iacocca didn’t like the look of the Lancerer/GTS, possibly because it had the utilitarian look of the VW Dasher.
Doesn’t look like it ever did.Of course the LeBaron convertible was also desirable, because they stole it in Jumanji (ahh giant mosquito attack! 1986 Dodge Lancer Parts and Accessories Explore Vehicles › Dodge › Lancer. 1986 Dodge Lancer Sedan original vintage advertisement. One thing I remember about it was leaving my friends cottage which had a steep hill loaded with 5 people – unless you could get the turbo to kick in it wouldn’t climb the hill so you had to rev the snot out of it and ride the clutch to get it to climb. The horsepower rating in ’85 was 146 instead of 142 though. It would have roasted any “supercar” of the era that you could buy.The performance sedan that will thrill you all the way to the redline… hold you to the dotted line… cover you down the line… and impress you with its bottom line.For the time? The hatchback body was useful too, although as flexible as a 100K mile VW. I kinda thought it was a cool car, but indeed a throw away.A lot of intelligent idiots tried using carburetor air bleeds in the MAP line in order to trick the system to crank up the boost, instead of simply ponying up $180 for the high boost logic module, which offered a significant gain in power for the nice price of ~$10/hp.I always thought these were the most appealing K-Car based vehicles along with the Daytona/Laser and the 2nd gen LeBaron coupe/convertible.
It looked like a sedan even though it was a hatchback. Hyundai Excel. The 5 door hatchback was incredibly handy and it is one of the few cars I think I might like to have back.The Porsche had three available options. Mine was an ’85 turbo with the automatic, power locks and windows, and leather. Talk about doublespeak–the only syncros were between pairs of gears (1-3, 2-5, 4-7, 6-8), not the entire range.Odd that the featured car has no pentastar on the grill. I can even spot an old 1983-ish Reliant or Dodge 600 if I looked hard enough, and that’s hard to do. At the time there were a few mid-size 5 doors in vogue such as the Mazda 626 (turbo 4ws would be quite a find), short lived 1st gen Camry 5 door and the more upscale Saab 9000 so you figure it made sense that Chrysler would stretch the K-body to compete with them.Still a very nice design, and the five-door hatch configuration is appealing.So again, it must be water is wet day to declare that an entry level premium Germany sports car had better quality than a half-the-sticker-price bread and butter mid-level K-car.The only thing missing to meet modern supercar cred (beyond the soul crushing weight of required safety equipment) is AWD and a 7-speed manual or DCT setup instead of the ancient 5-speed manual it came with.It was like moving a lever stuck into a block of Jello. The seats were great, which helped one forget how much work was going into rowing the manual through the gears.
You don’t say.It was something that I wasn’t used to, a fairly tight handling and sporty Chrysler product that wasn’t a 2dr. 5 Best-Looking Sedans and Wagons of the New Century . But, they were considered throw-away cars, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.Coming up next in the Obvious News, water is wet, everyone eventually dies, and driving over the speed limit can get you a ticket.“…and thought it was some smaller trim level of the New Yorker.”Probably totaled after a minor accident.I had one of these.
Another friend briefly had a white/blue 2-dr turbo GTS but the turbo had already been removed and it was a dog. 1986 Hyundai Excel. Shop millions of cars from over 21,000 respected auto dealers and find the perfect vehicle! You just guessed where to move the lever, and if you weren’t correct, massive grinding ensued. What a wonderful car that was!