Junkyard Find: 1983 Dodge Aries

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Junkyard Find: 1983 Dodge Aries

So, after Chrysler got those government-backed loans that saved the company in 1979— take note, members of the Iacocca Jihad, that I am not calling those loans a bailout (even though Uncle Sam would have been forced to cover them if Chrysler had failed), and thus you may rest easy that this writer is not lumping your favorite Italian-owned corporation in with the People's Democratic Cadres' Bailed-Out Motors Corporation— everything hinged on the K-platform cars being a success. And they were!
The really impressive thing about the Aries (and its Plymouth Reliant sibling) was that Chrysler managed to make a reasonably modern, fuel-efficient front-wheel-drive sedan that still felt like a real American car inside. Bench seats! Lots of room! Comfy ride! Look at this interior— except for the flat floor, you could be looking at the inside of a '73 Satellite.
It even has hood springs instead of the usual small-car prop rod.
The Chrysler 2.2 engine was still carbureted in 1983, but it had an "Electronic Control System" (which I'm assuming was a primitive mixture-adjusting feedback carburetor setup).
These weren't great cars by modern standards, but keep in mind that you could still buy the staggeringly obsolete and fuel-swilling Cordoba in 1983. The Aries got the job done, it was cheap, and it felt like a proper Detroit car. GM fell flat on its face trying to accomplish the same feat with the Citation and related X-bodies, and the company never really recovered from that debacle.
Many of us don't take the early Ks very seriously these days, since Chrysler stuck with the platform and its seemingly hundreds of derivatives about five years too long, plus we've spent the last 20 years looking at completely hooptied-out beater Ks limping along on space-saver spares in a trail of oil smoke. However, this was a very important car, and it's sad that the last survivors are straggling into the jaws of the Crusher.