1990 Suzuki Alto Works

Continuing with our theme of Japanese cars not designed for the US market, the Alto Works is (from bringatrailer.com), "a high range sport model featuring a turbo twin cam 660cc triple capable of 9k RPM, its 64 HP the first to reach Kei car regulation limits."

A Kei car is a mini-vehicle that gives the owner in Japan a break on taxation and and insurance as well as exemption from proving they have access to parking. From jalopnik.com: "These vehicles have some strict limitations to be considered a Kei: the engine must be 660cc or smaller, they cannot produce more than 64 horsepower, they can only seat four people maximum, and dimensions are also limited to about 11.2 feet long, 4.85 feet wide and 6.5 feet tall."

 

 

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1987 Toyota Crown Super Salon

If you're into right-hand drive, you probably could not buy a more indestructible car than the Toyota Crown. The Crown has been Toyota's signature big (well big by Japanese standards) rear-wheel drive car since 1955, unavailable in the US since the mid-70s. It is however legal to import vehicles not designed to US standards once they're 25 years old, and here on the west coast I occasionally see right-hand cars and trucks from Japan.

Observations:
* Love all the little crown logos unique to this model.
* This Crown is powered by the turbocharged "Diesel Ceramics Power" engine. It will probably run forever.

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1982 Plymouth Horizon

When I was kid, these things were everywhere. Chrysler sold nearly one million Horizons and identical Dodge Omnis between 1978 and 1990. Yet unlike older low-cost cars from Japan, how long has it been since I've seen one? Maybe ten years?

This car was a breakthrough for Chrysler in 1978. Designed by Chrysler Europe, it was a space-efficient front-wheel drive design introduced at a time when Detroit was still trying to sell small cars that were really just downsized versions of their big rear-wheel drive vehicles. Those cars, such as the Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto, had very cramped interiors and little cargo room (and a lot of other shortcomings).

This car probably cost less than $4,000 new; that would be less than $10,000 today. And man is it bare-bones. Low-cost cars made today are orders of magnitude more comfortable than those made in the 20th century. Final observation: this car was sold virtually unchanged for 13 years. That would become something of a theme for Chrysler: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The PT Cruiser was sold from 2000 to 2010 with no significant changes, and the Chrysler 300 being sold today is little different from the model introduced in 2004.

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1985 Alfa-Romeo GTV6

Alfa-Romeo is trying to make a comeback in the US. Most of the old Alfas driving around the US are the Spider, a car popular largely because it was one of the only convertibles available in the US in the 80s. This GTV6 is parked at the Italian car repair in Magnolia, which may serve as a comment on the car's reliability.

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1985 Cadillac Cimarron

Take the cheapest Chevy econo-box, add leather seats and nicer rims, then double the price. This is the cynicism that produced General Motors' most notorious product of all time, the Cadillac Cimarron. GM had a lot of problems in the 1980s, and one of the biggest was often having four, or in this case five different divisions (with five separate and expensive executive hierarchies) all selling the same car. It's one thing to have the inexpensive Chevy Celebrity also sold as the somewhat upscale Buick Century, but in this case GM went to a completely ridiculous and unrealistic extreme. Time magazine include the Cimarron on its list of 50 Worst Cars of All Time, saying, "Everything that was wrong, venal, lazy and mendacious about GM in the 1980s was crystallized in this flagrant insult to the good name and fine customers of Cadillac." Here's an article on the Cimarron from curbsideclassic.com.

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