In 1978, most people would have had substantial difficulty keeping a straight face if saying “Dodge Omni” and “high performance” in the same sentence. With only a 1.7 liter Volkswagen engine initially available, anyone seeking a Dodge Omni (and its cousin, the Plymouth Horizon) was also seeking fuel economy and cheap transportation.
In that vein, these cars truly delivered. It could easily be argued that these little cars are what kept Chrysler afloat during the lean years of 1978 to 1981, as initial sales volume of the Omnirizon was around 182,000 units. With sales consistent during 1979, compare this to 1979 sales of the Dodge Aspen at roughly 140,000 and St. Regis sales of just under 35,000. By the end of production in 1990, Chrysler produced almost 2.5 million Omnirizon’s of which nearly 1,000,000 were Omni’s.
As a side note, there was a two-door derivative, called the Dodge Omni 024 and Plymouth Horizon TC3. 1979 saw 120,000 of these go out the Mopar sales door.
By the early ’80’s, when the malaise of the 1970’s was starting to wane, the word “performance” was worming its way back into the automotive vernacular without being accompanied by snickering. Chrysler, seeking to get a piece of the action, sought the help of the late Carroll Shelby.
The Shelby massage was first seen on the 1984 Omni with the introduction of a 110 horsepower 2.2 liter 4-banger. This was the initial punch.
1985 saw this taken to the next step with a turbocharged, 146 horsepower version of the familiar 2.2 liter. For a car weighing just over 2000 pounds, this was a very potent combination for the time. Dubbed “Omni GLH” for “Goes Like Hell”, this car stuck around for 1986. Around 11,000 were made for the 1985 and 1986 model years. All GLH cars had special wheels and blackout trim.
I found these triplets in red, black, and blue behind the locked fence of a closed storage unit. The blue one was the most elusive, as I could not see much more than what is seen in these pictures. The black one is a 1985 model as it lacks the third brake light; the other two are either 1985 or 1986 models.
Shelby would provide more vigor for the Omni with the GLHS (standing for “Goes Like Hell and then Some”) in 1987.
While these appear to have been hibernating for a while, I would wager it may not take much to get them roaring again.
The tail light design on the Omnirizons always bugged me. The brake light never quite filled the lines on the outside of the lenses; drove me nuts. The early Horizons with the amber turn signal I liked, though.
Wasn’t there a pickup version of the Omnirizon, too?
Dodge Rampage and Plymouth Scamp. How many of those do you think are still around?
I spotted a Rampage a few months ago at the college where I work (southern CA) – big surprise to see one of those still on the road. Haven’t seen it for a while though.
Fun little cars, but those wheels are goofy…
Those wheels are often referred to a “pizza wheels” since the holes look like pepperoni on a pizza.
My friend Eric “Bill” just got his all put back together and we took it out for a drive a few days ago. What a blast, I haven’t driven like that in a long time! The little GLH does indeed Go Like Hell.
I was overseas when these came out so they didn’t seem so small. Came back and retired in 81 and was in for a culture shock with all the bloated things running around. Somehow, I still don’t think these were so bad for what they were. No surprise they didn’t keep up in sales with the olds cutlass or others of that ilk.
I think owning a GLH must have been fun (so long as it was running).
I am not sure why I never drove one of these back in 1985. Maybe it was because I had become bored with the car due to my mother having her 1980 Horizon. Hindsight says that I should have picked up a new black one and surprised a lot of people with it. It couldn’t have had more warranty issues than the GTI that I ended up with.
The other odd design feature of these was the flat glass in the hatch. I once followed one of these on the interstate, and the way the sun was sitting in the sky, it made for the most blinding glare I have ever experienced. I had to back off from the car, then get past it.
You have certainly stumbled upon a treasure trove of GLHs – I have not seen one of these in years. I always thought that the fat tires and wheels made these look good.
Those are hot hatches that I’d love to experience at some point. My high school guidance counselor had one and it seemed totally out of character for such a “Walter Mitty” type to have a GLH.
I always liked the 4door hatch Omni/Horizons better than the 024/ TC3 2 door versions.
Also the fronts of the 024/TC3’s always looked tacked on to me.
The leg and headroom in the hatches was surprisingly good for someone like me who is 6’2.
I have a little experience with these cars. Several of my friends owned them, but the vast majority were the two door Charger body. One guy did own a GLHS, it really did Go Like Hell Some more!
A buddy of mine and I jointly owned and raced an Omni 2.2 in autocross for a brief time in the late 80’s. We bought a standard Omni 4 door, with 2.2 and 5 speed trans; there were a ton of parts you could get through the old Mopar Direct Connection parts catalog.
Mopar used to run ads in the car magazines showing Joe Varde (who raced IMSA Dodges back then, now the team manager for the Rum Bum BMW in Continental (tire) sports car racing). He was the spokesman telling you how easy it was to mod your Omni or Charger for SCCA racing.
It was pretty easy, but the Suzuki Swifts and Mitsubishi Mirages were great runners right out of the package, with much less to do to prep them for that kind of racing. They cost more to get into, but came with more from the start. I think it was even money by the time we added up our parts (but not our labor). We did OK, not fantastic, but not terrible either. Considering we were weekend warriors, who spent all of our evenings prepping the car and then busting our rears to make the races.
My first child came along, and he got married, so we sold the Omni (at a loss) and moved on. In retrospect, it was fun, but I don’t think I would do it again.
EDIT: I should add we had the help of a Dodge dealer in a neighboring town. He was our sponsor and had been when we were racing street stock division back when were on dirt tracks. We had access to all kinds of parts and the facilities to wrench on the car. By the time the kids and marriages came along, our sponsor had sold the dealership to another person, who was nowhere near as supportive. That was one of the other major factors in our decision to get out of Solo autocross.
My mom had an ’85 Omni with the 2.2 litre and a 5 speed. It had the usual crappy cable shifter and heavy clutch, but it moved along and was a lot of fun to drive…until she put it into a ditch. Then she got an ’87 Sundance with the turbo 2.2 and a 5 speed. Same heavy clutch and clunky shifter, but it was a blast once the turbo spooled up.
Clearly the same shell as the Talbot Horizon we got in Europe, but also very clear (from the comments) that you got a very differnet experience from us. In the UK these were seen as almost disposable, and were also known for having the nastiest, tinniest sounding engine of any vehicle on the road. They all rusted away in no time.
I took a trip to France in 1988 and was surprised to see all the Talbot Horizons there. I had never known such a car existed. I’m not sure if European Talbots used the same engines as the North American Chrysler versions. As noted in the article, the early North American versions had a 1.7 sourced from VW. In the early ’80s, this was replaced with a 1.6 sourced from Peugot, and a Chrysler-built 2.2 also became available. By the late ’80s, the 2.2 was the only engine available.
In the U.S., these were also seen as somewhat disposable cars. I think almost anyone would have judged them as vastly inferior to Japanese competitors in both design and build quality. But they were cheap and had FWD, build quality eventually improved to a decent level, and in the late ’70s/’80s the number of Americans who reflexively shopped the domestic brands due to patriotism or inertia was still fairly high. All in all, if they weren’t exactly top sellers or regarded as great cars, they did OK in both departments, and were seen as decent value for the money. In the late ’80s, Chrysler did good business with a dated design by selling them at rock-bottom prices alongside the newer Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance; they were much more substantial cars than others competing in that market segment (e.g., Hyundai Excels). I don’t remember these cars having particularly bad rust problems compared to their contemporaries.
From 1989 to 1995, I owned a 1985 Plymouth Turismo (a later name for the Plymouth version of the 2-door, originally known as the Horizon TC3). It had the 2.2 and an automatic transmission but it was otherwise a total strip-down model. Not the most solidly built car, but I certainly got my money’s worth out of it. It’s probably my favorite car out of any I’ve ever owned, if mostly for sentimental reasons. Every once in a while, we used to see an old Charger or Turismo for sale, and my wife would look at me and give me a stern “No!”. Today, though, they are a rare sight in our cold-climate part of the country.
Wikipedia says that in Europe we got Simca-derived 1.1, 1.3 and 1.5 motors, which would be the ones that I remember. Never even knew that there was a US variant, and it seems like you got a much more interesting crop of engines.
With the Shelby pedigree backing them, it’s easy enough to imagine these 3 cars sitting out in the field will one day have a story to tell much like “the cobra in the barn” or the “GT 500 in the junkyard” stories from the 1970’s.
I was surprised to find one of these at the Shelby museum when I was there recently – as not much is made of his Dodge stuff (at least it seems that way to those outside the US). I had no idea these had a VW engine either. Kinda ironic considering its such a ripoff of a MK1 Golf.
The 1.7 liter VW engine was available through about 1982; the 2.2 liter Chrysler engine came on board in 1981. In researching this, Peugeot supplied a 1.6 liter beginning in 1983, although it is uncertain how many, if any, were equipped this way.
IIRC, the 1.6 was available only with manual transmission, so any car with an automatic had the 2.2 by default.
I think that the Omni/Horizon was a copy of the VW Rabbit, and Chrysler went so far as to use the same engine. Why VW sold the engine to create/enable a direct competitor is a mystery to me.
To control them – and that’s what they did, too.
Chrysler, teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy in 1978, didn’t have enough money to draw up a new engine for their Rabbit knockoff. So…and it probably was in desperation…they went to the home-source of their little car, and politely asked for engines.
And got them. Not promised in large numbers; remember, this was 1977 or 1978 and nobody at the Big Three thought the small-car fad would last. This would be a niche car; keep the Dodge and Plymouth names in the driveway. No sense throwing money away that could be spent on St. Regii.
Well…sales did take off; expecially with Gas Crisis 2.0 in 1979. And Chrysler, by that time steered by the loud, bombastic Lido, went BACK to Wolfsburg and asked for MORE engines.
Volkswagenwerk said NEIN!! and raised the drawbridge to Wolfsburg Castle. So Lido had to go to Mitsubishi and, something that must have pained him, had to hire back engineers to actually MAKE a motor for this thing.
This place brings back memories I’d thought I’d completely shut.
I haven’t thought of these cars in years; but they played a big role in my life. Both my father, who had two, and my in-laws, who had a freakin’ FLEET of these things…well, between those two disparate groups, I was Omni’d out the Horizon.
I’m not kidding. My old man had a stripper 1978 Horizon that had a rough time mostly because of poor maintenance at the hands of the local dealer. But he liked the car; and when the mis-adjusted automatic choke (raced the engine cold) trashed the motor mounts (putting it into gear racing) he liked the car so much he bought another. A Dodge, from a different dealer; a loade 1974 with the 2.2.
That wasn’t enough. I fell in with a young woman whose father was a Chrysler man through and through. He had his mother’s 1960 Seneca wagon under a tree in the back yard…but that wasn’t the weird part.
EVERY car they had was an Omni/Horizon derivative. A 1978 Omni; a TC3 that was her car; a 1982 Horizon, and they’d just bought a 1985 Omni GLH.
Grandma, who used to own the 1960 wagon, had her 1980 Aspen. See…they weren’t COMPLETELY nutzo…
The old man (her father) was really bummed out that the Omni/Horizon was being discontinued in the late 1980s. Bothered him even MORE that ChryCo was buying AMC. So disturbed him…he went down to a high-end used-car dealer and bought a Scirocco in protest.
I wasn’t around long enough to see the end of that little experiment. But…my gawd, with a house full of teens and twentysomethings, an All-Omni Family…
Oh…yeah. EVERY car in that family had a manual transmission. EVERY ONE.
Except Grandma’s cars…the Seneca and the Aspen.
The 2.2 liter engine was not a Mitsubishi sourced engine. It was developed by Chrysler for the K car, used in the Omni/ Horizon and was very similar to the VW 1.7 liter.
Mitsubishi did supply the larger 2.6 liter…not a great engine.
Not sure that the Omni/Horizon was a “copy.” Maybe influenced by the Golf/Rabbit Mk1, but no more so than the Ford Escort Mark III, or any number of small, front-wheel-drive hatchbacks of the era.
Even then, Simca originally intended to introduce the Horizon in 1976 or 1977, but Chrysler’s financial woes led to delays, which leaves one wondering at what point the engineering was completed. It’s quite possible that the design was locked in place at about the time that the Golf debuted (May 1974), making it difficult to claim that the Horizon was a “copy.”
But perhaps VW had excess engine capacity, which led them to sell engines to VW…and to AMC (for the Concord).
The OmniRizon was actually based on a Simca. Simca was part of the Chrysler empire of the 1970s and when this car was being developed in the mid 1970s, they used the Simca platform as a starting point for development. The styling does appear to have been influenced by the Rabbit, although the Mopar version has more of a chunky look to it.
As for the engines, Chrysler purchased only the engine block castings from VW. When the deal was done, VW had some excess capacity and Chrysler needed a 4 cylinder block. The agreement called for a maximum of 300k blocks annually. This seemed pretty reasonable for all concerned in the mid 70s, but by 1979-80 after fuel prices really spiked, Chrysler tried to buy more blocks but VW refused, as it could use all it was building by that time. In 1980, the OmniRizon was the only thing really selling at Chrysler dealers, and they could have sold more if they could have gotten more engine blocks.
where were these at? (city/state)
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My 1st car was a charcoal grey 1989 Omni America. It was handed down from my grandpa who traded in his ’81 Horizon for it. The “America” moniker stood for stripped down, no frills model. From the factory it only had an EFI 2.2L, a 5-speed, power brakes, ram air heater with 2 settings, a rear defroster, and radio delete. I got it with 158K in 1998 and drove it for over 4 years. It got avg. 40 MPG, would do 0-60 in less than 8 seconds, and hauled 5 people comfortably (7 uncomfortably 🙂 ) Regrettably, it was sold when I graduated high school in favor of a rebuilt Chevy Beretta GT. Seemed like a good idea at the time, as the Omni had over 201K at that point, had rusted out floors, and needed suspension work. But the only things the Beretta did better were go faster, use more gas, and fall apart way more. The Omni still ranks as my favorite and most reliable car; ownership and maintenance were cheap and easy, it never failed to start or to get from A to B in any weather, and gave a lot of great memories over the miles. They are pretty rare in the Midwest salt belt of Indiana now, but occasionally when I see one still bombing around, I smile and wish I still owned mine.
I had a standard 1986 Omni. It ranked up there as one of the best cars I have driven. It never failed to start, I never had a problem with it. I wish it was a Shelby, though. Or still had my Omni. Just goes to prove that Ma Mopar could engineer anything.
Mine was a white 79 with the 2.2 manual. I loved it. It was my first nice car, not some old clunk on its last leg. I had it for four years. It was comfortable, reliable, fun and great on gas. Me and my girlfriend took it on a three week western states vacation. Fully loaded with her ten suitcases and my one, it climbed mountains, crossed deserts and pulled through a blizzard. And it was on par with any AWD drive in the snow. I used to go out looking for deep unplowed snow to play in.
It also had no problem breaking the tires free and could produce a reasonable cloud of smoke with the rear break set.
I had a Dodge omni it was burgendy with burgendy interior great car. I am looking for another one in the near future, after all Dodge omni, Plymouth Horizen, jetta , corolla and Lebaron, not to mention sundance and shadow are great chic cars for great chics like me.
I am trying to find a parts car for an 1988 dodge Omni