Search for an Eagle Premier on Craigslist and you’ll find dozens of listings for the Jayco Eagle Premier trailer. The defunct AMC-developed, Renault-based, Giugario-designed, Canadian-built, Chrysler-marketed product? Not so much. Once in a while, however, one appears on Craigslist. This one looks pretty good.
What a shame the ad doesn’t. Mileage? Who knows. You’ll have to call to find out. That’d be fine if people knew what an Eagle Premier was. Do many people remember the Premier, let alone the entire Eagle brand? “Hurry runs great” seems an overly optimistic way to end one’s Craigslist ad for an Eagle Premier. Especially one listed for $2,588.
The interior photo is of typical Craigslist style – low-resolution and half out of frame. But my, those leather seats still look nice after all these years. In fact, the whole car looks in decent shape except for some scuffs and the inevitable yellowing of the composite headlights.
I love an underdog and the Eagle Premier certainly qualifies. As this is the flagship ES Limited, that means the longitudinally-mounted 3.0 Douvrin V6 is under the hood instead of the rarely-ordered AMC 2.5 four. Mated to a four-speed ZF automatic, the 3.0 produced 150 hp at 5000 rpm and 171 ft-lbs at 3600 rpm. Reviews typically praised the Premier for its smooth powertrain and comfortable ride quality though Motor Trend said the car’s French roots definitely shone through.
“[It] rolls severely in hard cornering, but this is misleading. The car really hangs in there and sticks well in tighter high-speed turns, you just think you’re about to fall off the road.”
ES interior pictured
Early models like this ’89 had a column-mounted shifter, later moved to the console.
Unfortunately, all Premiers had the same strange column-mounted pods with headlight and climate controls. It was puzzling placement and the Premier was soundly criticized for this and other ergonomic missteps.
The ES Limited was introduced in the Premier’s sophomore season to head the Premier range. Costing around $2500 more than the mid-range ES, the monochromatic ES Limited added leather upholstery, cruise control, premium audio system, power locks and windows, remote keyless entry, power front seats and illuminated entry. Much of these features remained available to LX and ES Premiers in option packages. With an MSRP of $20,272, the ES Limited cost around $4k more than an admittedly less well-equipped Mercury Sable LS. Sure, it undercut European and Japanese rivals it ostensibly targeted but it was priced up against some fully-loaded domestic competitors. For example, the ’91 ES Limited cost the same as the new-for-1991 Pontiac Grand Prix STE with its much more powerful turbocharged 3.1 V6.
Anybody who was willing to take a chance on an unfamiliar sedan from an unfamiliar brand would’ve been disappointed to discover the Premier’s reliability and quality weren’t quite up to snuff. Though some were reliable, there have been plenty of stories about transmission failures and electrical gremlins. Sales were initially adequate but tumbled – people were much more willing to buy a Ford Taurus. The Premier’s overall production number of approximately 140,000 units between 1988 and 1992 was just over half what American Motors had projected during the Premier’s development.
The Premier was a risky purchase new and time has only made it more so, considering parts availability. Still, for all its flaws, it’s an underdog that truly appeals to me. I’m an ocean away from Wisteria, CA so it’s not for me. Perhaps it’s for you?
Related Reading:
Junkyard Classic: 1989 Eagle Premier ES Limited
The Most Obscure Special Editions and Forgotten Limited-Run Models: Dodge City (featuring the 1990-92 Dodge Monaco)
Top 10 Obscure Special Editions And Forgotten Limited-Run Models: Jeep-Eagle Edition, Part I (featuring the Premier 2.5)
Well, the D family does have an eight foot Jayco Eagle, but I’ll pass on the Eagle Premier. As ambivalent as I am about the Grand Caravan it’s still a pretty good camping and tow vehicle.
That monochrome white is so laughably 80’s. 🙂
I checked the ad, if for no other reason to see where Wisteria was. I thought I had an encyclopedic knowledge of California place names but this appears to be one of those Open Street Map artifacts from another century; perhaps this was once the location of a stagecoach stop under the shade of a spreading wisteria vine. It’s in fact in Concord, a sprawling suburb east of San Francisco. By the way, the photos could be intentionally poor; while the front passenger seat upholstery looks fine, the barely visible driver’s seat looks pretty shot. This one is not likely to be in Premier condition.
“the barely visible driver’s seat looks pretty shot”
I would think this would be a selling point. Most of these never lasted long enough for the drivers seat to wear out. 🙂
Good point!
These pictures remind me why this car was a no to so many. It was too European for Americans and too American (or maybe just too French) for those who preferred Euro cars. A column gearshift? Really?
If this car had a really robust drivetrain, then I could see becoming a member of this oddball little club. But it did not. The engine sucked and the transmission sucked. The only way around this was via the AMC 4 which would have been a thoroughly underpowered dog. Could you even get a manual? If so, could there have been more than about 9 of them built? A Chrysler 3.5 and even a Chrysler 4 speed transaxle would have at least made for easy maintenance of the big stuff. But this one is just its own little oddball thing.
These pictures also work hard to obscure the automatic seat belts. I keep forgetting about those, just one more reason to steer clear of cars on a couple of years either side of 1990.
I’m normally fine with column shifters – indeed I like them – but this one was especially weird because the control pod was in the way so it has all these tortured bends in the metal rod to snake around it. And why just have empty space on the console where the floor shifter would have gone instead of a compartment or cup holder?
I think Eagle should have just rebadged the original Renault 25 which was much more attractive, and had a convenient hatchback despite having a notchback profile. The Premier looked dated even when it was new, and the proportions (especially the long front overhang and blunt front end) just looked wrong to my eye. Not that I think it would have sold much better; buyers were scared of anything Renault-related after the Alliance and the homegrown Mopars like the Dynasty with proven K-car bits were a safer purchase, and sales reflected that.
“[It] rolls severely in hard cornering, but this is misleading. The car really hangs in there and sticks well in tighter high-speed turns, you just think you’re about to fall off the road.”
Sounds about right for a classic French chassis, I’ve read a number of reviews of French cars that have some variation on this theme
I rented one of these from Thrifty (a Chrysler subsidiary then) in the slums of Chester, PA near the Philadelphia airport. Its French roots showed. The ride was soft, in a boulevard-like way unlike the Ford Taurus. But it handled well in normal driving; though no parking lot slalom trials were attempted. The oddball controls were OK once familiarized over a couple of days, and my daily driver at the time, a Mercury Sable, had a column shift, so no issue there. The rental agent did say that even new, the Eagles “had to be fixed a lot,” more so than the Dodge Dynasty V6 which they also offered me. I knew the Dynasty would be a nice smooth ride with plenty of torque and less-crisp handling, so chose the Eagle because I had never driven one before…and I haven’t since. But thanks to Francois Castaing of AMC, who stayed at Chrysler until run off by the Daimler Anschluss, the Eagle Premier gave its powertrain layout and a tightened-up version of a long-travel suspension (and more than a few developmental moles) to Chrysler’s next-generation, first-new-since-the-K-Car LH sedans, replacing a proposal that Allpar calls “a Dynasty on steroids.” I still drive a first-generation Dodge Intrepid. So one could say I drive this Eagle’s philosophical offspring.
All things considered a good case could be made that this car was somewhat ahead of its time. Look at some, heck most, automatic transmission gear selectors on new cars. Is a column mounted shifter all that bad? And the controls on their pods each side of the steering wheel? Better or worse than the multitude of buttons on the steering wheel of new cars?
The only department where this car falls down is in the assembly quality of it’s mechanical and electrical systems. But it could be argued it was ahead there, too. Vis a vis the Chrysler automatic transmissions and Ford/GM plastic intake manifolds.
True about the control pods…and unlike “keyboards on steering wheels” they didn’t spin as you steered. The buttons were in the same place all the time. What took longest for me to get used to was the side/slide turn signal control.
I really hate Craigslist. It’s a treasure trove that has some gems sometimes, but the poor quality of so many ads is just maddening. What’s really bad about this ad is that it is from a dealer, a.k.a. a professional car seller. You would think that they would know to put a decently framed, driver side interior shot in and have some important details like mileage rather than “Jensen sound” (as if that stereo would be high on anybody’s list of reasons to buy this car). Does it cost more to use commas or is there just a comma shortage in that town? At least the exterior shots are OK!
Apparently hyphens cost more too – it took me awhile to figure out what all those numbers at the end were without any formatting (it’s a five-digit zip code followed by two phone numbers)
Awful pics and descriptions have netted me some great CL deals though, when I knew the product well and others couldn’t figure out what it was from the bad photos and description.
Craigslist now charges $5 per car ad and it’s only good for a month then you have to renew, at least around here. I think over time it will improve the quality of the ads and if nothing else will slow down the repetitive posting of the same ad over and over with a different contact email/phone. Sucks for those people that used it as intended all along but overall a positive in the long term I think.
I had one of these during my senior year in high school (1995-1996). It was an ’88. I loved it! (Non car)People had no idea what it was and most thought it was an Audi 5000. I never had a problem with it. My father owned Saabs and always took his cars to a European car mechanic. That mechanic told me that the main problem with the Eagle Premier was the fact that not only did Jeep/Eagle dealers (former AMC) not want to work on them, the guides and manuals for them did not translate well into English. I had absolutely no problems with it. I traded it on a 1991 Eagle Talon. Too bad Chrysler didn’t know what to do with Eagle. I’d still have on if they made them.
I liked the styling of these, the workmanship, not so much.
The European perspective. Renault does not make durable big cars and never has. They only ever sell in penny numbers outside of France, because they are usually total crap. E.g, Renault 20,30, safranne, vel satis, even Today Renault majors mainly on small economical hatchbacks. The depreciation on a big Renault was precipitous to the point where people just gave up buying them new. The 25 was a good effort, and at first sold strongly but soon reverted to type with a multitude of problems, the rate of attrition was atrocious. Basing a car on the 25, and aiming it at the U.S market seems like a bad joke.
According to the California Smog Check Database, this car has a bit of a history of having trouble passing the emissions check in the past. This year it passed on the first try but in 2018 it took three tries, 2016 was ok, but in 2014 took three tries as well.
https://www.bar.ca.gov/pubwebquery/Vehicle/PubTstQry.aspx
License plate is 2NDY072
I like using the database to see if my old cars are still on the road in CA as the plate stays with the car. Yes I get really bored sometimes…
I keep thinking of those generic cars from insurance ads.
Other than maybe the overhangs it’s not a bad looking car, but it’s just sort of there.
The column shifter was because, similar to Taurus, they mainly came with a 60/40 split bench seat with a fold down armrest, at least at first. So no console. Not sure if the buckets were available at first or added as an option later.
According to Wikipedia, the electrical system was replaced with Chrysler bits for the 1990 model year, and they all got four wheel disc brakes. So a 1990 or 91 would be the one to get, if anyone ever found one.
The fiirst thing i thought was the old joke about having two bad cars and having to decide which car would tow the other.
Bets the dealer didn’t want this as a trade-in, took it only to clinch a deal as part of a package. After a few months, he’ll be ready to give it away to get it off his lot.
I had 92 Dodge Monaco as a used car. It was a nightmare. Nothing but problems… It had all the demons of a crap VW with even less parts support. It cost me about $ 4500 in repairs in 6 months. It has soured me any Mopar since.
Great comments from everyone! My wife stumbled across this while she reminissed about past car purchases I’m guitly of. I traded in a 88′ Jeep Cherokee for this car in 90′. I was drawn to the styling, smooth ride and spacious interior. After a year of driving, i realized the most valauble asset was the 100,00 bumper to bumper warranty. I went thru 3 transmissions and two sets of CV joints in 60,000 miles. The paint started peeling after it was 2 years old. Eagle covered for it to be repainted. I paid $20,000 for it and got $2,800 back on a trade in for 95′ Grand Cherokee. My wife is a patient woman. To this day, she has never forgiven me. My advise, stick with a jeep. I still have the jeep with 320,000 miles. All my kids have driven it. And its still used as a backup and hauling the canoe to the river.