(first posted 5/2/2016) This Knew Yorker caught my eye, as we walked through the Lane County Events Center. Not because I’m particularly fond of them—which I’m not—but because it has two different wheel covers and the fact that these are starting to get a bit rare on the ground. That might once have been something to celebrate, but like all old cars that are disappearing from the streetscape, it’s a loss (of sorts).
But only just now as I edited the images, did I notice that this car also has two different license plates. Huh?
Unlike CC reader Teddy, who notices (and interprets) every license plate, I don’t. And I would never have noted except that I’ve (belatedly) started using Carfax to get the right model year for some of these cars when it’s not obvious to my aging memory banks.
I cropped the rear plate. That’s not going to work.
I went to the front one; yeah, that’ll do. But wait a minute…is that the same number as the rear plate? Umm, no. I can’t read the whole rear plate, but it’s obviously not the same. Carfax says it’s a 1984 Chrysler New Yorker. I wonder what Carfax would say about the rear plate? We’ll never know, unless I find this car again. But then if the rear plate had been readable, I never would have bothered to look at the front plate. (Update: this is actually a 1986 or later, so the front plate is obviously not the right one).
BTW, as a matter of principle, I refuse any requests to blank out license plates from folks who find their cars here at CC. It only happens very rarely, but the answer is always no. License plates are a public thing, and photographers have been capturing them (and people’s face and cars, and other things)on the streets and public places since they first appeared. I can’t imagine what particular form of paranoia it is to think that ones license plates being photographed and shown on a web site would somehow cause some catastrophe (or less). Of course, if it’s two different license plates…but hey, if they are going to drive it on public streets, it’s my prerogative to shoot and post it.
This New YorKer sports the 2.2 L turbo four, which was not really a good choice for what was masquerading as a luxury car. But Chrysler had nothing better; their 3.3 L V6 was still a number of years off, and the Mitsubishi 3.0 V6 wasn’t offered until 1988. So Chrysler zinged up the 2.2 four with a turbo, and it made 142 hp instead of 99. The 2.6 L Mitsubishi four, with 101 hp, was also optional, but a lot of these New Yorkers got the turbo. Not that it made them really fast, with the 3-speed Torqueflite transaxle backing them up. It was an expedient solution, and something of a foreshadowing of the current time, when turbo fours are powering all sorts of expensive premium-brand cars. But the technology has come a long way; these 2.2s had notorious turbo lag.
Interior design has come a long way too, thankfully. ‘Nuff said; not to my taste.
Lee Iaccoca meets the K car. And the results are inevitable.
My more detailed (and even more acerbic) CC on a 1985 New Yorker is here.
Nice find, Paul. I think I’d actually prefer a Fifth Avenue over this, even despite the difference in fuel efficiency. That’s interesting about the Carfax… didn’t these taillights make an appearance starting in ’86?
Good point. That Carfax year was from the front plate; probably the back one is the real one.
Maybe they replaced the front clip, along with its plate? 🙂
One of the more schizo cars of an admittedly schizo era. Who, In the market for this type of car wouldn’t just buy the M body? The traditional interior and the modern tech (for the time) seem aimed at opposing customers. On the license plate “privacy” issue, I never “got” that at all, There is nothing “private” about them! they are on the OUTSIDE of the car and by design meant to be easily seen!
I suspect the market for this car was old people who wanted something that handled a little better, had front wheel drive, and a little better gas mileage than a 5th Ave.
I’ve always kinda liked these cars, except for the rather top-heavy look with that too-thick C-pillar. This car looks good in white and I prefer the wheel covers on the front wheels. I would also have chosen a cloth interior as I’m not a fan of leather seats in any car.
I drove a borrowed, relatively new E-Class back in the day and would never buy a Chrysler product of any kind.
I’ve never seen a plate that didn’t have a state name on it, that is strange. And normally the rear plate would have the tags, not the front. In Washington state, once the car is 30 years old you can use an old plate that is correct for the year of the car, and get it registered as a classic car with no annual renewal (or tags) required. But you would put it on the back, a front plate is not required if registered as a classic. Otherwise front and rear plate is required. Or you can get a new classic car plate that is on the rear only with no annual renewal. But two different plates?
Knew Yorker! Perfect.
Those plates on the Chrysler are called Doug Fir Plates and the first debuted in 1988. Those earliest plates are usually quite worn out by now.
http://15q.net/or.html
I can just see the faded tree in the picture. Thanks for the link, I discovered from it I have an original 1986 license plate in my garage that I can use on my ’86 Jetta when I change it to classic registration next month!
It appears to have a CHMSL, which means it’s an 86 or newer.
Believe it or not , for a while there folks were having their classics ripped off shortly after they’d been shown in a magazine with the license tags showing .
This is not one of the K Cars I like but it did it’s job at the time .
-Nate
Which is why a good photographer has prop plates in their kit.
The plates also appear to have two different years for license plate stickers. The rear one appears to be current, with a 2017 validation, but the front one appears to be from 2003 (if I’m reading it correctly)!
Maybe someone had to replace the plates for some reason, but only replaced one of them? Seems illogical, but stranger things have happened.
I have a theory. This car smacked something (an elk?) and the owner simply pulled the front clip (plate and all) from the parts car he had in the backyard.
It wouldn’t surprise me if both plates were registered to the same person.
Yeah, but why stickers on the corners of a front plate?
That steering wheel was introduced in 1987, I believe.
The level of patchwork “engineering” on that door panel alone is insane. I’d like to hear the ergonomic argument for placing the power mirror control and door lock switches so close to the driver’s elbow.
We happened to spot a taupe 1983 LeBaron sedan cruising down the road on Saturday! First one in a long time. Not too shabby, but well-worn. Incidentally, earlier on the same road, we spotted a purple Prowler parked on a chicken factory lot – in the rain!
Must have been old Chrysler day. We loved ours back then.
It’s just sort of a guess/hypothesis(?) of mine, but I’ll bet at least a few people have been afraid of C.A.F.E. regulations getting tighter and tighter because they thought a car like this would be the result. That is, a largish “luxury” sedan pulled along by a 4 cylinder engine…..with or without a turbo to pump-up the (dismal, for today, anyway) horsepower. I mean, really, a top flight Chrysler sedan with LESS than 100 horsepower?
Thank heavens technology has come a long way in 30 years. Does anyone even sell a car in the U.S. market with double digit horsepower?
I think I would have prefered the Dodge “E” car over this, or the Chrysler Le Baron sedan over this in 198X.
I like the idea of a luxury sedan with a turboed engine, but it better be a 6 cylinder at the very least.
The Chevy Spark has a 98 hp 1.4L engine.
The MIrage has 70 IIRC.
Given the age of this car and the fact that it is basically not worth anything, the mismatched license plates would throw a flag to me if I were a cop. Something is amiss here.
This might have been a pretty nice little car (for what it was) with the 3.3 V6 mated to that 3 speed Torqueflite. Sadly, this platform got stuck with one bad (or at least not good) powertrain after another. At first, the engines were problematic. Then, when they finally got a good V6, it got mated to the ill-fated UltraDrive.
So, instead of being the 80s equivalent to the Lark Cruiser of the early 60s (an uninspiring but comfortable car with a great powertrain) it became like a modern Fiat with coachwork by Lido.
These were everywhere until some point in the mid ’90’s in Atlanta when they all disappeared at once. It looks hokey in retrospect, but when it was designed a few years before, it made sense. Gas prices were supposed to hit $4/gallon, which would have been the equivalent of $8-$10/gallon nowadays. There had been an oil crisis in ’73, and another one in ’79, so we would be due again in the early ’80’s. Everyone in 1979 thought that we would be driving some sub-Chevette three cylinder mini cars that wheezed 40 some horsepower and that the Standard American Formula of V8 RWD body on frame large sedan was dead and even an X car would be thought of as large. So the need for a small, efficient Car of the Future combined with the Standard American Luxury Formula of take a standard American car, like a Caprice/LTD, and put opera lamps, vinyl roof, power accessories, and some fancy upholstery on it and some sound deadening and extra chrome and there you go, luxury car.
The K car, and possibly something smaller, would be the Standard American Car of the future, so it made sense to glitz it up according to the standards of the day. The K car was certainly more reliable than its X/Tempaz competitors, roomier, cheaper, and more nicely finished than the Japanexe competition, and fairly sturdy and inexpensive to maintain, but not what one would call a delight to drive. They were rattly and fairly uncoordinated, with floppy suspensions. They were the kind of car that got used up and thrown away fairly quickly. An owner, confronted with a $500+ repair would probably move towards a new car.
My grandfather bought one of the early ’90’s new yorker/Fifth avenue fwd K based cars. These were surprisingly competent at satisfying their target market, who wanted a plush, roomy car with lots of buttons and technology features. FWD was a big selling feature in the ’80’s so older folks could feel “with it” while still enjoying nice quantities of traditional luxury, and the older folks were frequently impressed with technology features like electronic dashboards and talking cars, like the Riviera’s CRT. The car magazines hated it but the few buyers the car had loved it; it was a neat techno toy.
So this car fit the bill; it was inexpensive compared with anything else that was similarly trimmed; The 142 horses certainly beat whatever Cadillac was getting out of a 4300 lb 4100 powered deville; it looked and felt luxurious in trim and features; it got good mileage; and it felt up to date. Nobody else really offered anything comparable for a long time. The Continental went FWD but the less said about the 3.8 Essex and automatic the better and then the GM C/H bodies had a lot of problems at the beginning. In 1984, you could have done a lot worse.
Actually the only Cadillac that weighted 4300 LBS for 1986 onward was the full size full frame Brougham but that was equipped with either a 140 HP or 170 HP Olds 307 depending on if you got trailer tow or not. The downsized C-body Deville/Fleetwood competitors to this were under 3500 LBS in weight but only had 130 HP from the HT 4100 until 1988 when the power would go up with the 4.5. If anything I would say the Olds 98/Buick Electra were more the New Yorkers competitors and they were roomier, less gaudy sedans with 150 HP V6 engines, instead of anemic 99 HP 2.2 and turbo 142 HP 4 bangers, in the form of the Buick 3.8 so I would say advantage GM on this front. Neither car was noteworthy of stellar reliability but I had a 1985 Park Ave coupe and the Buick 3.8 and 440 transaxle were very reliable and went well over 130K with no issues.
I take it “car cloning” is not an issue in the US?
In the UK, it’s very common to see used car ads online where the seller has obscured the plate in case somebody “clones” it – ie someone with a stolen car of the same model and colour gets a copy of your plate to sell the car, or use it in an armed robbery etc etc.
If I understand correctly, the plate number stays with the car it’s entire life in the UK and parts of Europe. In America, the plates are changed every few years, with some variation per state.
When I moved from NY to Loisiana, the state of New York required that I return the NY plates which I shipped back via registered mail. Several weeks later, I received a “certificate” of surrender which I keep in a permanent file.
Also, once I sold the car six moths latter (the tin worm had come to the surface), the new LA plates had to be surrendered in order to complete the title change. This is Loisiana’s method to assure that auto insurance has been obtained before the car is re-registered by the new owner.
It varies from state to state.
In New Jersey, you see plates issued in the 1960s on new cars as all plates issued since 1959 are theoretically valid.
In the UK, the plate stays with the car for life, unless the it is taken as a personal (vanity) plate, and encodes the place of first registration.
Also, a UK plate since 1962 has the year of registration (therefore the age of the car) encoded into it, and this was changed annually until the late 1990s. The result was that something like 25% or more of private owner sales were on 1 Aug, when the code changed. A good spotting entertainment on summer holidays, but a messed up market.
Now these change on 1 March and again in 1 September, and the effect is much reduced but still there.
In France, you get a new registration when the car is resold or if you move from one department (equivalent to a US state or UK county) to another.
To add to what Chuck says, some states do not transfer plates when you sell a car – the old plate goes on the new car, staying with the sole owner of the plate.
And, yes, many states do change out plates every few years. I have a whole pile of old license plates. They make great bird cages for out in the yard.
I had that happen with the one new car I purchased in North Carolina–they just transferred the plates from my old car. All previous cars I bought there, dealership or private, got new plates. Not sure if it was a rule change or if it was an option that only some dealers exercised.
I haven’t lived in VA long enough, but NC never changed out plates–if you owned the same car for 20 years, you’d have a 20 year old plate on the car. If it faded to illegibility or was damaged or stolen, then new ones would be issued, but otherwise, it just got new stickers yearly. Of course, they’ve used the same plate design since the early 1980’s, other than a brief and ill-considered change of numeral color from blue to red a few years back. IIRC the police wanted the change as the red was higher visibility, but as it turned out, the red faded badly and quickly, so back to blue it went.
In New Zealand, the plate number stays with the car all it’s life if it’s a regular issue plate. The only plates that can be transferred are personalised plates – which belong to the person. For many years it was possible to look up a number plate and find the name and address of the owner of the car. This resulted in crooks seeing a desirable car, noting the number, looking it up, gain the address and then go and steal the car… This is why in NZ people often got tetchy about their car’s number plate appearing in magazines etc. So as a result, the public can still use the plate number to look up the make/model/specs of any cars, they can no no longer view or access any owner details.
To use a car on the road here, it needs to have current registration which is recorded against the plate number. Registration renewal notices are sent to the owner of the car the number plate (regular or personalised) is on. Once paid they receive a small plastic tag (roughly driver licence sized) to put on the windscreen and which displays the car’s number plate and expiry date.
Failure to pay registration for too long means the car is deregistered and the plates should be handed in (although they often aren’t). Likewise for cars that are deemed to be written-off by insurance companies.
Car cloning is harder in New Zealand as it’s not generally possible to get a regular-issue number plate remanufactured. If you lose one, you have to get a new set with a new number (or pay a small fortune and get the original number personalised as replacement personalised plates are permissable). Unlike the UK, only one approved manufacturer is allowed to make number plates (both regular issue and personalised) and only to an approved specification for colour / font / size etc.
Lately a few owners of classic cars registered in New Zealand with NZ plates, have had other plates made with the NZ number but in the style of the car’s origin country (eg I’d like wide UK-style plates on my UK-import Ford Sierra to highlight the fact it isn’t a run-of-the-mill NZ-new Sierra). And other owners, who have classics that were imported with their origin-country plates, have bought a personalised plate with that number, but then left the origin-country plates on – as the number itself is correct but the plate format won’t be. The (fun) police have been publicising the illegality of both these things lately, and have been happily confiscating any plates that aren’t issued by the approved supplier.
Can anyone think of a more over-stretched platform than the K-series? Here it is with its four banger engine, small centre section and lack of width dressed up to compete with Sevilles and Park Avenues. This would be akin to asking a Chrysler 200 to compete with the E-class by adding a longer bonnet and boot.
The interior is cherishably vile. It seems Detroit was inspired by Victorian furniture. Only a decade before the Italians were inspired by avant garde furniture (Lancia’s Gamma coupe and Trevi saloon). The Germans were referring to industrial design and the Japanese plouughed their own unique furrow. So where did the Chesterfield buttons, red velvet and marquetry come from? Rolls Royce? I’d love to have seen the designers’ mood boards.
The “tuffed pillow” motif was common in American luxury sedans (Oldsmobile 98, Cadillac Fleetwood Broughams, and Of course Chrylser products) of the 1970s, and this was a New Yorker, In essence it was the old “New Yorker” (and contemporary Fifth Avenue) interior squeezed into a “K” car. The styling is strictly American, Rolls Royce interiors were rather subdued by comparison!
The leather seats in the 30 year old Chrysler are in better shape than the ones in my 4 year old Ford Escape!!
Maybe “Lido” had a secret formula for leather seats which he kept in his bag of tricks when he left Ford for Chrysler.?????
Iacocca inherited that leather from the old regime at Chrysler. It was Soft. And Rich. From Corinth.
I do know that during that time frame (1985-86), the best selling Chrysler was the “big” RWD M-body Fifth Avenue. That car was based on the 1976 vintage Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare. By the mid 1980s, the bugs were worked out of that platform and the tried & true Mopar 318 V8/TorqueFlite powertrain was tough as nails.
In the early-mid ’90’s, we had an ’87 New Yorker NON-turbo. Burgundy with the matching velour interior. It served us well as a family car. Well enough that when the mechanic suggested we have the engine rebuilt, we did. And when the trans went out of everything except reverse, we had THAT rebuilt too.
No, it wasn’t exciting. Or all that pretty, especially when the paint started de-laminating.
But we owned it from 1992 to 1998 or so, and put a bunch of miles on the thing.
The middle-school-aged kids were vastly amused by the talking computer voice. One of their favorite things to do was shout “No, it’s a door!” when the car would announce “A door is ajar”…
such nice interiors – headrests for rear passengers etc – is it real leather on the door panels?
I believe It was on the “M” bodies, So I assume so on the “K”s
nice touch on a lower end car
It’s vinyl.
I agree with being confounded as to why people want licence plates to be blanked out. “Oh no, someone’s going to run my plate!!!”. And then do what? Light a bag of dogshit on their front step or something?
Are you able to do that? I have tried to run my plates for fun in Ontario with no luck
I never understood why people blank out plates. I now know a couple possible reasons but I still concur with paul. whatever “evil” that can be done, can be done by the guy down the street just as easily as someone looking at an online picture.
lol…besides, if someone is that desperate for a 20 yr old jeep with 300,000km on it to track me down by my license plate take it you probably need it more than me!
“Lee Iaccoca meets the K car. And the results are inevitable”
Pretty neat summary 😉
I don’t know, maybe I’ve said this before, but I really detest cheap wheel covers. I’d rather see black steelies in the middle of summer than someone hobble around with those flimsy things. Ugh.
Here’s an example of a real degrading sight of a flipped over Ford Crown Victoria wearing cheap wheel covers in the 2009-2011 television series, “V”: Season 2, Episode ‘Laid Bare.’ At least Hobbes finally takes the poor car out of its misery in the end.
Naughty aliens.
(source: my own handiwork snipped from DVD, Warner Bros, etc)
If that back plate is Kendall Ford, that is in Eugene, OR. But you knew that already.
If it’s Randall Ford, it is in Arkansas.
That front plate is anybody’s guess.
I never though a New Yorker name should have been bestowed on a moderately upsized K car chassis. For shame, Chrysler. A New Yorker had to have been on at least a Cordoba (Aspenlare) chassis.
Brandan Saur’s writeup is here with some sales numbers:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1986-chrysler-new-yorker-just-a-little-off-broadway-production/
K-Cars and their various derivatives, can often appear significantly better looking with larger tires and modern alloys.
Very nice.
True of many older cars. I often found many cars of the 80s and 90s let down by their hilariously small wheels with balloon tires.
Here is my 1995 Taurus with 2017ish Focus 17″ alloys. They weren’t my first choice, but they came up, were off a virtually new car, and they do look great IMO. I often think they would look better on a first generation Taurus LX.
Attractively done. You’ve nicely updated and freshened the already timeless and clean design of the original Taurus.Still better looking than many modern cars.
Thank you!
Those were very good looking cars anyway, and still are IMO (not that I’ve seen one in ages – I live in the NE now). No one would suspect where the platform was from if they didn’t know.
The mismatched wheel cover set takes me back to the 90s, and my old VW Golf, which had thrown both front covers. Somewhere in my travels I saw a shop that specialized in wheel covers, and, on impulse, decided to give my car a treat. They didn’t have any exact matches, and I didn’t want to buy four. As I briefly agonized over which of their stock was close enough, the employee, a more creative thinker than I was in the moment, suggested placing the new ones on the same side of the car rather than on the front. I’m not recalling whether I actually did that, but it was a cool idea. This car might have looked better if the owner went to the same place I did.
That is how I did it! Two of the same caps on the same side. Can’t see both sides at the same time!
The front wheel in the last pic does look at first glance like a larger alloy wheel, only on closer look do I realize it’s just a faded whitewall tire surrounding a generic wheel cover.
Had I not been a kid in the mid 80s and found myself at a MOPAR dealer, I’d probably have chosen a Daytona or something like a Lancer/LeBaron for my Turbo K car pleasure. Hell I’d drive a decent Daytona today.
This just isn’t my cup of tea, I can’t imagine myself enjoying it. My brief time in similar cars didn’t change my mind. Give me a loaded Olds Cutlass Ciera over this any day.
An ’87 Lebaron four door sedan would have rivalled the looks of the Taurus. And certainly exceeded what GM was offering.
Hmmm…. visible licence plates…… A lot of older / dilapidated cars appear on articles here so the writer can start ripping on it, either for its condition and/or the alleged dubious engineering/aesthetics/ appearance of it.
If my cars were to appear here, they’d get the same treatment. From the GM Deadly Sins, to my Continental, 70’s Fords, Northstar caddy and 68 Thunderbird, CC has not been kind to my choices of transportation.
Now, that’s fine, everyone has an opinion. But I wouldn’t want my plate to be visible on my car if it were posted here and held up for judgment, I’d be too embarrassed! Lol.
The “pull handle” on the drivers door inside is still attached?? Amazing. Since the wheel covers are not accurate, the front ones at least look good.
Had the “Plymouth Caravelle” version of this body.Bought new in “July 1988′.
Car was a quiet/powerful//roomy. Handsome looker.
Build quality was abysmal. Had a fair bit of ‘warranty work” done but car was just too much headache to keep.
Traded in 90 with “soo few” miles on it.. Think i may still be experiencing that $$ hit all these years later..lol
The mismatched hubcaps are there to signify its two different cars nailed together same with the mismatched plates its one from eitrher car used to create it, Having turned 6 cars into one building my previous classic Hillman I like the idea though not the car itself You guys have showed me too many of these K cars from basic to blinged beyond repair.