(first posted 7/8/2015) To say that the M-bodies were something of an unexpected success for Chrysler is an understatement. Introduced for the 1977 model year, the heavily F-body-based (Aspen/Volaré) would continue production, largely unchanged through 1989. As a matter of fact, many people probably couldn’t even see Chrysler existing twelve years in the future, when the M-body was first introduced.
Yet, in a unexpected twist of faith, after Chrysler had axed all of its other rear-wheel drive and large cars, fuel prices began subsiding. Despite the automaker’s equally unexpected comeback thanks to its front-wheel drive K-cars, Chrysler’s sole remaining rear-wheel drive platform, the M-body, still had reason to exist.
With rear-wheel drive, rear leaf suspension, and available 318-inch V8 power, the durable and proven M-bodies were popular with many police fleets around the country. Chevy and Ford of course, by now ruled the law enforcement segment, but there were still many districts that had long pledged allegiance to Mopar, and as a result, the Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Gran Fury saw continued production in familiar form.
“Civilian” M-bodies would largely be sold as the Chrysler Fifth Avenue (née New Yorker Fifth Avenue, New Yorker, and LeBaron). With its capped “formal” vinyl quarter roof, waterfall grille, fender louvers, wire or turbine wheels, and button-tufted loose pillow interior with available Corinthian Leather, the premium-priced Fifth Avenue was oddly enough the best overall seller by far.
Not that Chrysler had any objections to this. With tooling and development costs paid off long ago, all M-body sales were pure profit for Chrysler, so the more overpriced Fifth Avenues that were sold, the better. Additionally, after 1982, changes to the M-body were essentially nonexistent. Styling, interiors, powertrain, and features remained virtually frozen in time up until midway through 1988, when all M-bodies gained a driver’s side airbag.
The Gran Fury and Diplomat were, however, still available to the general public, not that many people besides die-hard Mopar fans and/or those seeking a car with “traditional” virtues bought them. Dodge would gain the slightly more upscale Diplomat SE, which externally shared the Fifth Avenue’s more formal front clip, in addition to a full-vinyl non-padded roof, premium wheel options, and velour seating with a 60/40 split-front bench.
Plymouth, on the other hand, would have to make due with the “standard” M-body front fascia for its top-of-the-line Gran Fury. Other that this, the Plymouth could be equipped just as generously as the Dodge, although there was no separate trim level and just individual options. Gran Fury and Diplomat sedans, however, were rarely this fully spec’d out by the several thousand private customers who were buying them annually by the late-1980s.
This 1987 Plymouth Gran Fury Salon (by this point, all Gran Furys sported the “Salon” prefix in marketing material) is equipped with the available full-vinyl roof, wire wheel discs, air conditioning, and power windows, but features the standard cloth interior with non-divided front bench seat. It also is powered by the tried-and-true carbureted 318-inch V8 mated to a TorqueFlite 3-speed automatic transmission.
With only 38,000 miles on the clock, this likely senior-driven Gran Fury might just be the best-preserved “civilian” M-body Plymouth left. Its existence is a true testament to the M-body’s venerability, as well as proof that there were indeed still a few buyers left out there looking for a big Plymouth that wasn’t totally devoid of creature comforts.
Your article is wrong. It was NOT body on frame. It was unitized. Unibody in Chrysler speak.
Oh phew, I couldn’t read the rest of this article until I saw this fundamental F&M faux-pas corrected in the reply section… and here it is. That was quick. Okay, now I can read on.
A little harsh and absolutist turkey, otherwise, great article anyway Brendan!!! Love the M!
Fixed.
That said, there is no reason to call the entire article wrong over one mistake.
Thanks Jason! Sometimes a detail slips the mind 🙂
Articles are serious business! How DARE you make one little error!!!
I agree, I had a friend who had a Caravelle M-body in Vancouver, It whetted my auto-appetite for a Fifth Avenue or Gran Fury that is if I could find one. Most of those “M’s” ended up in Japan, Finland or Brazil, but that won’t stop me from finding a good one and adding them to my “car-posse!” There’s NOTHING about the M’s that a good set of Yokohamas can’t add, too…
Likely VERY senior-driven, judging by the elastic steering wheel cover. Haven’t seen one of those since my Dad’s ’48 Dodge. The cover helped on those old Bakelite wheels, which were slippery and hot and cracked. You could burn or cut your fingers without the cover.
On a modern slightly-soft non-slippery cool wheel, the cover would just get in the way.
Here in upstate NY, Chevy’s and Ford’s were not a common sight among police agencies until the very late 80’s. Diplomats ruled the roost around here. Better handling and maybe an mpg or two better in fuel mileage. Some departments would put a hotter cam in that 318 for pursuit cars. Ford CV’s were exceptionally rare to see around here until 1989 or so, and Caprices tended to be a bit more popular with city departments (I’m assuming for the beefed up suspension to better handle lousy city streets). One department actually used 82/83 Malibus,but they were gone in a fairly short time. Chrysler primarily held this market all the way til the end. Loyalty indeed. A testament even after the R-body mess.
Would have made good Valiants, had Chrysler Australia survived beyond 1981.
They would have, and I think they would have done very well too. There was, and still is, a market niche for American style full size cars in Australasia that nobody was filling after 1981, as both Ford and Holden had gone Euro style with the Falcon and Commodore respectively.
I suspect the only thing stopping them would have been the cost of reengineering these for right hand drive production, although from what I can see of the dash that would not have been too difficult to reconfigure. Had they made that investment, they could have sold these (especially the New Yorkers with full bordello interiors) right through to the early 90’s not only into the Australian market but also New Zealand, and the RHD Asian markets (Hong Kong, Japan, couple of other places I cant recall off hand)
These are fantastic looking cars, and I would be quite happy in one
The Plymouth versions of the M were scarce even when new. I agree on this one being equipped oddly; the bench seat seems rather out of step with the rest of the car. It likely has that horrible 2.24:1 rear axle ratio.
I’m not one to alter cars too much, but I would be tempted to do so with this one. Dumping that rear axle for one from a four-barrel police unit would net the 2.94:1 axle and installation of a four-speed automatic from a late ’80s or early ’90s Dodge pickup would wake this girl up. I would also likely have a little loving attention to the engine as it can easily make more than its advertised 135 or 140 horsepower.
My first ownership experience with an M-body was with an ’86 Gran Fury. Truly wonderful car that is one of the few I’ve missed after selling it.
There are many, many modifications that can be made to make the M-body more modern and a better daily driver in today’s traffic.
http://www.dippy.org/
Dan, I haven’t thought of that site in quite a while.
You might like the link below. It is pictures of my 1981 LeBaron A38 police package car that I posted there back in 2000. That car is long gone from me, but it’s the one I was going to amplify.
http://dippy.org/photo/csib/index.html
I like that link, never heard of dippy.org before. Another marvelous way to make time pass even faster…
I enjoyed the pictures of your car, especially the way the vinyl seat seems to have confirmed itself to your anatomy… 🙂 No, seriously, I can’t recall the last time I saw a bench seat like that, just kind of like a flat pillow covered by a solid sheet of vinyl. Sort of like the back seat of many big-city taxis.
Ever put on a well used pair of gloves that fit perfectly? That’s rather how the seat was on this Chrysler. It always struck me as so bi-polar on such taxi level seats were in a Chrysler brand car.
It was rough around the edges, but it was incredibly rare as it was a one year only thing from Chrysler. Rare doesn’t always equate to valuable.
I’m beginning to understand the people that when they are done with a car (or the car itself is done, period), they just push it to a corner of their barn or lot and leave it there. Cars that give great service in one way or another but are not valuable enough to sell but have a certain something about them to that particular owner.
I would also be tempted to duplicate the cream-colored Corinthian Leather split bench seats of the R-body Fifth Avenue. With some electric seat motors and frames, I’m sure a good upholsterer could make it happen.
The modification that changes the entire driving characteristic of the car is a rear anti-roll bar, such as was on the police packages. You can probably get the parts from a junked police car. A somewhat different but equally effective one has been sold by ADDCO in Florida for many years…still available. Its hardware is not as rugged as the police version but is OK, and you can retain the rubber isolators on the leaf springs.
It transforms the car (any F- or M-Body, actually) from a heavily understeering barge into an agile handler. Unless you already have an ex-police sample, that is!
Hopping up the 318 is simple and easy.
I agree, without anti-roll bar on rear, the handling is highly compromised.
I would imagine the power windows were optional too. I still have a minor hankering for one of rhese. Jason’s suggestions would turn it into a really nice driver.
Someone needs to put a wrench on those front torsion bars to raise the ride height just a bit.
There are some things about the Chrysler M platform that have always intrigued me:
• As unreliable as the Volaré/Aspen was, these were utterly reliable.
• AMC started building these under contract for Chrysler for the last few model years, and shortly after production began at Kenosha, Chrysler bought AMC.
• A driver’s airbag was added for the final model year (1989), which hardly seemed worth the expense.
• That airbag was one of the first, if not the first, to be mounted to a tilt steering column.
• The more expensive, upscale version of the platform handily outsold the lower-priced versions.
• Even when new, it seemed that the owners’ average age was measured in centuries, not years.
That said, these were nicely built and finished, if not particularly refined. I always wished that Chrysler had refined this platform a bit further, with some pseudo-European styling, to create an American version of the Monteverdi Sierra.
I had also heard somewhere that when Chrysler surveyed the owners of Fifth Avenues they found that their average income was quite a bit higher than they had anticipated.
It’s similar to Crown Vic and B-body owners…TTAC or CC did a profile on the Roadmaster Wagon. Someone said these 5ths and the Roadmasters/Custom Cruisers were in tons of suburban driveways in Upper Arlington/Dublin (nice Columbus suburbs).
People with money, but not flash. Same with the 5ths. Even the downsized M-body was a good successor to the R- and B-bodies.
Regarding AMC and Chrysler:
– The AMC assembled Fifth Avenues were consistently judged, by Chrysler, to have the highest build quality of the model run.
– Even with the cost of transferring the Chrysler assembly equipment to AMC’s Kenosha plant and paying AMC a fee ($500 per car?) above and beyond all manufacturing costs Chrysler was still making high profits on this car.
– I’ve read that some believe this Chrysler and AMC manufacturing relationship was a key element, among others, in facilitating the relatively easy Chrysler purchase of AMC. With that said, its not a stretch to suggest that AMC, with its exceptional management team, was a critical part of the revitalization of Chrysler for the better part of the next 10 years.
Francois Castaing, who was with AMC prior to the merger/acquisition, was a key player in the development of the Cab Forward platform (Concorde, Intrepid).
Don’t forget the lack of fuel injection. That was always the head scratcher for me. Mother Mopar put fuel injected engines into Omni’s and K cars which were much cheaper then the Fifth Avenue but allowed the car to be stuck with a carb until it was killed off.
Good point, especially since the trucks got the 318 with throttle-body injection in ’88.
Makes you wonder if Chrysler was gun-shy about taking any chances with its more conservative luxury car buyers, especially after the fuel injection debacle of the ’81 to ’83 Imperial.
You bring up a great point about the troublesome FI in the Imperial. However by the mid 1980’s Chrysler had come out with reliable fuel injected engines(the K cars were felled by crappy transmissions and head gasket issues on the 2.2l and 2.5l but none were felled by the fuel injection system) and could have tried to offer it. Especially since Ford was using it in the LTD Crown Vic/Grand Marquis/all Lincolns by 1984 and GM finally offered a FI V6 in the B body Caprice in 1985 and a FI V8 in it in 1989.
Even today, looking at the pictures here, I’m hard pressed to see the differences between a Diplomat and a Grand Fury. If I was buying one of these it would have to be ONLY the Chrysler.
The differences between the Gran Fury and Diplomat are minute and one has to be pretty observant to comprehend them.
A Diplomat grille has black trim whereas the Gran Fury grille does not. Of course one grille says “Plymouth” and the other says “Dodge” across the top. At the rear, the Diplomat also had black trim around the tail light lenses and the Gran Fury had the same lighter silver color seen on the grille.
Friends of my parents purchased a Diplomat wagon new and kept it for quite a while. They were not happy about the “G” being placed upside down on the tailgate and wrote Lee Iacocca several letters regarding quality and workmanship. However, the car was as mechanically reliable as the sun.
Looks like you beat me to it. Good eyes! Even I’ve never noticed these differences.
Hands down the details on the Plymouth make it the clear winner over the Dodge! 😉
If you have to get your M body “fix”, there are 1/24th scale models of the Diplomat and even a LeBaron M Body wagon with simulated wood sides available.
One of the career fields I considered after retiring from the Navy was with the Okla. State Bureau of Investigation. The parking lot was full of these (Plymouth). Guess they had it over chev/ford for some reason. Also, an older couple (he retired from Chrysler) drove the chrysler forever.
I could have been convinced to drive one of these.
My guess is that Chrysler’s fleet pricing on these made them competitive with the Ford and GM products. Both the Ford and Chevy large rwd cars were larger and more fuel efficient.
My Dad had a green Chrysler. After a partial drivetrain replacement early on due to a manufacturing glitch, it was very reliable and very comfortable. These always looked like they took a page from the first generation Seville styling brief.
There is one reason that police bought Chrysler over the GM and Ford offerings is price. A few years ago when the Crown Vic was still around my friend who is the head of the city shops at a local city could purchase a Hemi Charger for ~$22k and a Crown Vic was ~$26k. Of course many depts stopped buying the Charger because of the cost of ownership and down time is the worst of any of the available police cars. Even the Tahoe costs less to feed is why they became so popular along with the greater space.
Great article, Brendan. It was a little bit of name-redemption that Plymouth was able to use “Salon” in a better context than Oldsmobile did with their hideous slope-backed Cutlasses. While I like the Gran Fury of the 80’s, I preferred the styling of the original Volaré on which the M-body was based and also rued that there never any Gran Fury coupes.
I think M-Body is more practical to keep than earlier F-Body. The redesigned grill is much more durable and it wouldn’t be hit frequently by the hood ( if the fit and finish is compromised ) and different vinyl roof pattern makes water harder to leak in. The extra chrome edging protects the left quarter panel quite a bit better, and they used better materials for nearly everything. ( F-Body has thinner panels, and it was easier to rust anywhere. Plastic buttons on F-Body are quite cheap and fragile, while M-Body gets the metal switches and buttons on AC/heater. Right mirror is more common on M-body too, and rain water wouldn’t wash away the paint around taillights )
Common parts are much cheaper for M-Body too, the grill alone on F-Body is $200 at least!
I’m not a fan of the color scheme and vinyl top on this car, but I could see myself driving one of these. Painted top, smooth base model wheelcovers, pencil whitewall tires, dark gray or blue paint, massaged 318 to give it a little more kick, and we’d be off and running.
The more basic ones give off an AMC vibe…boxy, simple, low key. The 5th Ave is way too flashy for my taste, and the boudoir interior is just tacky.
I love these cars. There is a local dealer that specializes in vintage Mopar products. I was there last week and took a ton of pictures. I am hoping to compile a nice write-up soon. While I was there I saw a very rare sight. It was a 1980 LeBaron with the Fifth Avenue package. I never knew these existed! It was a 50,000 mile car in superb condition, too.
Where’s this dealer? You’re in Rhode Island, right?
Hi Brendan, the dealer is in Wakefield, RI. You would not believe what he has there!
Thanks Tom! I may have to take a little trip down this Saturday. It looks like they have R-bodies!
There are actually two R-bodies there. One is a 1979 Fifth Avenue in the popular cream with cream leather. The other is a rare 1981 Fifth Avenue in two-tone bronze over brown with brown leather interior and the rare factory road wheels. They have a few Cordobas, a Town and Country Wagon with leather interior, a beautiful 1977 New Yorker and some awesome 300’s. It is like stepping on the lot of a Chrysler dealer in the 70’s – 80’s!! Definitely worth the trip!!
Here is another shot.
It was strange to see the Fifth Avenue roof treatment on a LeBaron!
That is one rare front grille!!
And lastly an interior shot -wish it wasn’t so dark!
As a kid I was always fascinated and impressed with my Grandparent’s Fifth Avenue. The cushy seats, the silver and chrome dash. It had great presence.
When I was a bit older I ended up driving it 90 or so miles for some reason I can’t quite remember, and it was utterly disappointing. Power, ride, and handling were all underwhelming. It just didn’t feel nearly as premium as it looked.
I’m betting the Gran Fury was a better fit on this platform.
Clean handsome car in some ways, but I’m not sure that anything does a better job of representing the Generic American Sedan for 1980.
I used to mentally attach appropriate design cues to make these more individual as Plymouths and Dodges. An automotive blank slate.
The world had changed when these were sold – always hidden at the back of the brochure dispite being for a time the physically largest cars and the only V-8s in Mopar’s brands. Little wonder that buyers eventually began running for mini-vans, SUVs and trucks in droves.
Ahhh, the memories that instrument panel brings back! It was by far (in my opinion,anyway) the best panel coming out of Detroit at the time. The Diplomat also have by far the best seating positing. The seat was high, no doubt due to the unibody, and much more comfortable than anything else of the era. The materials in the interior were also best in class, which is why they have lasted so long in this sample car.
Downsides? The K members on these cars broke a lot, especially on the early ones. The later ones were a lot better. The worst part of these cars was the Queen Mary turning circle, a terrible detriment in a taxi. Every U-turn was a three point turn.
I’d seriously consider one of these if gas mileage wasnt a concern, , they don’t draw the B-Body/Panther hoards so you can still get them in decent shape for not that much dough.
Back in the mid-1990s we got a nice blue ’86 Chrysler Fifth Avenue for my mom. She owned it for less than a month. Just when I finished sorting it out for her, doing a few minor repairs, changing the oil, the tires, all the belts and hoses, cleaning and detailing everything… it got stolen. Every time I see another one like it, I still get upset.
As I said when this car appeared on That Hartford Guy’s Flickr stream, this car has been seasoned with just the right amount of Brougham Sauce. Enough that it doesn’t look like a cop car, but it hasn’t been doused to the point of swimming in it like the Fifth Ave.
Outside, that is; it could do with a bit plusher interior. I like the one in that ’80 LeBaron, but in the feature car’s golden tan color.
Instead of putting Plymouth out to pasture, I think it would have made a good commercial, fleet, geezer division. Let Chrysler and Dodge chase the mainstream market and let Plymouth be the cop car, taxi, fleet division. A lot of people I know wouldn’t buy a Crown Victoria because they didn’t want to look like a cop/taxi, so they bought a Grand Marquis instead. It helps to keep the more premium divisions more exclusive.
Make it lite blue with a dark blue top and interior…and an ’85 model…then this car would be the spitting image of one that was on the list of craig for $2500. It was a one owner ‘gramma driven’ car per the ad, with 116K miles. Clearly, it was part of an estate, or the gramma couldn’t drive anymore so her kids or grandkids just wanted to unload this old ass hooptie. When the price got down to $1500, I started getting bright ideas. A sedan… ME? Surely not! But again, that’s ludicrous cheap for a roadtrip barge. It DOES look like an undercover cop car for obvious reasons. 318’s are easy to hop up and parts abound. A pair of long Cherry Bombs, dark tint, and some Cragar SS’s or Mopar cop car wheels would give it some attitude…serious sleeper, even. Hmmmm…. When the price hit $850 I said dammit that’s practically a free car! Its immaculate! No, sir…it was gone.
Ever since Ive been keeping an eye peeled for one of these. Why would I want a sedan in the first place, I cant explain. But these cars have grown on me since this huge missed opportunity. As a cheap outlet for my hotrodding tendencies, this seems a no brainer. A few cop spec guts in one and I can even go around quoting Elwood’s pitch of the Bluesmobile. In fact, didn’t Frank Drebin have one of these in Naked Gun? I know he had a Caprice and maybe a CV too, but Im pretty sure he had a Dippy/Fury for a few scenes. Or maybe Ed did.
They are great road trip cars. I took a factory LPG equipped 318 cop car to Banff AB and back from Vancouver, and the car was great. Reasonable power for the time, smooth ride and really good road holding and an excellent seat/control relationships, besides being dirt cheap to run. Of all the American sleds of the era the only one I was really comfortable in for a long time was an M body.
Super easy to hop up and the Torqueflite can take quite a bit more with no complaints and who cars about gas on a $2000 car anyway!
Too bad you didn’t get it, but with cream-puffs, you gotta pull out the dough right away, he would have taken a grand for it!
MPG ratings on these vary wildly. Ive heard claims in the mid-20s out on the open road. With an uncorked exhaust, a more efficient carburetor a fresh tuneup, and a K&N air filter I dont see why its not possible.
As to the TF trannys, many civilian models had the lesser units like the 909. Not a ‘bad’ trans by any means but the 727 is what you want. The rear axle couldve been the smaller one…7 1/4 I think. With just a 318 and some bolt on goodies I dont see either as being a particularly weak link.
One change I remember on these came at the end of 1984 when Carter quit making OEM carburetors. The ‘police’ option cars went from the Thermo-Quad to the Rochester Quadrajet, the civilian versions dropped the Carter BBD and adopted a small Holley 2bbl..
When there were cars like the New Yorker and the H/J-body LeBaron from the same era, it’s hard to believe that these were produced until 1990. The design cues would place this car into the late-70s, early-80s era for those who wouldn’t know better–the old serif Plymouth logo splayed on the front grille and how the grille flows under the bottom of the headlights, exposed windshield wipers, a dated interior and dash geared more to the 1970s.
It’s also hard to believe this was the last full size rear-wheel drive sedan from Chrysler until the LX 300, Magnum and Charger. In the back of my mind, I always thought of the LX Chrysler 300 as the modern-day Fifth Avenue and the Charger a modern-day Diplomat.
Nevertheless, this is a keeper. I was not even out of diapers when these disappeared. I see two or three about every year and they always look and run rough due to a lack of maintenance.
These Lean-Burn emission system equipped cars were often quite cranky driveability-wise. They also had a very distinctive intake roar when the cops opened them up. I can still hear them……
I think these also came with some power train warranty that exceeded the others in the class.
I always liked their looks even though they really were pretenders to being large cars. They drew me in just because they seemed barely related to anything else Chrysler made…there is nothing reminiscent of the Reliant, Caravan, or Eagle in this machine…and it lasted through a large part of the Iacocca years nonetheless.
I keep coming back to it again and again, but this is why I love 1980s cars. Other than muscle cars, there pretty much was a model available to suit anyone’s taste. And highways were a smorgasbord of such widely varying tastes. I can’t begin to say how much I miss that; it’s that diverse landscape that got me into cars.
That’s actually pretty nice. Having driven a 1978 Le Baron, though, I know it is completely devoid of any dynamics. Just a bare transportation appliance. Still nice, though. Would take it over a Century or anything else GM was throwing loosely together at the time. Chrysler probably had plenty of time to get these buttoned down by 1987.
The owner of a local service station always drove Lincoln Continentals prior to 1981, then Town Cars. For whatever reason, he switched to a Fifth Avenue in 1984 and, drinking his daily morning coffee, spilled it on himself going over railroad tracks because the car didn’t absorb the bumps as well as his Lincolns always had. Back to Lincolns it was all the way until his death.
When these Gran Furys first came out, I was a bit underwhelmed by them compared to the ’67 Sport Fury I was driving, but now that I’m probably in the age bracket of its target audience, I’d drive one now happily, checking some option boxes, one for vinyl top delete, another to get upgraded front seats because that non split bench seat isn’t going to cut for me on a long trip. I’d be looking to add a rear sway bar as well. For a few years, I drove an J-body 1980 Cordoba and one of the two best things I did to it was installing the Addco rear sway bar, the other dropping in a rebuilt .030 over 1970 318 my dad and I did for my by then deceased ’67 Sport Fury. Don’t know what the rear axle was on the Cordoba was but it was a good highway cruiser with the upgraded 318 and the sway bar in the back made it a lot more fun to drive.Kind of wish the Cordoba/Miradas had survived as long as the M sedans did.
There was a mention of the a small Holley 2bbl carb in the later M’s. That’s probably either a Holley 2280 or possibly a 6280 if it’s hooked up to the Electronic Spark Control or whatever they called it by then. My ’79 St. Regis has a Holley 2280 on it I suspect by the original owner when he deleted the Lean Burn. It’s a good carburetor, easy to rebuild. I have no complaints about power or gas mileage with it. I couldn’t say that about the BBD my Cordoba came with, nor matter how many times the carb had been gone over or replaced outright. I’d consider the Holley on a late Gran Fury/Diplomat/Fifth Avenue to be an improvement.
These and their brethren are another vehicle demographic that I often considered
purchasing back when mint condition ones were available for a pittance. I have mild regret
that the desire was never fulfilled, as it would have been pleasant to ride around in a
mildly modified example. My pick would have been a stripper police spec Gran Fury with
the 360, a combination that is somewhat pricey today.
The 360 with Magnum heads, I believe, was tested in some Diplomats in the late ’80s in New York state (Putnam County). I’d love to know how much faster they were versus the 318s with the 4-bbl.
Diplomats were slow off the line with the 318-4v but had decent top speeds of 120 mph!
Having grown up in Putnam County in the late 80’s, I can only say I never drove a car fast enough to test the two engines. Our local PD drove Panthers if I recall correctly.
Thank you for clarifying it! I pulled that from an AllPar story I read years about about Putnam County (N.Y.) with green and tan police cars, and they were fast M-Bodies (allegedly) in that area. The vehicles were the Sherriff vehicles actually, not Putnam County, so thank you for correcting me. Here’s the story:
https://www.allpar.com/threads/the-dodge-diplomat-plymouth-gran-fury.229129/
Dennis O’Connor wrote: These cars were also used by New York County Sheriffs departments. At the time, late 1980s and early 1990s, I was part of a drum and bugle corps that marched all over Putnam County and adjoining counties. The cruisers were nice looking (white with green and tan markings) and very fast with great handling. I saw several on the two lane state roads that were their stomping ground (versus NY State Police on the Interstates) in full pursuit/response mode and they were unreal. Those were not 318s for sure and they cornered far better than my much improved Camaro from that time. Whenever I got to talk to a deputy about the cars they said they loved them and only smiled when asked details like engine size.
No, Not all police cars but if any were bought by people under 60 years old, that was an anomaly!
Interesting that the year when this article first appeared, Better Call Saul had just premiered, so the connection between the M-body Fifth Avenue and Mike Ehrmantrout hadn’t yet been established (seems like he drove a Buick in Breaking Bad).
With that said, I can’t see an M-body Fifth Avenue, today, without thinking about the world’s most dangerous senior citizen driving one.
My mind went straight to Mike Ehrmantrout too.
Turns out there’s an EXCELLENT Breaking Bad Wiki with a thread on the cars featured in both shows. The Buick was apparently Mike’s second car . . . .
https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/1988_Chrysler_Fifth_Avenue
https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/1992_Buick_LeSabre
Haven’t seen the show in a while, but I wonder if there’s an episode that shows what happened to Mike’s Fifth Avenue.
When the M-body first arrived in mid-1977 (as the Dodge Diplomat, Chrysler LeBaron, and in Canada the Plymouth Caravelle), they were very much regarded as civilian cars and were heavily advertised. Cops? They still could get a real full-size car with any of Chrysler’s C bodies or the mid-sized B bodies. By 1979 both of those had been replaced by the R-body sedans which split the difference in size. It wasn’t until the big R body was dropped in mid-1981 that the M became a common police car; I’ve long thought R body sales would have recovered had they kept them around, just as their GM and Ford competition did after a slow 1980-81 due to recession and high gas prices.
Grandad replaced a 68 912(!) with a Diplomat. Pretty well screwed together, but pig-slow. He DID add a CB, so there’s that.
I just got this 1988 granfury Plymouth salon style it is nice
Another shot
nice cars in the 80s my mom had a 1980 dodge diplomat 2 door stype very rare I loved driving it
I had 3 Chrysler fifth avenues one of which was used in real stories of the highway patrol 1982 burgundy I loved that car
the link is where my car was used