Note: None of the pictures here are of the actual car. This is the same color combo as mine.
When the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon first came to market in 1978, they were so popular that you either paid sticker price or you didn’t buy one. Front wheel drive, highly space efficient, and cheap to run. What was not to like. I did resist until my previous car, a 1976 Aspen wagon, was going into the final phase of its life. One day, a co-worker mentioned that his neighbor was going to sell his 1979 Dodge Omni and that the price was reasonable with only 60,000 miles. So, into the pool I jumped.
The Dodge Omni was marketed as a car that could do everything well. It had a roomy interior with well laid out controls. The rear seat could be folded down for increased storage capacity. It was light and got great fuel economy. The picture below shows the great space efficiency of the L-body design. When you compared the Omni to the Chevy Chevette, there was no contest. The Chevette felt cramped, under powered, and had minimal storage space.
On the down side, the lift over height for the hatch made putting things inside difficult. The body was tight, but you knew it was a cheap car when going over bumps in the pavement. The basic suspension design came from the european Horizon/Simca, and was quite good overall. It would form the basis for the upcoming K-cars and minivans.
My particular car had an automatic transmission, power steering, AM/FM radio, and wheel trim rings. No A/C in a car with a black vinyl interior. The engine was a 1.7L Volkswagen engine. .Thirteen inch wheels. Adequate power, but no barn burner. The instrument panel was very much driver centric, with even the heater control located to the left of the steering wheel. Only the radio was accessible by the passenger.
Once I started using the Omni as a daily driver, upgrades were soon to follow. Another co-worker had an extra set of steel wheels and tires left over from his K-car. Fourteen inch tires sounded better than thirteens, so I bought and installed them. Even though the tires were a different profile than the OEM tires, they fit perfectly and did not interfere with the fender. After a couple of years sweating on the black vinyl seats, I decided that air conditioning was on the agenda of upgrades. I purchased the A/C components from a junker and went about the transition. The only difficult parts were the relocation of the air intake vent on the firewall and the installation of the coolant hoses. On non A/C cars, the intake was in the center whereas on the A/C cars, it was on the passenger side. The entire heater plenum had to be changed to add the evaporator. I made careful measurements on the donor car and transferred them to my car. Everything fit fine and after I bought new hoses and a condenser, the system worked. On the other hand, putting A/C on the 1.7L engine decreased any reserve power. If you wanted any kind of performance, the A/C had to be switched off.
The last upgrade I made to the Omni was a rear hatch wiper. Since I was familiar with the hardware and installation after installing an Omni wiper on my Dodge Aspen wagon, this was simple. Used motors from the junkyard were a non-starter, as the motors tended to leak water from the blade shaft. New motors were cheap and the only way to go.
During my ownership of the Omni, it never failed to get me where I needed to go and back again. The only rear weak spot of this car was the floor and sub-frame. I did have to repair the floor under the driver’s feet, using sheet metal gleaned from an old washing machine. The sub-frame that held the rear suspension also showed some rust through, but not enough to warrant any repairs. After all, this was designed to be a throwaway car. When I spotted my next “new to me” car, the Omni had to go. I sold it to my wife’s cousin, whose son promptly rolled over on a country road while playing race car driver a few months later. I would own several other Omnis/Horizons during my career as a car flipper and truly appreciated the overall design and execution.
A friend who had one kept coming back to it when people talked cheap cars…it literally never had a problem for 80k miles, and then it was a water pump. Another 40k and an alternator. Got hit and totaled a week later. He said in retrospect, it was the best car he ever had.
It looks like an American version of the standard European 4 door hatch
It was based on the European Horizon by Simca
Biggest technical difference is that the Euro version carried over the Simca 1100’s torsion bar front suspension while the US model had MacPherson struts.
Not according to Wikipedia. Although they look the same, no body panels interchange. Even more interesting is that they’re even more different mechanically in that the Euro Horizon used completely different engines (and the aforementioned different front suspension).
It seems very strange and I can’t imagine the appearance being a coincidence. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the Simca/Talbot Horizon was just a major influence on the design of the North American Omnirizon.
However it happened, it’s probably fair to say that the Omnirizon was surely the most beneficial thing to come out of any of Chrysler’s buying of rather weak Euro auto concerns like Sunbeam and Rootes in the sixties. And one has to wonder how much smaller Chrysler was able to do it, while the behemoth GM and Ford came out with such crap like Vega, Pinto, and Chevette. Ford, at least, had enough sense to import the German Fiesta from ’78 to ’80. It was probably that Chrysler, having much less money, had to wait until they could get their own subcompact built and, because of the greater development time, was able to get a better handle on the market.
And here’s an intriguing scenario to ponder. What if, instead of concentrating on the dying ponycar market with the E-body, Chrysler had, instead, gotten the Omnirizon into the showrooms by, say, 1974, beating the Rabbit by at least a year? We’d all be hailing Chrysler as the small car game changer, and not VW.
Of course, that might have meant no Iacocca later, as well as no minivan, too…
Why Wikipedia?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classics-plymouth-horizon-and-dodge-omni-detroit-finally-builds-a-proper-small-car/
Here’s another and perhaps more authoritative story from AROnline:
https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/chrysler-talbot/horizon/chrysler-horizon-american-horizons/
https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/chrysler-talbot/horizon/chrysler-horizon-development-story/
“More authoritative”? I noticed a couple of mistakes, including a rather big one, that the US Omnirizon’s VW engine had a head on it made by Chrysler. Not so.
Simca was a good business. Notably, the Simca 1100 was approved and developed under Chrysler ownership.
The Wikipedia article on these cars has several serious mistakes. It says that the Horizon was essentially a shortened Simca 1307/Alpine. Wrong. It was essentially a widened and lengthened Simca 1100,
As to the development of the car, it was a joint effort by the European and American teams, with each contributing their expertise and adaptions for their local needs. The claim that “no body parts interchange” is highly dubious; the European and American cars do share the basic body shell, with changes in the US version for the 5 mile bumpers and other required aspects. It’s interesting to note that the front fender flares (on both versions) are so big because the US had clearance requirements for chains. The Europeans were not happy about that.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the major body pressings are mostly the same, and that doors and such will interchange in principle despite being different in detail due to US side impact requirements. And of course the US version’s front end is different to accommodate the different suspension.
This is a “world car”, with necessary changes for each continent.
The Wikipedia article also repeats the common mistake that the US version’s VW engine had a Chrysler-made cylinder head. Not true. The VW engine came with its cylinder head attached from Germany; Chrysler added all the peripherals, including cam drive, intake, carb, exhaust manifold, and ignition system.
Wikipedia is a very useful resource, but its accuracy varies die to how it is created. It can not be trusted to be accurate. One needs to fact check it.
Wikipedia is a very useful resource, but its accuracy varies die to how it is created. It can not be trusted to be accurate. One needs to fact check it.
I guess I’ve been put in my place, once again.
Don’t forget, Paul, that those of us with more (rather, correct) knowledge about these wonderful little cars can make changes on Wikipedia to improve it. 🙂
My 1989 Omni America 2.2 was a real go-getter. Loved that car. Sold me on the utility of hatchbacks for life. I’m now in a 2016 Kia Soul that just passed 10,000 miles. It’s my new “hatchback”.
I still miss my Omni. Took it to around 100K miles before her time was up. I once got the car well north of the 85mph maximum on the speedo; maybe 105 and that was insanely fast but fun. Ah, the folly of youth!
In Europe wasn’t there a rear drive “Lotus” version as well ?
What you’re thinking of is the Chrysler Sunbeam. While it was styled by the same team under Roy Axe as the Omnirizon, mechanically it was based around a shortened Hillman Avenger, lifting the doors straight from the 2-door version, along with much of the 1976 facelift interior. At the back there were Chrysler Alpine/Simca 1501 rear lights. It was basically a ‘political’ car to keep the Scottish Linwood factory open, but it proved quite popular in Britain. Most didn’t have Lotus engines though!
” However it happened, it’s probably fair to say that the Omnirizon was surely the most beneficial thing to come out of any of Chrysler’s buying of rather weak Euro auto concerns like Sunbeam and Rootes in the sixties. And one has to wonder how much smaller Chrysler was able to do it, while the behemoth GM and Ford came out with such crap like Vega, Pinto, and Chevette. ”
I don’t think it’s such a surprise, really. GM and Ford had zero FWD experience whatsoever then, including their foreign operations. Simca, however, was a very recognizable entity in France, and the 1100 series began development prior to Chrysler ownership, with Fiat then holding a majority interest of the company at that time. The transverse FWD layout, along with the transmission and driveshaft setup was already chosen by the time Chrysler came into the picture in 1963. The resulting 1100 series was very advanced and quite “ahead of the times”, but US sales from 1969-1971 were horrible; 16,411 in total. Obviously this had to have infunced Chrysler to create the followup to be friendly within both markets, regardless of the differences between the Euro and US cars. The fact these weren’t half-baked FWD wannabe compacts certainly stems from the decade long experience Simca accumulated with the subcompact 1100 and compact 1307 platform cars. I would put money on it that the K-cars owe a ton of credit to the work Simca clearly laid out prior to Chrysler being serious about FWD. All one needs to do is look at the X-cars from GM to see stark contrasts.
Ford had zero FWD experience whatsoever?
The German 1962 Ford Taunus 12M was FWD.
Johannes, you are right. GM also had the Toranado and Eldorado. I should have said “in the subcompact class”, although the 12M is arguably very close in that regard.
Ah, I see what you mean. There was the 1976 Ford Fiesta of course, but the little Ford was not in the same segment as the Simca/Talbot Horizon.
The RWD Ford Escort Mk2, which was in the same segment, was certainly a car of yore compared with the contemporary VW Golf and Simca/Talbot Horizon.
It seems like it would have made more financial sense if the body stampings were the same to reduce development costs, particularly considering how closely the cars resemble each other.
And there’s a small (but noticeable) hint that leans that way: the fuel filler door location. Traditionally, fuel filler doors on American cars were located on the passenger side with the theory if the vehicle ran out of gas, it could be refilled away from traffic. European cars took a different approach and had the fuel filler door on the driver’s side to be more easily accessed at the fuel pumps.
In the photograph of the Euro Horizon, the fuel filler door is on the same (passenger) side as the American Horizon.
That’s because they were (mostly) the same. Why would they be different? The key external differences are minimal. Even the dashboard shares a lot of its basic architecture.
Why would they be different?
I don’t know.
I don’t know about the fuel filler thing – F150’s, Jeep Wranglers, and the previous-to-this generation Impala all have it on the driver’s side, those are the first three volume and very American-market vehicles I thought of. Many older American cars seemed to have it behind the license plate, which, while convenient at the gas pump, couldn’t possibly be a less safe location if one really had to refill on the shoulder with no good way to keep an eye on approaching traffic…
The VW Beetle, meanwhile, once it moved out from under the hood, had it on the passenger (right-hand) side.
”Traditionally, fuel filler doors on American cars were located on the passenger side with the theory if the vehicle ran out of gas, it could be refilled away from traffic. European cars took a different approach and had the fuel filler door on the driver’s side to be more easily accessed at the fuel pumps.”
Strange, because I’ve always noticed it as being mostly the other way around: Vehicles designed in or primarily for the US market seem to more frequently have the filler on the driver’s side.
Mostly. All US-market pickup trucks with a single filler have them on the driver’s side, as well as almost every car and SUV I’ve owned (Ford, Nissan, Toyota and Jeep). The exceptions have been my European cars (BMW and Porsche) and my current Ford Escape (developed in Europe as the Ford Kuga), which had theirs on the passenger side.
I don’t know if there is a rhyme or reason, but that’s been my observation.
I truly don’t think there is any rhyme or reason to it, many 60s Chrysler’s had it on the driver side, yet the E body Challenger had it on the passenger side. My Cougar has it on the passenger side as well, and was only ever US market only from inception.
The reason for having the fuel filler on the driver’s side in the US is so the driver doesn’t have to walk around the car to fill up.
Americans drive a lot more kilometers, and our vehicles consume more fuel per kilometer.
Gas filler location used to be more varied, but now it’s mostly standardized based on automaker nationality:
Most American vehicles have it on LHD driver side.
Most Japanese vehicles except Subaru have it on driver side. Subaru cars have it on passenger side.
Most (all?) Korean vehicles have it on driver side.
Most (all?) German cars and Volvos have it on passenger side.
This imbalance results in the lines on the right side (for driver side fueling) of the gas station pumps being usually longer than the left side.
My Mom had an almost new 1986 Horizon in metallic blue. I did not drive it but rode in it a few times. It was a company car which is why I couldn’t drive it. It was fully optioned and very comfortable and seemed like a very nice well put together car.
She was very sad when she had to return the car because she switched jobs. It’s replacement was also a nice car but opposite in concept, a G body Buick Regal.
Had an 82 Omni, silver with red interior. 2.2 with automatic. The first car purchase with my first wife, and be beginning of an awful lot of Dodges in my garage.
I had an ‘85. It was a great little car. 2.2/5 speed. So much better than a Chevette, you’re right!
So many are familiar with these as a decent cheap car around 1988, but in 1978 these were really revolutionary for an American manufacturer.
My mother had her 80 Horizon for 5 years and it was a good car for her. It was small and efficient but provided a very nicely trimmed interior so that a middle aged lady did not have to feel like she was settling for an econobox. The a/c blew very cold and the stereo sounded so much better than the one from her 74 Luxury LeMans. The 1.7 did not make for a fast car, but it was better than the 4 cylinder Pinto and Mustang II and Chevette automatics I had driven.
I really liked that unique deep dish steering wheel
I seem to remember talk of that steering wheel being designed to collapse on impact to compensate for the lack of a collapsible steering column.
Have never owned one or ridden in one, and never wanted to. I do remember reading about the sporty coupe “sister” model and thinking I might like to try one of those. Yet somehow that never happened. What I like about these Omni/Horizons is that they have/had a lot more style in the interior than a Chevette. Though I guess when you think about it the Chevette was very Euro looking, while the Chrysler twins were very American big car looking….if that was important to you.
The only 4 cylinder powered Chrysler product I have ever ridden in was a very early Plymouth minivan. For what it was I was quite impressed.
About once a year one of these pops up on my local Craigslist and I am tempted to go look at and maybe even test drive it, but I don’t. Would have to be a 2.2 with a manual transmission and have A/C .
My mom had an ’85 Omni with the 2.2/5 speed combo. I drove it a few times – roomy, good handling, and plenty of power, though it had a heavy clutch and the shifter was kind of clunky. It was originally an off-lease executive driven car she bought through my brother-in-law who worked for Chrysler Canada. She was quite happy with it for two years until the day she put it into a ditch. The car was a write-off, but she was fine and it ended up being the first of several off-lease Mopars she would own, all of which served her well.
My first encounter with these was an early model (amber rear turn signals, so ’78/79) owned by my Cub Scout denmother. My mom bought a new ’86 Horizon that ended up being the first car I ever drove and in its’ later years the first of my mother’s cars I ever took care of as a filial duty when it dropped its’ rear bumper and I had to call around to junkyards for a new/used replacement and then fetch it (a cousin put it on. The body was solid but the mounting points had corroded where steel was holding aluminum to steel)
I did that in the ’81 Omni that by then had become my own “real” first car (not counting the $1 ’67 VW that never ran for me on its’ own power).
These cars appeared at the perfect time. The Rabbit had been out for over three years and received rave reviews for space efficiency, performance and handling…The downsides were reliability and constantly rising prices….Enter the L body….Samw basic shape, similar mechanicals, great fuel efficiency, yet cheaper and with perceived American reliability….The Rabbit made the Omni/ Horizon possible
I am sure I am missing a progenitor but I always thought of these as the first real “modern” Americancar. Yes, it had its roots in Europe, but it was, as Rudiger points out above, a design that was more of a “tribute” to the Simca 1100 than a copy – think American pizza loaded with toppings compared to plain and simple Italian pizza. These were impressive, especially compared to the barn-siding ancient-rear-drive schlock most of Detroit was turning out at the time. The Ford Fairmont is probably the best of that lot, and not a bad car, but a decade behind the Omni/Horizon. I don’t know the price differential, but I always thought of the Omni/Horizon as a class above the Pinto (and two or three classes above the “third-class-Bulgarian transport” Chevette?) an expense well worth the money, even at a time when normal car loan rates were averaging 10% or more. Driving a Chevette you felt poor; driving a Pinto, you were glad to be employed full time; but driving an Omi you felt like a citizen with prospects in the society.
Lynn Townsend’s replacements, John Riccardo and Gene Cafiaro, get a lot of grief and accusations of running Chrysler into the ground in the seventies. OTOH, ironically, they may have saved Chrysler at the same time by shepherding the Omnirizon into production. While it now seems like a no-brainer, at the time, it was a huge, high-priced gamble for a domestic manufacturer with no guarantee of success. As pointed out, GM and Ford had been taking the traditional, conservative (and much cheaper) route of just shrinking down big RWD cars. And, considering how the original Falcon had stomped the Corvair and Valiant in 1960, who can blame them?
Without the Omnirizon, there’s a strong possibility that Iacocca might not have come on board. It’s been written that it was it was the FWD Omnirizon that convinced Iacocca that Chrysler had a future.
Without the Omnirizon, there might not have been an Iacocca at Chrysler, no K-car (well, at least not one as successful), and definitely no minivan. And without Iacocca, the K-car, and minivan, well, the probability is high there wouldn’t have been a Chrysler, either. While the Omnirizon receives praise, I don’t know if it’s much of an overstatement to say that it was the car that saved Chrysler.
I’m pretty sure that the K-car had been approved by Chrysler before Lee Iacocca joined the corporation in late 1978. The ex-Ford manager who pushed for the K-car was Hal Sperlich, who had been fired by Henry Ford II, and had then joined Chrysler before Iacocca did.
The K-car was certainly in the works prior to Iacocca’s arrival. But would there have been open Chrysler showrooms for the production vehicle without Iacocca? And, even if there had been, would it have made any difference in the company’s survival, or would it have been just another, Studebaker-like case of too little, too late? Iacocca, unlike Riccardo or Cafiaro, was a skillful, master showman. The K-car might have been a success without Iacocca, but Iacocca made it a certified hit with his showmanship skills, not to mention his cost-cutting measures like abolishing the Sales Bank.
That will always be the question: could Chrysler have survived without Iacocca? And, like I mentioned, what about the minivan? Iacocca might not have been technically responsible for the K-car, but he was definitely the guy who greenlit the minivan, the vehicle which pretty much cemented Chrysler’s long-term solvency.
…”Driving a Chevette you felt poor”…
Note that GM had their own excellent interpretation of the Simca/Talbot/Dodge/Plymouth from 1979 onwards.
The HVAC (or H-only) controls on the left of the steering wheel were a “Chrysler unique” oddity from the mid/late 1970s. The restyled B-body from 1975-1978 had it, too. I liked the idea, as it meant that controls did not have to be crammed into the middle of the dash, in an era when center consoles and a center stack were not “normal.”
It also meant that when pesky in-laws did not like how cool I kept my cars inside when driving my 1978 Dodge Monaco, they couldn’t meddle. If they wanted the car to feel like a stuffy, un-air conditioned rowhome in Philadelphia in the summertime, I could tell them that all they could do was turn the cool air vents toward me. I wasn’t going to change the HVAC settings. Suited me fine.
As a fellow Omni COALer (mine was an ’89)
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1989-dodge-omni-my-first-and-last-brand-new-car/
I can certainly say it got way better during the production run. The FI 2.2 with 5-speed manual cured most of the ills about which you complain. The rear wiper was standard by then, too 🙂
Hey Evan, mine was an ’89 too! Car brothers 🙂
Was yours an Omni America? Mine was the standard Omni America 2.2 automatic with A/C. It was silver – No other colors that I could get that night. Was my first brand new car. Very reliable even with the abuse of my youthful stupidity. Loved it.
I bought one new in 1980 to replace a 1977 Honda Accord. It Had the 1.7L VW motor with a 4 speed stick. I recall 4th being an overdrive ratio. Ours was the middle trim level with 2 tone tan over burgandy and a dark red interior. I liked it. We did have one altrnator fail.
We kept it three years until my Wife’s job changed and she became a road warrior with lots of stuff to carry. I found a 1982 V8 Pontiac Grand Prix with 6000 miles at a Plymouth dealership. They wanted the Horizon, and I wanted the Grand Prix. Deal.
That was the last new Mopar vehicle we had, but ther have been 6 Hondas from a Z600 to a Pilot, and 14 or 15 Acuras.
In 1987, I wrecked the ’78 Ford Fiesta that had become mine to drive. I needed another car to use on my daily commute (which was fairly long).
So one morning, my former wife and I went to the C-P-D dealer in Lima, OH to look at econoboxes.
I test drove an ’83 Omni, 1.6 liter VW motor with 4-speed stick, about 60,000 miles. I don’t recall what we paid for it, but it was reasonable. No A/C or power anything, but I didn’t care about that. It was an attractive maroon with a matching cloth and vinyl interior.
I had never owned a Chrysler product of any sort before this car.
That Omni was one of the most reliable, trouble-free, and best cars for basic transportation that I’ve ever had!
I kept it until 1992, when the clutch went out on it. I sold it to a friend of my 2nd wife, who got a new clutch put in it, then ended up totaling it 6 months later.
Even now, if I could find one in good condition without millions of miles on it, i’d be interested in it.
I believe the 1.6 engine was sourced from Peugeot.
The early 78 thru 81-83? Omnirizon came with the 1705 cc derivative of the VW EA827 engine that powered Rabbits, Sciroccos, Dashers in various displacements (in the US 1471, 1588, 1457, 1715, 1781 cc).
Then with the intro of the K-Car, which had a 2.2 liter 4-cylinder standard (which was built by Chrysler BUT had a head made by Fiat), the 2.2 liter became optional for the Omni/Horizon.
In the lighter Omni, even with a 3-spd auto, the 2.2 was relatively brisk for 1982.
Then, around that time, Chrysler made a 1.6 the base motor (or the base in the “MIser” edition, which hit 50 mpg on the EPA highway cycle).
Paul will know for certain if the 1.6 was Peugeot. I’m sure it was.
Yes and no. It was actually the old Simca pushrod engine, the same one that had been deemed not suitable to use in the US Omnirizon in the first place for a number of reasons. By this time, it was technically a Peugeot engine, after Peugeot’s purchase of Chrysler’s European operations.
The reason they used this was undoubtedly because it was cheaper, and the take rate was quite low. By this time, the 2.2L Chrysler four was becoming almost ubiquitous in these cars. The 1.6 was mostly there as a price leader.
It seems the European Talbot Horizon was vastly different. In Britain they had zero image and were seen as a poorer quality Peugeot. Typically driven by sedate retirees, ours featured the 1100-1500 simca engines….the ones with the cacophonous valvegear….and alarmingly quick rusting body shells. Normally given away free by 8 years old, they were An anonymous, nowhere car. It died along with the Talbot name and the rest of the lacklustre range in 1986. See also Talbot Alpine, Solara and for an Automotive failure of Edsel proportions, the Tagora.
“Why would they be different? The key external differences are minimal. Even the dashboard shares a lot of its basic architecture.“
One must not forget the Consumer Reports test of the Omni-Horizon which showed a wheel lifting off the ground during their release the steering wheel while cornering test. Consequently, they recommended against buying it. A major controversy at the time.
On different weekends, I rented a Chevette and a Horizon for 900 mile trips. The Horizon was so superior that I never trusted Consumer Reports again.
CR cited a specific problem as a deal breaking safety issue. Right or wrong, there’s no disconnect between that and the reality that the Horizon is a much nicer car than a Chevette unless and until the specific problem occurs.
Going back in time, there are plenty of cars with rear swing axles that handle very well unless and until the axle jacks under the car.
At that time, Chrysler went on the offensive to demonstrate that the cars were safe to drive. The controversy died down rapidly and the cars were never recalled.
I remember watching it on “Good Morniing America” as a kid.
The Consumer Reports video showed a driver accelerating to x mph (25 or 30?), turning the the wheel sharply to one side, and then letting it go.
The car would not straighten itself out, like other cars allegedly would. Instead, it careened out of control.
As a kid, I thought that was a dumb test.
That said, Car & Driver felt the Chevette handled and steered better than the Omni, while at the same time the Chevette was slower, louder, and a lot more cramped inside.
This is a great thread! I always thought the Omni was an iconic car! Again, as a teen, I wondered, ‘why can’t they put fuel injection and a 5-speed in it’. And as a smart-aleck, I derided it as an “American Rabbit”
IIRC, the theory on Consumer Reports’ “fling the steering wheel and see where it goes” test was to check a vehicle’s accident avoidance ability at speed. It sounds okay in theory, but in actual practice, well…
The eventual outcome was the whole controversy seemed to do more damage to Consumer Reports’ credibility than it did to Omnirizon sales, and rightly so. Like the recommendations of the enthusiast magazines, Consumer Reports’ findings should be taken with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately, about ten years later, Suzuki fared much worse when CR found the small Samurai (nee: Jimny) “dangerously unstable”. Samurai sales plummeted and, although Suzuki was later somewhat vindicated via a 1996 libel lawsuit ruling, the damage had been done. Suzuki is now gone from the US auto marketplace (motorcycle sales remain). Although not directly responsible, the Samurai controversy certainly didn’t help.
The Samurai is/was dangerously unstable in regular traffic. Suzuki knew that.
I will echo rudiger’s comments about the Omnirizon as that car showed that, when it got it’s poo in a group, Chrysler could make a very successful car.
Seems like no-one here really got a bad one. R&T did an owner’s survey when the Omnirizon had been out a couple years. iirc, the early cars set a record for having the most failures suffered by more than 10% of owners, topping the previous record holder, the Lotus Elan. As another post above mentioned, the rear wiper motor was a frequent problem noted in the R&T article, and I remember seeing the cars around town with the rear wiper frozen in mid-wipe.
Only sample I drove was an 80 TC3 when shopping for a replacement for the POS Zephyr, though Chrysler’s future was sufficiently clouded at the time that I bought elsewhere.
A friend had an early one, bought used. The driver’s side footwell had a small rust hole at purchase, but it expired a couple years later when one of the front strut towers rusted through and broke.
I think that the generally positive comments about it has something to do with it being built for so long. I suspect most commenters didn’t own a first or second year version. Like most all-new American cars, the first year or two tended to be shaky, but the bugs were ironed out with time. These cars had a lot of time for that to happen.
My parents owned a 78 Horizon and a 79 Omni. Both cars were quality nightmares. Of course, that applies to pretty much everything coming out of Chrysler factories during those years. I remember CR had to buy a second Dodge St. Regis for testing because the first one wouldn’t stay running long enough. The second one was just as bad, so they tested on one while the other was in the shop, then switched (test/shop).
For my parents, the next two cars were Nissans.
My best friend’s parents bought the first 1978 Plymouth Horizon in our town. This was in February 1978. Our next-door neighbor later bought a brand-new 1979 Horizon, complete with the wood-grain trim.
The exterior door handles on my friend’s Horizon kept breaking, and the car simply stopped running at least twice at a traffic light. It had to be towed to the dealership.
My father carpooled with the neighbor. One day his Horizon died in our driveway after he had dropped off my father, and had to be towed to the dealership.
As Paul notes, the early cars had their share of bugs. Unlike GM’s X-cars, however, they weren’t so bad that the car’s reputation was permanently tainted.
I wonder how great a likelihood there is that those first bad L-bodies were actually just as bad as GM’s X-body. But where the Citation is roundly criticized as one of the worst cars ever built, the Omnirizon gets a pass. Could the reasons be:
– The Citation was sold as a mainstream vehicle, while the Omnirizon was in a class (subcompact) still viewed as a second car. Therefore, when the Citation took a dump, it caused much more of a hardship as it’s quite possible it was a household’s only vehicle. When a Omnirizon was in the shop, a family may have had a primary, more mainstream vehicle they could fall back on so it didn’t hurt nearly as much.
– Sheer numbers. I don’t have the figures, but I’d guess that many more Citations were sold than Omnirizons. Although the actual percentage of bad cars might have been the same between the two cars, because there were so many more Citations than Omnirizons on the road, a lot more people were affected. So, again, the Citation got a much worse rep, ironically because it was more of a success.
Regardless, it’s good to hear anecdotal evidence from both sides: the early, not-so-great Omnirizons, and the later ones where most of the bugs had been ironed out.
My theory would be that many (if not most) new car buyers of the late 70s sort of expected Chrysler to build a crappy car, but people did not expect this from General Motors which had done a pretty decent job through the 70s.
Also the L body’s problems tended to be the kind of stuff that could be fixed and stemmed from bad individual parts or indifferent assembly whereas the X body’s issues were more in the design of the early cars.
That’s a good way to describe the difference between the L-body and the X-body. The L-body wasn’t really designed badly; rather, the individual parts were of low quality and frequently broke, a problem borne of using the lowest subcontractor bids and zero quality control of the parts.
The X-body, OTOH, also had some serious design issues which, even when the car was brand-new, affected driveability. Things like rear brakes without a proportioning valve and a steering rack attached to the firewall via a rubber mount. I vividly recall how the latter had a maddening tendency to force the shifter to pop out of fourth gear when letting off the gas at speed. Worse, this occurrence was actually mentioned in a C&D Citation X-11 review, but the GM press agent tried to claim it was due to a pre-production vehicle and would be fixed on cars released to dealers. Uh, yeah, right…
My theory would be that many (if not most) new car buyers of the late 70s sort of expected Chrysler to build a crappy car, but people did not expect this from General Motors which had done a pretty decent job through the 70s.
You may be on to something. I just pulled my 1986 issue of Consumer Reports. The Citation had a better reliability record than even later production Omnirizons. Not a good record, but better than the Mopar. In the 91 issue, most of the big black spots for the Omnirizon disappear after 87, so, maybe, after 10 years, Chrysler finally got the cars debugged. The Citation did not live that long, so GM never really got it sorted out.
Plus CU would have a bit of owner bias. Buyers of L bodies (many of whom were not traditional Mopar buyers, given the sales numbers) would bitch about failures while buyers of GM cars (increasingly GM loyalists by the 80s) would have perhaps given their cars a pass on some of the problems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/06/14/stability-handling-problems-laid-to-omni-and-horizon-subcompacts/e129c4c2-8831-45bb-94eb-037083442708/?utm_term=.6e454b31cbd7
I recall this issue with those cars, brought up by Consumer Reports, way back then. I don’t know what ever became of it.
Well. I guess I should have read all the comments before I commented.
We sold quite a few of these but never really saw any of the pre 1981 versions with the VW sourced 1.7. The carburetors were a pain once the miles came on and the usual head gasket issues crept up on the mid to late 80’s versions with the 2.2. It wasn’t until 1988 that TBI came about but by that time this car’s popularity was winding down. The 1988 silver 60K mile commuter we used at the shop needed it’s fair share of service with both front axles going south, the TBI unit shorted out on us during a rainy day doing part runs stranding us at Pep Boys and several sensors needed multiple replacements but otherwise it was okay.