At first glance I thought: oh, a nice load of mixed cars from the post AMC merger with Chrysler. But no, there weren’t any Alliances sold by then. And the picture is dated September 1984, so this is a coincidence, of sorts.
Once again we see a Convoy oversized rig as used in the Northwest. They mainly picked up cars shipped up to the ports and then distributed them regionally to dealers. I assume that’s what this load is too.
Is this the first set of double trailers we’ve reviewed?
Notice the single tires on axle #6?
The white Dodge Ram and the K-car wagon would have found a happy home in my driveway.
Dodge heavily promoted the Ram ‘Miser’ package with the Slant Six starting in 1981, and it’s a big reason why the short box versions of the full-sized trucks were so popular for several years. I found the standard bed and club cab versions, remained the best looking, and most desirable.
The only examples I would want here are the Jeeps and the Eagle.
Some one I volunteered with at a museum had a red long bed miser.
The crazy thing to me is how similar the paint scheme of the Cherokee and Eagle are.
This pic is dark, but I believe the lower colour (at least on the Eagle), was ‘Deep Night Blue’. AMC could have collaborated with Ralph Lauren, and created a designer package using this colour scheme associated with Lauren.
A lot of Renaults. I suppose this is what the dealers were *pushed* to sell, not what they actually sold. If this was heading into the Northwest, the Eagles were what the dealers sold. The Renaults didn’t sell anywhere.
The Renault Alliance/Encore sold very well until it earned a Chevy Citation level reputation for being a fragile POS. It sold 140–150K units per year for its first three years, compared to a total of about 200K over the whole run of Hornet-based Eagles. The Eagle was irrelevant when the XJ Cherokee hit the market.
The Alliance was an appealing package compared to other small cars. Too bad it broke down all the time.
If I recall correctly, for 1983, the Alliance was actually the second best-selling car in its class, behind the Ford Escort.
During a summer intern position, I carpooled with someone who owned a 1984 sedan. It had the best ride of any small car I had ever experienced. The “pedestal” front bucket seats really did provide a nice place for rear-seat passengers to place their feet.
Unfortunately, everyone I knew who owned one said it was very troublesome.
Agree with all you said. I was in CA when the Alliance came out. They were popular there. A friend at the time got one the first year, trading in his “POS” 86 Taurus. But yeah, it was the frying pan to the fire. I also found them quite appealing.
If he traded in a Taurus, that’d be one of the very last Alliances, not first.
Paul posted a dealer post card about a month ago, that showed a Kansas AMC dealer (Overland Park) circa 1981 with Renault Le Cars and R18s filling the front row, with Jeeps in the back.
Pic.
The auto market was in the tank in 1981. Expensive/luxury/sport/specialty vehicles didn’t sell.
I’m not questioning that. I’m showing evidence refuting the original comment. If all AMC had in ’81 and ’82 were Eagles and Jeeps, they would have struggled. Even if these were ultimately bad cars, the Renaults helped the company survive.
Ironically, the Alliance’s styling looked like an 80s interpretation of the third generation Valiant/fourth generation Dart.
I never noticed that before until you pointed it out. The similarity is amazing!
The 5th Avenue might well have been built at AMC in Kenosha under contract; L-bodies (Omni) were as well but I don’t think that was until after the merger and the end of Alliance production, and I also don’t think K-cars (Chrysler’s core product then) or trucks (BOF, something Kenosha hadn’t built since the ’30s) were contracted out like that.
Chrysler M-bodies were not built at AMC in Kenosha until late 1986, so in 1984 as this photo is identified, that Chrysler Fifth Avenue would have been assembled in St. Louis, MO.
I would go with the delivery contractor having a joint AMC/Chrysler operation, either due to territory or combined dealerships.
A number of AMC dealers were dualed with other brands. In Kalamazoo, one store carried AMC/Jeep, Chrysler/Plymouth, and Mazda. One magazine long term test of an Alliance noted they had the car serviced at a combination Chevy/AMC dealer, and AMC was the red-headed stepchild no-one at the dealer wanted to be bothered with.
Must have been interesting the first time somebody sat down and designed these trailers. OK, lets see how are we going to get a car on top of the truck? Must have had an owners manual to load this thing, You got 13 cars on? How did you do that, I only got 11, did you take a picture?
Would American-made vehicles from the Midwest travel to the PNW by boat? Seems like the long way ’round.
I’d take the Eagle, the blue Cherokee, the k car wagon, and the Fifth Avenue.