We drove up to Lillooet, in the rainshadow mountain desert north of Vancouver, for a few days over Thanksgiving this past October. Just before we departed for home, taking our last round of pics, I spotted a familiar shape in a familiar colour.
Lookit there, it’s the apparent ghost of my last ’91 Spirit, which in its turn was the ghost of Peter Wendt’s ’90 Saratoga.
Maybe not a ghost, but surely a kindred spirit of the one Jim Grey showed a couple hours ago; this one is a ’91-’92 model, too. But unlike that car, this one bears no V6 emblem, so it’s got the wheezy but smooth and durable TBI 2.5-litre 4-pot (and the archaic but dependable A470 3-speed TorqueFlite transaxle rather than the advanced but fragile A604 ProbleMatic 4-speed).
Also, this one’s been hit with oddly close precision: the right fender is pranged abaft of the wheel, but the damage stops abruptly at the leading edge of the door. What causes highly localised damage like this? Steel-toed boot…?
Other than that, the car appears clean and straight. It’s got two (rear) original wheel covers, and it’s probably still dependable and cheap to run.
I didn’t step up for closer scrutiny; the car was on private property and there was a great deal of grand scenery to stock up on before heading home.
Lovely photography. Surroundings like that could make anything look good.(Absolutely no reflection on the car intended)
Yes, amazing how you can pass through a beautiful natural area and the old cars just leap out at you 🙂
The area around Lilooet is gorgeous. The best way into town from Vancouver used to be the BC Rail train, along the lakes south of town. But it has been twenty years since the province sold the railroad to Canadian National and the train was discontinued by the corporate egos which took over. A daily railbus operation now serves the First Nation people who would otherwise be isolated without passenger rail.
The canyon country north of town is beautiful, too.
I’ve seen plenty of old and not so old cars with the fender bent in like that. I wonder what causes it. It looks like the door got jammed against the fender and it bent when the door was forced open.
Often that means just the door was replaced, but usually those don’t quite match the color or sheen of the surrounding sheetmetal as it does here.
It’s actually fairly easy to un-bend that type of fender dent, as I learned from youtuber “vehcor,” and did it successfully myself on the ’99 Forester I fixed up last summer. You stick something solid but non-marring (think wooden wedge) in the door/fender gap with the door open and then slowly start to close the door. Might not end up perfect and you have to be careful, but I was amazed at how effective it was at getting it 95% of the way there with like 30 seconds worth of effort.
It looks like in the first picture that the corner of the bumper is a bit askew. If the fender got pushed back just a bit (it doesn’t take much) the door will bind on it.
I can tell you by experience, that’s exactly what causes that type of bendage. The door was in the opened position and the car was either reversed and the door caught a fixed object and was folded around or another vehicle caught the door and did the folding for them. Most likely the former. I did it in my ’84 Silverado. I put it in reverse with the drivers door opened and caught a light pole. On those square body Chevys, the door passed under the fender when opened instead of over it, so I wiped out my door and the fender was fine. The door wouldn’t shut after that so I had to replace it.
The well worn Mopar sitting amidst that rustic backdrop reminds me of my grandma’s village, where it’s Soviet iron and 90s Japanese imports in similar rough and ready shape sitting among pretty greenery and simple dwellings. Beautiful photography!
Soviet iron an 90s us import
Beautiful scenery for sure. I’d also conclude that the door edge-meets fender edge scenario is the likely culprit here. It also looks like that passenger side headlight is just slightly askew, maybe from just enough of a jolt to that corner to make door and fender clearance too close for comfort?
Off topic curiosity: Does someone typically decide to plant a tree inside a scrapped tire, does a tree more often decide to grow out of the middle of a scrapped tire, or are folks just given to tossing spent tires over young trees to watch them grow up through them. Hmmm.
I have seen tyres used to protect young seedlings until they become established, actually, I have a friend who has just done this, he will of course remove the tyres once they are established.
A beautiful part of the world with some amazing mountain roads to explore. Most blissfully free of rental RVs too!
The dented fender trailing edge is classic “sprung door”…heavy wind grabbed the door and swung it forward beyond the normal door hinge stop. It’s a good practice to park facing into heavy winds.
That’s just lovely ! .
I’ll not be surprised if you two decide to move there ere long .
Nice old Plymouth too, looks to be well worth getting the dent removed and two more hubcaps .
-Nate
Various factors make it impractical in the foreseeable. But we’ve surely talked about it, and I don’t reckon we’re done.
In some sense these are peak K-car, reliable, easy to work on, simple, not fancy.
If they were a Volvo, people would love them.
Yup, I agree: these cars really made good on the promises of the K-car. Could wish for better headlamps, but that wasn’t a Chrysler thing at that time.
I think you owned one exactly like this, Daniel, but I don’t believe you ever saw it.
That one would’ve been a blue Spirit, if I knew what you’re talking about, which I’m sure I certainly don’t. 🤓
The color was an actual sort of raspberry, which might have been sun-faded red.
Oh!
My father owned a 90 Sprint for a decade. Although well optioned and reliable, I always felt It was a step down from the 80 Cutlass LS that carried him and my mother also for a decade.
Nice to see some pics of Lillooet. Driven through there many times when I was single living up in Prince George. British Columbia has so much gorgeous scenery! Mrs. M and I need to go back and explore. Perhaps this summer?
I did a Victoria Day long-weekend bike trip in that area some years ago, doing a circuit from Lytton, to Cache Creek, to Lillooet, and back to Lytton. It’s all beautiful country – the valley between Lillooet and Lytton especially so.
If you took those shots from a distance, you did a great job!
Nice enough looking car, it seems to still have some life in it, except for some lurking inwardly mechanical issue which may have become to costly to fix. If I saw one of these on the road here it would be a surprise of vast proportions.
I had an ’89 Acclaim one summer, it was a great car and much roomier then it looked. It was grey in and out a 2.5 and a floor shift auto with a really cool and well thought out console. I bought it simply for the engine to put in my ’86 600 convertible, but that got delayed and ended up driving the Acclaim a few months, probably should’ve just kept driving it instead of the 600 which always seemed to have one issue after another, the Acclaim was better made but much plainer and cheaper looking then the 600 imo no chrome, no wood trim on the dash, just kinda plain and cheap looking. The guy that did the engine swap kept the body and put a 2.5 from his niece’s wrecked Spirit in and she drove it for awhile, I gave up on the 600 and bought an ’87 Diplomat but it was too neglected and I couldn’t afford to fix it right so I replaced it with my ’85 Gran Fury that I still drive 11 years later
My mom also had an ’89 Acclaim with the floor shift and console. It also had the best seats ever put in an Acclaim as the ’93 Acclaim that replaced it was nowhere near as comfortable or supportive. If my 2002 Concorde goes belly up, M-body Diplomats and Gran Furys are on my watch list. My R-body ’79 St. Regis is nearing 300k. I’ve had it about 27 years. If I ever found another ’89 Acclaim with the bucket seats, console and floor shifter in good shape, it would be seriously tempting.
…”pranged abaft….”? Never heard that description before. British english?
Pranged: hit
Abaft: behind
Driven up that way a lot over the years. Highly recommend driving out to Goldbridge and Bralorne…gravel highway with spectacular scenery. Also the road up and over to Seaton Portage…make absolutely sure your brakes are up to snuff on that one! If you have a higher ground clearance vehicle you can go over the Hurley Pass from Goldbridge back to Pemberton or the Highline back to Darcy from Seaton and on to Pemberton.
Parents had a 92 Aclaim 4 cyl, reliable car.
That is certainly a nice time of year to visit Lillooett Daniel. My last visit years ago on a motorcycle trip was in July and we arrived in town at 7PM, with 45C showing on the thermometer (113F) . . .. .
We took the trip mentioned by Corners on dual sport bikes and it was fantastic. We ended the first day in the river between Lillooet and Carpenter Lake up to our necks in the water with some cold beverages.
That semi arid country is kinder to older vehicles than the Lower Mainland, or here in the Okanagan. I’ve come across many older vehicles that would be long gone in other parts of BC