Hyperpack at the CC Cohort recently shot this well-preserved late example of the Chrysler LeBaron convertible, that budget-priced ragtop so beloved of rental car agencies. These run-out LeBarons were dated and often rather low-rent in fit and finish, but they still made a case for themselves all the way to the end of the line in 1995.
Remember those cheap all-in-one stereo systems you used to be able to get at big box stores like Circuit City for a hundred bucks or so, with their flimsily wired pressboard speakers? I still have one of those, with a three-disc CD changer, dual cassette decks, and a remote control. It was always a naff-looking thing, trying to look high-tech with its easily scratched cheap silver plastic, and it was never very reliable, with its CD changer constantly developing new and mystifying infirmities. I no longer even have it plugged in because sometimes the CD carousel will rumble noisily to life and the display will begin flashing ominous messages while powered off, as if it’s haunted or possessed. But, when it was new (and when it worked), it was a great deal, I guess: Obviously, you could get much better stereo equipment, but putting together a decent-quality setup with the same features would have cost a lot more than a hundred dollars.
The J-body Chrysler LeBaron has always reminded me of those cheap stereo systems. It was never a great car, by most of the standards by which one judges cars, and by the end of its run, it had become awfully dated. However, the LeBaron wasn’t very expensive, its features-per-dollar ratio was very good, and it still offered a convertible with a usable back seat, all of which combined to keep it selling respectably well into the mid-1990s.
It helped, of course, that the two-door LeBaron was a pretty good-looking car, one of Chrysler’s best late ’80s design efforts. I never much cared for the LeBaron sedan, which seemed to have been tailored for buyers who’d been in a coma since 1978 and didn’t understand why so few new cars had landau vinyl roofs, but the coupe and convertible were reasonably modern and reasonably handsome, especially if you were standing far enough away not to dwell on the cheaper points of the detailing.
My favorite element of the design was the “bowed” rocker panels, which added visual tension, making the middling 100.6-inch wheelbase seem taut rather than stubby. (The J-body cars were medium-size by the standards of their time, but some people were still sensitive about losing the gargantuan dimensions of the domestic cars of yore.)
The fixed headlights added to the LeBaron and Dodge Daytona for 1993 were far less successful, aesthetically speaking, and there’s something about their appearance that I find faintly nauseating. That’s less pronounced on a white car than with brighter colors, which emphasize the poor integration of the light into the surrounding panel. Headlights, especially fixed headlights, should not look like cysts.
There’s nothing very objectionable about the tail, although I hate when cars substitute decals for proper badges: Pinching pennies so hard you can’t spare a few cents for a real badge doesn’t send a confidence-inspiring message, and the font looked like an ’80s holdover even at the time. The blister for the CHMSL on the top of the decklid also seems like an afterthought Chrysler could have better integrated long before.
By 1994, the slower-selling LeBaron coupe was gone, and the sedan was being read the last rites (it expired mid-year), leaving only the LeBaron GTC convertible. In earlier years, the GTC had been turbocharged — some 1989–1990 cars even had the short-lived Garrett Variable Nozzle Turbocharger (an innovation for which Porsche later falsely claimed credit), making 174 hp from 2,213 cc. However, by 1991, the GTC usually had the V-6, the familiar 2,972 cc Mitsubishi 6G72 engine, which had 141 hp and 171 lb-ft of torque, plus an unfortunate tendency to consume oil through worn valve stem seals. Turbo engines were dropped after 1992.
The V-6 was more in character for the LeBaron — even the stiffer J-body coupe didn’t have the chassis composure for really aggressive driving, and the turbo engines were never very refined. Unfortunately, most of the V-6 cars came with the notoriously troublesome 41TE Ultradrive four-speed automatic, whose behavior and reliability were little better than my haunted stereo. Even when brand new, 41TE shift quality was sloppy, and its repair record was still poor; the Center for Auto Safety pressured Chrysler to repair or replace all faulty transmissions at no charge to the customer. Chrysler had already scared off manual-transmission buyers with the hard-to-shift five-speeds of the late ’80s cars, and while the 1990 and later manual gearbox was much better, there was no longer much demand. The manual transmission was dropped after 1993, having been installed on only 557 cars in its final year.
As long as the transmission was behaving itself, a V-6/automatic LeBaron convertible had okay performance and okay gas mileage. Handling was whatever, but the convertible body had enough flex to encourage a relaxed pace anyway, and the ride was acceptable for normal driving. Commendably, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS were optional from 1992 on, although they weren’t often ordered.
The big selling point of the LeBaron was that it had a back seat in which you could actually carry adults, as long as they weren’t NBA players. They wouldn’t be very happy back there for extended trips (and I can testify from experience that with the top down, the buffeting in the back seat at speeds over about 35 mph was severe and unpleasant), but you could take another couple to dinner and back, which was as much as most coupe and convertible buyers really needed.
I say “buyers” out of reflex, but I think quite a few LeBaron convertibles went to rental car agencies. Private citizens did buy these (I’ve known people who did), but the LeBaron was more the sort of car you’d rent for five days in Orlando or Miami. It felt like a rental car, with that indifferent fit and finish and not-quite-of-a-piece air of a vehicle that’s been driven for a while by a lot of different people of widely varying levels of mechanical sympathy.
My great objection to these late J-body cars is that the perceived quality of the interior was pretty dreary even for the price. Everywhere you looked, there were cheap plastics and econobox-grade materials. You could get leather upholstery and a power seat, but the perforated leather was so plasticky it hardly seemed worth the $668, and the last thing most Chrysler products of this era needed was more power accessories to break. The LeBaron GTC had all the mod cons, and the ergonomics weren’t bad, but the interior did not spark joy:
The Bright White LeBaron Hyperpack spotted might be either a 1994 or a 1995 model. The cut-out on the passenger side of the dashboard (above) is for the passenger-side airbag, a new addition for 1994, but as far as I know, the only meaningful difference between the ’94 and ’95 was that keyless entry became optional for ’95. Given its advanced age, the LeBaron still sold remarkably well to the very end of its life: Convertible production totaled 37,052 for 1994 and 35,760 for 1995.
1995 was the end of the line for the LeBaron, which was replaced for 1996 by the JX-platform Sebring. Based on the JA-platform Chrysler Cirrus (not the Mitsubishi-based Sebring coupe), the Sebring convertible looked great, but it showed just as many signs of penny-pinching and corner-cutting as the LeBaron.
Because the Sebring was brand-new, I always found its lapses a lot harder to excuse. The J-body LeBaron was a redress of an elderly platform that hadn’t been exactly cutting-edge even in 1982, so there was only so much you could expect of it, and for the most part, Chrysler had wisely resisted charging more for it than it was worth: A 1994 LeBaron convertible started at only $17,024, the 1995 model at $17,469. The Sebring convertible was a bunch more expensive — a 1996 Sebring JXi V-6 started at almost $25,000, where you could have had a loaded 1995 GTC for about $20K — but the perceived quality still screamed, “We just don’t want to do any better” (a message subsequently affirmed by the repair record of the JA and JX cars). It was like looking to upgrade your $100 stereo to a newer $300 system and realizing that going up a step or two in price didn’t provide any meaningful improvement in function or finish.
If nothing else, I assume the white LeBaron Hyperpack spotted is still running (those photos were taken on August 30, 2025). That puts it way ahead of my old stereo, which is only still taking up space next to my desk because my city makes e-waste disposal a big hassle. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for, and you often pay for what you get.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1986 Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country Convertible – Some Things Just Don’t Translate (by J P Cavanaugh)
Curbside Classic: 1988 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible – Dressed For Success? (by Eric703)
1992 Chrysler LeBaron GTC Convertible Performance Edition – Clearly, Not A Florida Rental (by Brendan Saur)
Although I think the hidden headlights pre-facelift were better looking, it’s still a pretty nice car for relatively affordable, topless cruising.
The LeBaron also fits in a nice niche – Mercury Capri was too small to reasonably seat 4 people, and the Cutlass Supreme was much more expensive; if I recall correctly the only real competitor in price was the Pontiac Sunbird, but I always felt that the Pontiac was cheaper in both look and feel
The Cutlass Supreme convertible was around 20 percent more expensive (it started at about $23K) and it still had the fixed hoop that Oldsmobile had to keep saying was not a roll bar. There were also the Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet and Toyota Celica convertible, which were also more expensive. (The Celica had a briefcase-size back seat; I don’t think I’ve ever been in the back seat of a Mk3 Golf Cabriolet, but I think it was probably in the same “I vill live, but I von’t enjoy it” category as the LeBaron.)
You forgot about the biggest competitor, the new for 1994 Mustang. That was a great looking car and you could get a v8.
The one to buy though was the Camaro Z28 convertible. Personally I love the angry doorstop styling. The power though, it was one of the fastest things you could buy short of a Porsche or Ferrari in 1994. Also I thought the chassis was pretty good, not a ton of converible jiggle or rattles, it came with a nice insulated power top as well.
The Mustang was more expensive than the Le Baron , and I do not think there was much cross-shopping between the LeBaron and the ‘stang.
Undoubtedly the Ford was the better driver’s car and had modern style inside and out, but it was lower (harder to get into and out of), had less interior space and less compliant ride. It also had a sporty image which would not be appreciated by many older folks and especially women.
As JP and Aaron state, the Chrysler was aimed at a different demographic, and in my onion did so reasonably well
The other market for these was older ladies, often to go in combination with Hubby’s more sober sedan. Nothing said fun for a mid-50s lady in a middle class suburban neighborhood than one of these. The only people I ever knew who owned one of these fit that very demographic.
I always thought these were good looking cars. But the Sebring convertible that followed was (in my opinion at the time) beautiful. Hindsight tells us that the LeBarons were much better long-term keepers than the Sebrings were. I have not seen a Sebring convertible in ages, but still (if rarely) come across one of these LeBarons.
The importance of that demographic speaks to why people bought these rather than (to Aaron’s point) the Mustang or Camaro convertibles, which had a more aggressive demeanor (especially the Camaro), less usable back seats, harsher ride quality, and higher insurance rates. The LeBaron was more in the sweet spot in all those respects.
I was really frustrated with the Sebring convertible at the time because it really is a gorgeous design, but I was dismayed that Chrysler had turned this beautiful car into a 30-footer even when the window sticker had yet to come off, and it was full of disheartening cost-saving gestures like the abandonment of four-wheel discs even with ABS.
Yeah, the Sebring convertible was someting of a throwback to the classic, affordable, domestic convertible with a big rear seat like the 1975 full-size GM convertibles. There were some attempts at reviving the idea, most notably the 2002 Bel Air and Mercury Marauder convertible concepts during that time when retro models were all the rage.
Unfortunately, the Bel Air lost out to the poorly received SSR quasi-truck convertible. Likewise, any thought of Marauder convertible production ended when sales of the 2002-05 Thunderbird failed to live up to expectations.
I still see quite a few Sebring convertibles – probably former rentals – chugging around in my part of California. In fact I just saw a very clean one yesterday. But most are more in the rolling cockroach category. As for the LeBaron, or in fact any K Car, it’s been a while. .
One of the more memorable pieces of Sebring convertible history is it was a favorite of the hapless Michael Scott in the popular show ‘The Office’ who always insisted on having a convertible as his company car. I was always a little surprised that Chrysler never capitalized on that with some sort of Michael Scott connection, maybe an endorsement deal.
At some point, Michael changed up his Sebring for a PT Cruiser convertible. I don’t recall the specifics, but I think it might have had to do with a gap between generations when there wasn’t a next gen Sebring convertible and the producers just let Michael keep on driving his PT Cruiser convertible until both it and the Sebring were discontinued in 2010.
It was rather sad since the Sebring convertible was most definitely the darling of 3-season locale rental agencies such as Hawaii, Florida, and SoCal, a role in which it fit perfectly.
The early cars with the hidden headlights were pretty decent lookers. These later cars had the look of someone past their prime but a few too many ill advised plastic surgeries. I had a friend who owned one and it was a perfectly sufficient budget (used car) open top cruiser for him … before the automatic transmission failed. He had it rebuilt which left him hopelessly underwater value wise on it.
I do agree with you that the bowed rocker panels were a very effective styling trick. Great comparison to the cheap CD changer.
Totally agree on the front end design. Literally looks like the designer photoshopped it in over the weekend.
Meanwhile, I rented one of these in the early ’90s and it’s Sebring cousin in the early ’00s.
Another competitor for the Sebring was the Solara convertible, similarly priced.
there’s something about their appearance that I find faintly nauseating.
Well said, about the later exposed headlights. Terrible integration, and they really cheapened the looks. But then these later year versions were all about cheapening them to lower the price for the rental fleets, which undoubtedly were sucking up the great majority of them.
Even when brand new, 41TE shift quality was sloppy,
Is that based on personal experience or reviews? Our ’92 Grand Caravan certainly ate several of them for lunch, but I don’t remember feeling that about its shift quality. For the time, I was actually rather impressed by it, including its shift quality. We had a Caravan work van at the tv station with the Mitsubishi V6 and the 3-speed TF, and the transmission felt cruder to me, although undoubtedly it lasted longer.
My experience with these was mostly in the passenger seat (and occasionally, unhappily, the back seat), but Consumer Guide complained about the shift quality on the 4A LeBaron throughout its life, although they conceded that the 1993 and later versions were less bad in that respect.
it looks ok for a ragtop, not a body style I’m interested in but, that powertrain is a no no. A divorcee special for the mid 50s lady, like a Peugeot CC a friend had, a look at me car in the showroom and somewhere nice to sit waiting for a tow truck, she got lucky and got sideswiped and the car written off.
The top had a nice low stack height. It looked good even without a cover. Not many convertibles could pull off this trick without seriously compromising the rear seat.
That’s about the nicest comment that comes to mind.
I knew genuine owners, the slightly older couple that lived across the street from my childhood house had a succession of them, first a white earlier one with the hidden headlights, then this facelifted one in green, then a red Sebring convertible and finally a silver Sebring convertible where they eventually disappeared along with the white MGB that had been in the garage and rarely moved. They seemed to love convertibles but eventually caved to the SUV with a trailblazer.
I like the hidden headlight ones the best as well, I think Chrysler did a great job on the styling. The facelifted front end I agree is nauseating, but so is the revised taillight with the red and amber split 50/50, it looks so toyish.
The other curiosity about the LeBaron is the 85-89 sedan looked more modern and inline with the design of the convertible than the 90 design did, it was so retrograde
Perfect analogy regarding those 1990s stereo systems. We still have one of those around our house too – my wife won’t part with it because she has fond memories of having bought it (and being proud of its two cassette decks!) when new. So it just collects dust in the basement. When new, those systems were kind of a status symbol to then-25-year olds, though they weren’t well put together and didn’t excel at anything in particular. Just like the LeBaron by then.
And I agree about those awful exposed headlights. Looked even worse on the Daytona, in my opinion.
I was always simultaneously impressed and disturbed that these were the offspring of a 1981 Plymouth Reliant.
Impressed, because of what Lido and friends were able to make from a lowly economy compact car that was born out of a low budget and desperate times.
Disturbed, because over the 15+ year life span of the K and its derivatives, they never did much to make it a *better* platform.
I’ve known quite a few people who had one of these. They were all retirees.
I agree with the others about the headlights. The 1987 was such a clean look. If they wanted to eliminate the pop ups, they could have at least done a more squared off design to fill the general area. Instead of looking like blisters.
I honestly never noticed the bowed rocker panels before. Sort of reminds me of the 90-93 Trans Sport minivan. Looks in its place on the van, but I could do without it on the car.
Decals instead of physical badges are easier to wax over and can be removed without leaving holes.