William Stopford entertained us with the VW1500 in a recent chapter of his epic “Obscure Rebadges From Around the World“. It was of course a rebadged Dodge 1500, which was of course a rebadged Hillman Avenger. Which was also rebadged as a Plymouth Cricket in the US. Rivera Notario, who keeps posting some superlative finds at the Cohort, found this Dodge 1500 still hard at work on the street in Buenos Aires.
Here it is, on the go. No smoke from the tailpipe. These Hillmans were tough as nails, except for when they were shipped to the US, where they all seemed to fall apart in a couple of years.
Who here has seen a Cricket in the last 20-30 years? it’s my CC Holy Grail. It’s been at least that long fro me. But one of these days I’m going to be driving on some obscure Oregon back road, and there half buried under a blackberry bush in a rural property I will find my Cricket.
Or I could go to Argentina, a place high on my travel to-do list, bring along a Cricket badge, and make my own. Would that be cheating?
Friends of mine bought a 1971 Plymouth Cricket in good shape in 2005. I neglected to take a photo but another friend did (attached). They then passed it onto someone who was going to restore it. It had a couple other owners after that and I lost track it.
I did see a few Dodge 1500s in Cuba last year.
Additionally Canada got a badge engineered version of the mid 70s Colt as a Plymouth Cricket for a few years. I have not seen on of those in about 15 years either.
This is good contrast to the square headlight Coronet, these look much nicer as Crickets with quad round sealed beams than the dual rectangulars IMO
I only ever heard of these after binge watching the Car and Track videos, where they took a striped GT version around the track.
The gold car above looks for all the world like a 3/4 scale ’70 Nova… uncanny resemblance!
I remember asking my father if Chevrolet and Dodge were the same company, we had a ’68 Nova and in 1975, I was 10 and these cars were pretty common here in Uruguay.
They were pretty badly assembled and not reliable. Most of them here had vinyl covered roofs, which caught moisture and produced lots of rust in a couple of years.
Great little cars, Competing in an international rally in NZ an Avenger beat the all conquering Ford Escorts, Quite a few left alive here including the Alpine models and the alledgedly rare wagons, Last ones were built around 1980 in NZ mildly facelifted and badged Chrysler
Nice find.
The Avenger is a car show only sight here now, and even then rare.
Interesting to see a version that has a front like an original base model Hillman Avenger and a rear end closer, but different, to the facelift Chrysler version
There are a couple of daily driven Avengers around here both owned by young women, both are on the cohort somewhere, The Humber Hillman club technical advisor drives a souped up Avenger Alpine in bright orange, actually they arent rare here at all if you know where to look,
You drove through Eskdale on your way to Napier Roger theres a place there littered with Hillmans it where I found my Minx and he still has around 30 Hunters and half a dozen Avengers.
“Who here has seen a Cricket in the last 20-30 years?”
I haven’t seen a Plymouth Cricket since the 1973 Auto Show, 😉
Early in my marriage, one parked near her folks house in Lakewood, Colorado (Denver area).
We married in ’88 and it disappeared soon after, but even thirty years ago it was a VERY rare and notable sight.
Pretty much what I was going to say! Have not seen one in more than 40 years, that’s for sure. British cars of that time period just did not do well under American driving and (lack of) maintenance conditions.
When I was in elementary our next door neighbor had a yellow avenger which he used it to move people around all day as private taxi some times running it for 15 hours a day without many breaks and he was really surprised that a European car can handle 120 degrees summer temperature in central IRAN.
The Plymouth Cricket wasn’t a common sight here in Canada. The last one I saw was in about 1980 – our well-salted roads killed this particular species off in no time.
They were rushed into production as Dodge 1800 in Brazil in 1973 and had severe quality issues; their image was so marred that Chrysler had to relaunch them as Dogde Polara in 1976 to regain a degree of credibility. The Polaras were good cars but their life was cut short after the takeover of Chrysler do Brasil by VW, which didn’t want its Passat sales being canibalized by the little Dodge.
There are still at least two Crickets on the road in the U.S. One was for sale at Chryslers at Carlisle, in very good condition. The other I saw in an online video, being restored and driven by it’s young owner. The first was light brown, the second, I think was blue.
Or I could go to Argentina, a place high on my travel to-do list
You should definitely visit Argentina and Chile when you can.
You will be surprised to see strong German influence in Chile, i.e. traffic lights going from red to red-yellow then to green, distance markers on the side of highway prior to the exit ramp (300m, 200m, 100m, etc.), lot of imported German food at the supermarkets (they’re quite cheap than I thought), and so forth.
If you are in Argentina, be sure to visit Ushuaia, a very charming southernmost town with lot of hiking trails and ship rides. Strong Scandinavian influence there. I didn’t feel unsafe in Buenos Aires (as long as you know where the dodgy areas are).
Great line (spoken by Peter Lorre, in “Beat the Devil”): “Many fine people in Chile are called O’Hara.”
O’Hara? Nah, never met one. And traffic lights 🚦 Go Green -yellow- red and green again 🙂
I’m Chilean. 30 years old, have always lived in Santiago.
I have spent the last two years restoring a 1972 Plymouth Cricket I got from Oklahoma City. Aztec Gold with a new vinyl top and Rostyle wheels with a parchment interior. I then found 4 rusted out junk yard Crickets in PA, bought them and cut them up for parts. I have a manual gearbox and twin carb set up to install when I find time. I love my Cricket!