It’s disorienting when institutions and familiar touchstones disappear or become but a trace of their former selves. I’m very happy to have discovered recent news stories that promise new products from the Chrysler brand of Stellantis. I like all of the renderings I’ve seen, as unpredictive as they might be at this point. I’ve become even more of a Mopar follower over the past few years as I’ve watched the Chrysler brand’s offerings become limited to just a pair of minivans for 2026, the Voyager and Pacifica. I was already a young adult thirty years ago when our featured ’96 Chrysler LHS was new, back when the Pentastar brand’s design leadership and innovation had made this company the one to watch.
There has already been an excellent and comprehensive essay written on the ’96 LHS by Brendan Saur, so I recommend clicking the above link for in-depth reading on this beautifully styled Chrysler. What had started as a post-brunch walk over to a 1926-built flatiron building in the neighborhood north of mine had ended up yielding the spotting of what I’d estimate to be the first LHS of this vintage that I’ve seen in years, let alone in condition this pristine.
The dealership sticker on the left of the rear decklid shows that this car had been sold at one point by Tormohlen Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, which no longer appears to be in business as a new car dealership. I love seeing the inclusion of long-defunct Plymouth as part of that trio, as three of the first family cars I had ever experienced from birth were from Chrysler Corporation’s low-priced brand: an early-’70s Fury sedan, a yellow Duster, and a burgundy Volaré coupe, all purchased from Chinonis Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge on Clio Road in Flint’s north end. I can remember few if any C-P dealers that didn’t also offer Dodge vehicles for sale.
The LH-platform Chrysler Concorde had arrived with great fanfare for the ’93 model year, but it wasn’t until mid-year that the reimagined New Yorker and LHS were introduced as ’94 models. Even with its radical, cab-forward styling, the New Yorker was seen as meeting the needs of the customer with more traditional ideas of luxury. The LHS cost thousands more than the New Yorker (over 19% more for ’94, and about 10% more by ’96) for its inclusion of a leather interior, sportier suspension, standard alloy wheels, front bucket seats, front console, and other European-inspired external tweaks.
These cars handled well and had immense interior room, owing to their cab-forward architecture. Power came from a 3.5 liter V6 engine with 214 horsepower, which was considered decent in these large, 3,600-pound cars, capable of propelling one to sixty miles per hour in the mid-eight second range. The ’96 LHS had a starting base price of about $30,300, which translates to almost twice as much in 2026. The LHS vastly outsold the New Yorker, which was quietly discontinued after the ’96 model year after a fifty-seven-year run for the nameplate. To wit, the featured car was one of about 34,900 LHSs sold for ’96 against just under 3,300 New Yorkers, a ratio of over ten-to-one.
Just under 146,000 first-generation cars were produced over its run of four model years between 1994 and ’97. The LHS went on hiatus for ’98 before coming back for a brief, three-year run between 1999 and ’01 before again being discontinued. I’m not entirely sure this was a bad strategy, given that Chrysler had two other cars, the 300M and Concorde, that shared the LHS’s front-drive platform and 113-inch wheelbase.
At the same time and given the myriad model and body style choices among Chrysler-branded cars in ’96, it seems all the more unfathomable that there’s just one basic minivan design available in two trim levels in 2026. It’s almost like some sort of slow-boil phenomenon, where models kept disappearing over time before I realized that new Chryslers were almost extinct.
When this car was new, one could go to one’s friendly Chrysler dealer to test-drive not one, but two different Sebrings, an unrelated coupe and convertible; a Cirrus midsize sedan; the more mainstream and downmarket (but still beautiful and class-competitive) Concorde; a Town & Country minivan; or a New Yorker or LHS. These were all somewhat dignified and upscale offerings from the brand. It didn’t even occur to me to pay any special attention to Chrysler at the time because I always assumed it would always be there, putting out innovative cars under their then-new leadership.
I almost didn’t see this car after having photographed the century-old flatiron building next to the CTA’s Loyola Red Line station. This historic building, like the former Chrysler Corporation, was another stalwart, beautiful thing that I had always managed to take for granted until news of its sale and imminent demolition became public knowledge back in 2024. Among other businesses, it had housed Archie’s Café, which was a really cute and comforting space in which to enjoy caffeine and freshly baked goods.
At Archie’s Café. Saturday, June 8, 2024.
I was able to stop into Archie’s a few times before they closed, and with the exception of the one really hot summer day during which a friend and I had stopped into the un-air conditioned space for a live music concert, I had really enjoyed being there and found it to be a gem of a spot and one I wish I had discovered much sooner. Apparently, nearby Loyola University owns the land and has other plans for it. That’s what happens when a wealthy, private university is landlocked by Lake Michigan on its eastern border and needs to expand with growing enrollment.
I can’t say I don’t understand why this beautiful, 1926-vintage building had to come down, even though that doesn’t make me lament its disappearance any less. Similarly, within Stellantis’ product portfolio, the automotive brands most closely associated with the old Chrysler Corporation that many of us still love, including Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep, need to be pulling their financial weight in order for their parent company to maintain profitability. Without having any of that data, suffice it to say I really want there to be new Chryslers for sale in the future.
Pivoting back to our LHS in what I believe to be factory Spruce Metallic finish, one of the things that struck me the most as I was photographing it was just how handsome its styling still looks, thirty years after the fact. It’s true that the blocky, boldly styled, rear-drive Chrysler 300 that had arrived for 2005 had made quite a styling statement, and I still love the look of the early examples. However, after close to twenty years of the same, basic aesthetic before the 300 was finally discontinued after 2023, I find the original LH sedans to have a refreshingly forward-thinking look to them. I can’t help but wonder what the new Chrysler-branded vehicles will be like when (not if, but when) they finally arrive. I can only hope that the Chrysler tradition of innovative styling and design will be resurrected for good.
Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, March 8, 2026.
The brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
First car I remember is my dad’s Chrysler, from the immediate post WWII era. Perhaps these “cloud cars” were the first models to appear from Chrysler that didn’t have Mr. Iacocca’s input. I remember the mid 1990s of Chrysler fondly and your article evokes those memories very well.
The Cloud Cars were actually the midsized Cirrus, Stratus, and Breeze, but they also had the cab forward thing Chrysler was doing / pioneering in those days. Mid-’90s Chrysler just seemed to be brimming with so much optimism. I smile when I think about it.
Stellantis itself is going to vanish sooner or later, with virtually no strong brand which could exert some pull on (even) weaker brands. A stellar failure, and one is to wonder how many brands of that conglomerate might disappear forever once it crashes like a meteor.
FWIW Stellantis 1st quarter global sales were up 12%, beating pretty much every major US and European car manufacturer.
As the global market continues to evolve and the Chinese make headway in Europe, some old brands are bound to die, as has been the case since about forever.
Well, given the huge losses Stellantis made in the recent years, 12% in the 1st quarter is not really reassuring (especially not right now).
Anyway, it would be sad if either the brands disappear or becoming a sad joke like MG.
It is so disappointing when these old, unique buildings are torn down. It is rare that their replacements have half the architectural character. My little city tore down a lot of old buildings in the 70s due to decades of neglect and insufficient restoration budgets. A lot of throwaway garbage architecture replaced them, making for some miserable looking blocks around the town’s core.
As to the Chrysler…the LH cars were big news when the debuted but, man, they didn’t seem to have much of a shelf life. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any variant out on the road in any real frequency.
I could cry when I look at so many old buildings in downtown Flint (where I’m originally from) that were torn down after years of neglect and vacancy. I wonder how they could have been utilized today.
I agree that the relative disappearance of the LH cars makes a current day sighting all the more shocking. Hence part of why I chose this subject car to write about, where maybe even five or ten years ago I might not have.
What a huge deal it was when these beautiful cars launched. The ad campaign was stunning, as was its accompanying musical score and tagline, “The Renaissance of the American Car.” I’m beginning to have the same longing for the 90s that I once felt for the 70s.
Yes, and yes! I remember the ad campaigns being quite memorable and impactful, and their tone seemed to match the beauty of these cars. And I feel that about the ’90s.
I thought Chrysler had a really big hit with these cars. I know my sister was working at an office where they had a Concord as a company car that was available for her to use to run any errands in throughout the day, and she said it was a really nice driving car.
What I am not familiar with is their quality. The only person I knew who owned one was a co worker at a Lowe’s store-he had the New Yorker version. I cannot recall but it seems like as it got up to the 95,000 mile mark the transmission went out.
Too bad really, because you could buy just about anything with somewhat better quality.
Great find
It does seem to be a shame about the transmissions on some of these. Between the tranny and then engines in some of the related Intrepids that I’ve read about here perhaps, it seems like Chruslers of this eras had so much going for them, but some unexpected achilles heel if not attended to properly.
The LH was in my view one of the best looking big cars of the ’90s, or at least what passed for a big car by then. The Jag MK II inspired roofline was a real hit with me and they were very good and quite original cars.
Chrysler was on a real roll for a while then torpedoed by Daimler-Benz thanks to that sellout by the turncoat Robert Eaton and that idiot “Dr Z” Dieter Zetsche who almost de-Chryslered Chrysler. They have a lot to answer for.
I’m still bitter. It was like Chrysler had entered into a toxic relationship with D-B, which left the former like a shell of its former self before the inevitable narcissistic discard.
These LH cars and the 300M featured a few days ago were very distinctive visually and seemed like pretty innovative packaging as well. Luxury for one, a performance image for the other. And they were everywhere. And then, poof! Gone.
I started traveling to Taiwan for business frequently in early 1997 and these were a very common sight on the crowded streets of Taipei. And just as here in California, one day there were none.
I don’t know much about Taiwan or commerce there, but I find that cool and fascinating. I remember being in Italy back in 2017 and seeing the Lancia versions of our own Chrysler 300 and thinking how strangely comforting it was to see them there.
The Chrysler brand has little or no brand equity left. It was so associated with traditional American sedans, a market segment that is the equivalent of the dodo bird.
Super depressing. It’s true that there are so few traditional American sedans left for purchase.
When these first appeared, I expected to see a 50-50 split between the New Yorker and the LHS. Boy was I wrong!
I liked these a lot when they were new. Especially in this color!
I really wanted a New Yorker, but it was above my station at the time. Beautiful style and a comfy bench seat interior.
In my opinion, these were *the* most stylish of the final, modern U.S. cars available with a bench seat.
I bought a ‘95 New Yorker in 2001…it was a handsome (IMHO), comfortable (especially the cushy gray velour seats!), nice handling car. Sold it to my son when I purchased my ‘02 Concorde Limited.
A very nice looking car in what appears to be the same color as the featured car. I really like the wheels on this one. The whole look was cohesive, modern, and not at all stuffy for a luxury car.
Thanks…I agree. Those are actually wheelcovers vs. wheels; always thought they worked, too.
I was very, very surprised to see the disparity in the production figures when I had been putting this essay together. At first, I might have assumed that the New Yorker nameplate had been discontinued only for the reason of a more modern, alphanumeric image, but that wasn’t the case at all.
The Voyager name is being retired again, so Chrysler is back down to one vehicle with one nameplate in several trim levels. Voyager will now be the Pacifica LX, it seems HQ realized that a decontented version of the Pacifica named the Pacifica still has more name equity than pointing out its rental spec-ness and calling it something different.
At some point you kind of have to wonder if it perhaps woulnd’t have been better to double down on the Eagle name and pile almost everything into that umbrella and rally behind it instead of having one van here, a car over there, and multiple other hangers-on all being somehow supported by Jeep and Ram with really only the Jeep name actually having some sort of enduring overall desirability and the rest of the names mostly trading on very faded and dusty former glory and memories that older people have of the cars of their youth with though even them openly discussing that they were often riddled with problems.
Nice find though, an interesting “modern” take on the formal look in excellent condition.
So we’re saying goodbye to the Voyager name for like the third time? Actually, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Rallying behind one nameplate might have been a good idea, but not Eagle, which seemed like the catchall for the miscellaneous, random offerings by Pentastar. Or maybe that was your point.
I so miss the Chrysler Corporation of the ’90s.
Count me as one of the few who had no problem at all with the K cars.
Why Cindy and I never looked at them seriously is a mystery. I was today years old when I leaned about the 5/50 warranty. People blame Lee for making too many variations, and I can see that to a point. But then Ford , GM and AMC did similar things.
We will be in the market for a fuel economy car by summers end. And sure we will look at (within a tight budget) Honda-Acura and Toyota Lexus and even Subaru.
Dependability is number 1 so any Buick 3,8 or Ford panther will also be looked at. And I’ll even look for a K car or Valiant/ Duster. Because with the massive quality issues and stratosphere pricing and fall down quickly depreciation, we want to choose wisely
Chip, a friend and I were recently talking about how little it takes to total out a modern vehicle. That’s part of the cost equation. I wish you success in your search!
Yes, the transmissions were prone to destruction. I had a ’93 Spirit and the trans went out at 124k miles. Apparently Chrysler didn’t spec the right trans fluid from what I’ve researched.
This seems like it would have been an avoidable issue, which especially seems a shame as Chrysler had traditionally been known as the engineering company.
The LHS and New Yorker did a good job of competing with the Buick Park Avenue, Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and Aurora and the Mercury Grand Marquis. The unique styling of the ’94-’97 LHS and New Yorker models was great and a lot classier than the cheaper Concorde.
When the car came back for ’99 it now shared the same body as the cheaper Concorde and just didn’t look as classy or as much like a premium product. The ’99 LHS had a different grill and plastic bumper than the Concorde. After the LHS was discontinued after the 2001 model year, it’s LHS grill and plastic bumper cover were offered on the 2002 Concorde Sport (and maybe for a couple of years after that). Sort of like how the ’75 Imperial front end clip found its way onto cheaper New Yorkers for ’76-’78 and the New Yorker front end clip found its way onto the even cheaper Newport Custom, and later even plain Newports.
Your latter point is an excellent parallel between the transformation of the Imperial LeBaron to the Chrysler New Yorker Brougham for ’76. I also have a strong preference for the first generation of LHS. Maybe part of that was the impact they had when they were brand new. The newer ones seemed more evolutionary.
Unless I needed RWD towing ability that the Panthers offered, and not as much money as the first Aurora required, I’m pretty sure I would have gone for the LHS. But that’s also pretending that I’m a completely different person and would have been in the target demographic for a full-sized domestic car.
Correction. Actually, after being discontinued after the 2001 model year, the LHS grill and bumper cover were offered on a model called the “Concorde Limited,” not the Concorde Sport.
I absolutely loved these cars. The New Yorker and LHS were home-runs for reborn Chrysler and such a dramatic departure for the laughable K-based Fifth Avenue and Imperial that they replaced. I’m glad you found one in the wild to photograph. I haven’t seen one in at least a decade.
Totally agree. These were about as close to a one-eighty as could be possible from the cars they replaced in Chrysler’s product portfolio. That’s part of what made them all the more stunning at their debut.
Things are looking bleak for the Chrysler brand. Historically, it’s a company famous for defunct marques, running through DeSoto, Imperial, Eagle, and Plymouth. I guess we’ll always have Dodge.
Fingers crossed. I did sit in a new Charger at the Chicago Auto Show this past February, and it seemed like a quality machine. Beautifully styled on the outside, and the interior was also well done.
Why is it that so often beauty is replaced by ugliness? It puzzled me as a child, when nice old buildings all around were being torn down, and replaced with squalid ugliness. Dad tried to explain the economics of it to me. He couldn’t explain the ugliness. Why does progress have to be ugly?
When the rear-drive 300 replaced these, I groaned, and thought ‘Here we go again’. A standout, indivdual, futuristic design was replaced by… a football. But still, a football is better then much of what we see in traffic these days.
And now the football that was Chrysler has been bounced around (or passed) from Mercedes’ domination to Stellantis – which seems to be doing its best at a ‘twenties impersonation of British Leyland. Because gathering up excessive number of brands worked out SO well for them…
Joseph, I mourn for your flatiron.
Thank you, Peter. And without knowing a ton of B/L history outside of what I’ve read here and a few other sites, your comparison with modern day Stellantis seems apt. My 103-year-old former high school building, a once-stunning structure, is being ripped down after being closed and vacant for 17 years – but the silver lining is that a new high school will be built on site, and hopefully, a handful of the architectural elements will be incorporated into the new building as a nod to the site’s past. It just wasn’t economically feasible to maintain a giant, inefficient structure with super-high ceilings, ancient HVAC, marble floors, etc.
In the case of this flatiron, I imagine that the plot of land will be redeveloped into a tall, student-oriented McBuilding that makes the absolute most of that footprint right next to the CTA Loyola L station.
I was a fan of the reborn 300, but stylistically, it seemed to be stuck in that same rut for way too long. I also feel like it was one of the few passenger-car successes of modern-day Chrysler, so I could see why its formula wasn’t tampered with too dramatically. Still, the blockiness of the 300 stands in stark contrast to the fresh, modern, elegant, aero styling of the featured LHS.
I like to think that this man would have been proud of this car.
Darn it, I missed another post of yours Joe! – You’d think by now I’d know to go to CC on a Tuesday! Busy at work again this week; hopefully your work week calmed down a little from last week.
My Dad had one of these cars back then, only the second Chrysler product he ever owned (the first being a ’60 Dodge).
His was a 1994 Concorde like the one pictured below. The color was called Black Cherry, if memory serves. I came here to say that he had the same wheels as the subject car, and they were not easy to clean. The ’97 Grand Prix GTP I got a few years later had equally difficult to clean wheels similar to those.
I always liked them though. They have kind of a Spirograph thing going on.
Shame about the building. I guess they did not feel it was historic enough to save. Either that, or it was BER: Beyond Economic Repair.
But see, Rick, you didn’t miss it, because here you are! LOL My week this week is immeasurably better at work – I just have to write more business. Isn’t that true of all of us?
I always thought the Concorde had really nice lines as Chrysler’s LH intended for everyman. I can imagine having to bust out the toothbrush when cleaning the wheels as part of Saturday morning detailing. (I did that for the polycast wheels on my ’88 Mustang.)
I see to recall many of those Concordes in that black cherry color.
I used to think it was curious that Chrysler didn’t just call those the “Concord” a la the AMC car from the company they had purchased, but as I punch this out on my smartphone, it occurs to me that the connotations of the Concorde SST was probably more of what Chrysler was shooting for with the name.
Joseph, Tony LaHood here. It’s so good to see your byline again. I also love historical architecture and it’s sad that people are unable to appreciate its significance. I’d like to rejoin the CC stable of writers, as I miss Paul, Cavanaugh, Tatra87, Klein, et. al. As for the Chrysler, never really a fan, but amazed that the LHS outsold the New Yorker, and by such a large ratio. I loved the 300 but I think it stayed a little too long at the fair.
Tony, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that reading more of your great content would a treat. I also agree that the reborn 300 showed too little progression after its impactful reinvention for c. 2005.
Hi Tony. Nice to see you hereabouts again.
If you’re wanting to contribute, get in touch with Rich Baron (or me) at the usual email: [email protected]