When was the last time you saw a Dodge Omni in such unblemished condition, let alone a Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon at all? With production of this affordable little subcompact hatch, Chrysler’s first front-wheel drive vehicle some 28 years ago, the once omnipresent vehicle is a mighty rare to find still kicking around today. Speaking of which, who would have ever guessed three decades ago that recent models of the omnipotent Range Rover (this 2012 belonging to my friends Zach and Tim) would be more common sights on the road than a late-model small cars from Dodge?
Photographed in Milton, Massachusetts – April 2018
Related Reading:
Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon (Automotive History)
The older I get the more I appreciate the styling of these L body sedans. Yes, they are somewhat derivative of the VW Golf/Rabbit but there is a heft to the Amerikaner version compared to the lightness of the German car. Anyhow, there is a balance and a simplicity to the design that I appreciate a lot more now than I did when these were more common.
The K car that followed these was not nearly as nicely styled.
It’s interesting how the originally British-styled Horizon ended up looking convincingly American. The story goes the wheelarch flares were not in the original plans (hat tip to ARonline), I’m sure it went quite a ways blending it into concurrent models at the time. Conversely the Talbot Horizon always looked a bit awkward with its narrow wheels.
The only difference that’s ever stood out to me between these and the Talbot was the lights and the bumpers. Do they really look American? Or does the fact they were once common in the US make them seem that way? It’s a fairly unAmerican car in concept.
To me, they look very “dowdy British” – my memories are of clapped out, deeply unfashionable Talbot’s, which as a kid I put on the same perch as the facelifted Allegro and Maxi. Admittedly I find it much more attractive with the benefit of age and hindsight.
With “American” I was referring to the US version, with different headlamps, big bumpers with giant gaps, wide wheels, and different interior. The EU version on the other hand…. a bit awkwardly proportioned, those wide wheelarch flares that serve no purpose, the narrow wheels – a deeply unsexy makeover of a fat Golf. Somehow, it worked better with the American details.
And to boot, the few remaining when I was schoolchild all seemed to be driven by cranky seniors – not my favourite car. The US version, however, doesn’t bring back that perception at all.
It’s amazing how enough time will cause us to stop and look at a car that we once never thought twice about. These were so much background noise for a long time. This is quite the find.
And that infernal blue. My parents had an ’81 Omni with the VW engine and in that same color of blue. This blue on an Omni is about like green on a ’71 Ford LTD, in which about half were that color.
My mom had an ’86 Horizon, same blue. First car I ever drove.
And who would have ever thought a Dodge Omni would generate almost three times as many comments as a Lincoln customised by George Hearst?
I saw one just last night on The Americans, driven by spy-in-training Paige Jennings. Perfect car for someone trying to keep a low profile in the 80s.
I’m only on Season 3 of The Americans (watching it on Amazon Prime), making your post a bit of a spoiler… but anyway, in season 2 I noticed the same black 2-door K-car in the background in more than one episode. You never really think much about K-cars, but when I saw that one I thought “Wow, where’d they manage to find a pre-facelift K-car in such good condition?” I think in general they did a good job casting cars in that series. Not only did they find cars that were appropriate for the time period (for the most part; I did notice a few that were too new), but cars that would have been old in the early 1980s actually look old on the show.
“The Americans” has a lot of fine 70s and 80s vintage cars. Someone did a good job finding them all.
“Stranger Things” also has some fine vintage iron in it.
The lack of K-cars (and Chevettes, Escorts, and so on) screams out at me though.
I’ve noticed a few “too-new” vehicles as well, although like you I give them a lot of credit for finding as many era-appropriate vehicles as they did.
Someone with “The Americans” also deserves credit for recognizing WHEN a vehicle is too new and attempting to camouflage it. Notice the dark tape splitting the single-lens composite headlamps on this 1987+ Caprice for a scene taking place in 1984!
“The Americans” isn’t the only series who have some anachronisms, here’s one from “The Wonder Years”. https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_914385-Pontiac-Grand-Am-1978.html
“Wonder Years” had an episode where their old station wagon was ‘dying’ and needed to be junked. But wagon was a 1967-68 Dodge and the story took place in summer 1969. Family got a new green ’69 Ford Galaxie.
As I know I’ve brought up before, I love The Americans. A great thriller drama, and now in the last season, I’m curious to see how it concludes… I have a bad feeling about Elizabeth though 🙁
Interesting to mention these cars. We had three roaming Whatcom county on a regular basis. This made me notice I haven’t seen one of them this spring. I’m pretty sure one of them is done for, considering the way it was smoking last summer.
I’ve mentioned here many times that I’m a huge fan of these and their derivatives. I drove scads of these throughout the ’80’s and early 90’s, and while they didn’t handle as crisply as a Rabbit (or look quite as “Euro Chic”), they were great little cars, if a bit on the cheapo side from an interior trim standpoint.
I’ve seen a couple on Craigslist over the past year and have been a bit tempted, as I have such fond memories of them, and ran into a pristinely preserved example at my local convenience store often a while ago before it disappeared.
I think the styling is still rather fresh, and the 2.2 Litre engine was a tiny giant in these lightweight cars, especially when mated to a manual transmission. Maybe I see the past through rose-colored glasses, but I’m a fan. I rock one of these in a heartbeat.
“the 2.2 Litre engine was a tiny giant in these lightweight cars”
I always wanted to try one of these with the 2.2/manual. The 1.7/auto in my mother’s 1980 Horizon was not horrible for that dark era, which gave us some truly awful four cylinder/auto trans combos.
I know I’ve referenced before that I owned an ’82 Charger 2.2 for a few years in high school and college, and that was a LOT of fun with it’s performance tuning, better suspension and Eagle GT’s. I also frequently drove an ’86 Omni in the early 90’s with the 2.2 and 5-speed, which was just as much fun if not a bit stymied by its softer suspension and skinny tires. The gear ratios on the 5 speed seemed perfectly suited to the car, and overall pickup was pretty brisk for the time.
(It didn’t hurt that at the time that Omni was considered a “throwaway car” by the time I drove it despite the fact that it was in great shape and ran quite well, so as an early-twenty-something that status invited spirited driving. The light weight and decent power made the car really “tossable”, while the suspension begged to be pushed to its limits without going beyond them. Good times.)
The suspension looks like it’s being pushed to limits in this picture, in a much different way.How many people were in there? Or ,more to the point, what size were they?
From the looks of it, three. It’s called “acceleration squat”. 🙂
More likely just a lot of junk in the trunk. Or maybe sagging coils, although the ones on mine didn’t sag over ten years and 130K. Which reminds me, although the rear suspension was a twist beam and coils, the shocks were inside the coils like MacPherson struts, so replacing them required taking things apart, raising the labor price.
By the way you could roll these without the roof squashing.
There was a turbo variant of the 2.2 in the Omni GLH
https://www.allpar.com/omni/GLHS.php
We’ve covered them a few times here; no need to go to Allpar!
Here’s but one example: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/cc-capsule-1985-dodge-omni-glh-the-triplets-in-the-yard/
After the range of Omnirizons was simplified somewhere in the mid-eighties into two trim levels the better level interior was actually pretty nice for the time. The front seats were the same as in the upgrade version of a Dodge pickup. I had a 1988 (same color as in the photo) with an automatic, AC, etc. I think the 2.2 was better with the automatic. It was a big engine for the car so relatively a lot of low end torque, and not much of a revver, kind of the opposite of something like a Honda. Although the automatic was only 3 speeds with a lockup torque converter, the axle ratio was low so rpm’s were not too high at cruising speed. Also I don’t think the shifters or clutches in these things were that great to use.
The styling has aged well on these cars, certainly better than the 200 in the background
That might be the original Sebring badged model, which was pretty bad. I think that the facelift (and renaming to 200) after tossing Cerebus out was one of the better saves in car styling history. The interior was also redone with a completely different dashboard. It came out almost OK.
I think you’re right, it does look more like a Sebring than a 200.
If only you could see if it has those stupid grooves in the hood.
I encountered a trifecta on my way into work today:
1) ~1992 Honda Civic
2) late ’80s Chevy Beretta
3) ~1990 Nissan 300ZX.
I literally can’t remember the last time I saw a Beretta on the road, and this one looked to be in really, really good condition. no visible body rust.
should pull the images off of my dash cam.
Saw a Beretta on a local Craigslist this week, though it was a 4 cylinder with automatic transmission and (claimed) working A/C. Price was about $1,000.
Styling was by a team at Whitley (near Coventry) led by Roy Axe.
By coincidence, the replacement for the generation of Range Rover in the photo was also developed in Whitley, the site having been sold to Jaguar by PSA in 1987 and, via Ford, united with Land Rover.
Count me in as a fan of the Omni. It was an attractive design and a great looking interior which was very minimalist.
Plus despite it being killed off the next year, Chrysler put driver’s airbags in them. Airbags were expensive in those days.
Make mine a 175hp GLH
In my town in the 80s, these were not all that common being outnumbered by Escorts and Cavaliers. In fact, most were driven by folks who had connections to the Chrysler dealership.
As rare as these cars are, the real rarity is the Turismo/Charger variant.
Don’t forget the pick-up variant, the Rampage. How many of them still survive?
Last year I saw someone pulling out of AutoZone in a Rampage. I pulled out my phone to try to snap a quick picture, but he was gone before I could get a photo.
I remeber driving a rental one, one of the few cars i remember enjoying while driving it. if i could find one now………..i’d buy it. these are some of Chryslers best work!!
Great looking small car, hard to believe its age, shows how honest practical styling goes a long way!!
I drived a Dodge Omni when I got my driving lessons. 😉 Not the early ones with the VW engine but the later models with the 2.2l engine.
It’s been a while I didn’t saw a Omni/Horizon and in Quebec, the Renault 5 was almost everywhere back then. I don’t see them a lot today.
CC effect: I saw a 1980s version of the Horizon in that same ice blue today while running lunchtime errands!
I really liked the Omni/Horizon twins when they first came out. They were attractive (in fact, the most attractive Chrysler front wheel drive vehicle until the LH sedans came out in 1993), a comfortable half-size larger than the VW Rabbit (at a time when Americans were closer in size to the average European) and drove with substantial road presence while retaining the nimble handling of a small car. Easily the best small car effort of the Detroit Three from the late 1970s and through the 1980s.
Despite my enthusiasm, I had no luck persuading my parents to get one, as they were spooked by the ‘Not Recommended’ rating by Consumer Reports (which was later rescinded) and went with a 1979 Chevette instead.
As an exchange student in Germany in the early 1980s, I remember finding the European version of the Horizon to be even more pleasing to the eye. It had smaller bumpers and simpler trim, focusing one’s attention on the simple lines.
I always associate these with the Little Nero’s Pizza car in “Home Alone”.
After simplifying into two trim levels and lowering the price and adding “America” to their names (only in ads, not on the car) Chrysler didn’t want to spend any money on these things. It would have been a big improvement to just give them a new tailgate and front facia and bumpers just like they did with the Jeep Cherokee at one point. It was the last car in existence with separate shiny metal bumpers by about five years.
Oddly in order to bring them in line with the all-driver airbag policy they did redo the dashboard as cheaply as possible of course, retaining as much as they could, for the 1990 model. And then they decided to stop making them after a few months.
The Omni was a solid effort for the time. I recall, especially in its later years, seeing loads of little old Victoria ladies scooting around in them.
What I don’t get is why Chrysler didn’t stick with the formula. The Golf, for example, is an excellent example of what happens when you let your product grow and mature.
I get the rationale of the P cars, but they were based on the K cars and therefore not really directly comparable to the L body. That said, by the time the K car came around, the tooling on the Omni must have been paid for. Instead of investing on a new L car, Chrysler did silly things like the Imperial and later, the Prowler.
This probably wouldn’t have had a great effect on Chrysler in the long term, because Americans tend to look down on small cars.
They did invest in the Neon, brought out in early 1993 as a ’94 model.
True story:
There used to be a blue Horizon (older, with a darker blue color than the one in the photo) in San Francisco. I was driving behind it one day.
It had a vanity license plate: BEYOND.
Great find Brendan.
I was a Chrysler fan the whole time these were on the market. My brother owned one. But being honest with ourselves, these were not especially cool cars to be seen driving at the time. The 80s equivalent to driving say a base AMC Hornet with the small six. High on practicality, without a lot of sex appeal. In my part of Canada, the GLH was as common as Haley’s Comet. 🙂 But their reliability, practicality, and affordability gave Chrysler’s image a lot of goodwill at the time.
There’s a blue one and maroon one around here. I used to see a brown horizon as well, but haven’t seen it in several years.
In Canada they named the later models Expo. My uncle had a 1988 Horizon Expo in a dark red/maroon color. It was equipped like a rental car – automatic, am/fm stereo radio and air conditioning. He had that car until 1998 which was pretty amazing as he was very hard on cars and the harsh Manitoba winters took their toll as well. Like others have posted, I cannot remember the last time I have seen an Omni/Horizon and do not recall seeing a Duster/Turismo since the 1990`s.
I knew a Chrysler mechanic in the early 2000’s that drag raced an Omni, normally aspirated too. He towed it to the track with another Omni.
Lots of memories…I bought an 1989 Dodge Omni America new off the showroom floor for $8k. Had it 10 years and around 110,000 miles. Silver. One time took it way past it’s 85mph speedo to around 100 and lived to tell the tale. ?
Ah, the American Simca, a happy combination of French, German, and American ingenuity that Chrysler engineers, somehow, got to work together in concert. It was truly the one really bright spot for Chrysler in the seventies (the brougham-tastic Cordoba notwithstanding), and it’s been suggested that the only thing that kept them from building/selling more in those early years was the limited number of VW engine blocks they could get their hands on.
Was the Omnirizon revolutionary like the Rabbit/Golf? Not really, but imagine walking into a Chrysler showroom in 1978 and seeing one of them parked next to a 1978 New Yorker Brougham. It would be akin to a 1960 Chevrolet showroom with a bat-wing Impala next to a Corvair. For the time, the Omnirizon was A-OK, especially for the Big 3. Consider that GM was still offering Vega-based Monzas and the…Chevette, while Ford had to resort to importing the admittedly tossable (but austere) Fiesta.
No, the Omnirizon was no Civic or Corolla, but it was otherwise plenty good enough for fuel economy hungry, late seventies’ American car buyers, and I can easily see it being a big reason Iacocca thought Chrysler was worth joining. It was one of the few Chrysler Greatest Hits and worth noting that the Omnirizon paved the way for stuff like the K-car and minivan.
My dad had a string of these in the 80s and early 90s. He also had a round trip commute of 70 miles at the time so they fit the bill of being a pretty frugal commuter. The first was a gold/beige ’84 with the VW engine and manual. My brother learned to drive a stick with that car and I still clearly remember riding with them on that drive in our small town, my brother trying to get going on a slope so shallow that a car in neutral might not have even rolled anywhere on it’s own. It took a couple stoplights for him to finally get going, some drivers behind us honking, and an 11-year old me sinking down the small backseat in embarrassment. Dad kept that one until it had 130-140K, still ran great but the amount of miles were beginning to worry my dad a bit.
The second was a 2.2L auto red/red ’88. That was the car I pretty much learned to drive with until I bought my first car…a ’78 Bonneville Brougham. But the Omni was *much* better on gas and $2-3 would get me and my friends far. My brother ended up getting that car and it lasted until close to 190K.
The last one was a ’90, specifically sought out by my dad because they had an airbag. It was light blue like the subject car and I don’t remember the interior color…either light blue or light grey. That one just always seemed a little off. The interior rubber molding around the doors had shrunk making it kinda loud on the road, the A/C died not too long after my dad got it (all three were bought as low-mile used cars) and he kept that one maybe just a couple years before trading it in for a new ’96 Sentra. As these cars were always around when I was growing up, I do have a soft spot for them. Were they great cars? Probably not, especially compared to similar imports. But they generally proved to be reliable, cheap to own and practical for their time.