What do you say about a car that was so unremarkable that you barely remember it existing when new and figured that it couldn’t be a Monaco, but rather the somewhat more common Eagle Premier version when faced with it across the dirt lot at the junkyard? I still don’t really know what to say, but I do know that I don’t see these every day, week, month, or even year so I’d better take this opportunity to share this one even though it’s long lost any glitz or glamour that its name may have once tried to bestow on it.
The Monaco (this generation) was derived from the Eagle Premier, a car that premiered for the 1988 model year and was produced through 1992. The reason for creating the Dodge sister car starting with the 1990 model year was that Chrysler was contractually obligated to purchase a certain number of engines from Renault as part of their AMC deal and it wasn’t looking good with the way the sales numbers for the Premier were looking. As it turned out, the Premier was vastly more popular than the Monaco so overall it was a bad bet. In fact Chrysler did end up paying a penalty to Renault in the end instead of fulfilling the agreement.
This being a 1991 model makes it the middle year of the three it was sold as well as the most popular year with a total of 12,436 sold that year to people who wandered in to look for a Diplomat and walked out with this after being told it was the replacement model. (7,153 were sold in 1990 and another 1,960 straggled out in 1992). Of course it itself was replaced in 1993 with the very successful Intrepid that shares a surprising number of details with the Monaco.
Monaco was available in LE and upper level ES trim. This one is an LE. However, for the introductory Monaco model year of 1990, all Premiers and Monacos were equipped with four wheel disc brakes and for 1991, all Monacos had ABS brakes fitted as standard on the ES and an option on the LE. 1991 also saw all chrome deleted for either a black trim or monochrome look, depending on trim level. Automatic Climate Control and A/C were standard as well.
It may look blocky as a barn, but this was one of the most aerodynamic sedans of its time with a drag coefficient of 0.31, slightly bettering the Ford Taurus. The exterior was a Giugiaro ItalDesign creation, with the interior styled by Dick Teague as one of his last tasks.
There isn’t much difference between the Eagle Premier and the Dodge Monaco besides the front grille, the rear light panel having some of them replaced with a dark filler panel, and the color of the front turn indicators becoming orange rather than clear (although the rears stayed red).
The trunk is quite large and deep, although it looks a bit shallow for a FWD design. At least the liftover height is low and the whole thing looks decently carpeted, or at least covered in that felty stuff that tries to pass as carpeting.
June of 1991 makes it one of the later ones of the year and there wouldn’t be many of the ’92’s produced so this one’s probably from the last ten percent or so of the total run. Perhaps that’s what let it live so long. Produced at AMC’s Brampton, Ontario plant (Bramalea), this was one of the jewels of the whole AMC deal as the plant was new at the time. Even though built in Canada, the Monaco was never sold there as opposed to the Premier. I suppose it wouldn’t have made much difference in overall sales numbers if it had been.
Your tired eyes do not deceive you, that is a PRV “Douvrin” engine of 3.0Litre displacement. While the family of PRV engines powered all manner of Peugeots, Renaults, and Volvos, one version also powered the DeLorean and in the Monaco produced 150HP and 171lb-ft of torque. Weighing around 3000 pounds, this wasn’t bad at all for the era. I believe all Monacos were automatics, in this case a 4-speed ZF unit, but there is at least one reference to a 5-speed manual option that I could find but I doubt it’s accurate. The Premier could also be had with a 2.5l four cylinder engine but that was canned for 1990 and never available in the Monaco.
Fuel efficiency of this port fuel injected engine was figured at 18City and 27Highway. It’s also mounted longitudinally while being front wheel drive, this car is the reason that the Intrepid features the same configuration as Francois Castaing at Chrysler apparently insisted on it.
The powertrain was also bestowed with Chrysler’s 7/70 warranty. MoPar and its warranties confound me, they seem to jump between 50k, 70k, and 100k from year to year and sometimes back and forth, there doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason, often the same engine will be warrantied for twice as long one year as the next and then back again a few years later. I suppose it’s all marketing driven; sales go down, increase the warranty; sales and claims go up, notch it back down again.
But since this car is based on a French design (Renault 25) there must be some weirdness and the interior does not disappoint. After Dick Teague tucked into his croissants and cafe au lait one fateful morning, he penned this. At first blush the seats look properly veloury, and the color is an unrelenting sea of blue-gray, but what’s going on near the wheel?
Ooh la la, it’s a little pod for the lights and a tiny flappy paddle for the turn signals! And sliders for the instrument lighting as well as the wipers. How are they going to get used to that down on the farm? (Turns out they didn’t, apparently). Supposedly the turn signal stalk would self-center after being pressed, with a gentle “gong” noise to denote when the signal stopped flashing instead of the lever clicking back to center as in most vehicles. Tres chic.
The fake stitching on the horn pad is decidedly not french stitching, that’s straight out of the upper MidWest, but the other pod on the right is comprised of selector buttons for the HVAC, the actual selections of which are displayed in the lower right corner of the instrument panel. Madame in the passenger seat will have NO idea what is going on and her fingers are in danger of a guillotine chop if her hand strays too far towards the back of the steering wheel area to attempt adjustments.
Interestingly for a car not sold anywhere but the US, there is a selector for English vs Metric units at the middle left, I do not know what that would change as everything visible without power is analog. Still, the gauges are clear, large, and comprehensive enough for a large family sedan. This one seems to have given up the ghost at 159,684 miles which seems on the low side for around here, although it does look like it’s been sitting for some time – the dirt isn’t from the yard, this was freshly placed when I saw it.
To the left of the driver’s seat is not the first place I looked for the hood release, I’ll grant that. The Japanese had been putting their trunk and fuel filler releases in this spot for decades by the time this was released, but Chrysler clearly thought that a longer and more complex release cable mechanism for the hood made more sense. It did still work, so there’s that I suppose.
That’s a lot of legroom although the front seats are sort of in “Rear Legroom Brochure PhotoShoot Position”, still that bench looks quite cozy except for the middle position, the occupant of which sort of straddles the front center console. It seems roomier than the Diplomat this replaced though, although it’s been a long time since I’ve sat in the back of a Dippy.
I don’t know if the Monaco deserved better than only 21,549 sales, perhaps so, I’d certainly prefer it by far to the slightly lower in the line-up Dynasty which absolutely clobbered it as far as sales numbers go but I don’t recall a lot of marketing support for the Monaco, most people probably didn’t even know about it. The Premier outsold it 5:1 despite only being available for an additional two years (before the Monaco bowed).
This seems to be the only commercial I can find for the Monaco, in this case a snazzy ES model from the intro year of 1991. Equating passengers in a car generally to sardines in a can I’d find slightly offputting in any context and it probably didn’t help here either.
Related Reading
This Cohort find seems to be the only other Monaco of this generation that we’ve featured so far
David Saunders found this 1989 Eagle Premier in a Junkyard near him and wrote an excellent piece
Those headlight and HVAC control pods tilted with the steering column, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the Porsche 928. Well, that might be a stretch, but it was the most interesting tilt column that didn’t move the instrument panel with it.
A white Dodge Monaco was one of my all-time favorite rental cars. I drove it for a few weeks while in college and shopping for a replacement to the Jetta that a girl I was living with had abbreviated. It rode like a French car, which is to say like a 1956 Buick that doesn’t weigh two tons. It didn’t handle like a German or Japanese car, but it did hold the road at least as well as any Buick. Best of all, my rented Monaco had a column shift and a bench seat that opened up all sorts of activity options on road trips. It also didn’t break while I had it, which made it better than the two rental cars I had the four days before National handed it over.
I too miss bench seats and column shifters (the latter which was used even on bucket-seats-and-console early Premiers). I recall the column shifter had a tortured shape needed to snake around the control pod.
A gas can with a useable spout, should have grabbed that piece of gold.
This would be one of those to watch through its life-cycle at the yard and see if anything at all actually goes missing (other than that gas can).
I am surprised that it managed to last this long. Those engines were not know for legendary durability and the orphan nature of the car meant it hasn’t been worth more than scrap for the vast majority of its life. I’m guessing that means that the last owner was either the only owner or purchased it as a bargain when it was a couple of years old and was already an orphan with a low value.
I’m with you, leave the car, take the gas can! (Leave the gun, take the cannolis!]
Such a rare car. And I’d forgotten that some of these (the Premier, in any case) came with the AMC pushrod four. It must have been its only FWD application. The AMC Iron Duke.
Re: the metric-English switch: I assume there was a trip computer or whatever they were called back then, in that box in the dash directly above it.
The speedo has mph and kph labels, but I only see one set of numbers. My guess is that the needle sweep changes for mph/kph with an indicator light.
Why? Well, why not?
There is a set of red km/h numbers to the inside (well to the inside) of the white mph ones so the needle does not change. Weird timing though as Paul and I literally had a discussion about that type of thing not two hours ago in reference to a different car.
At least they’ve put the metric system in its proper place.
I don’t know how widespread it is, but I know some GM analog speedometers have a single scale and a mph/km/h switch that recalibrates the scale, so if you’re driving 31 mph and switch to km/h the needle will jump to 50.
The 2000s LeSabres had that.
Yeah, and the odometer resets to zero. Found that out on a trip to Canada (long before the border closing).
Hi Jim, I currently own a Premier and I love it. It’s turned to be a reliable one compared to an ES that I had back in the late 90s. I’m looking for parts as I like to keep them just in case. Where is this Dodge Monaco located? Please let me know. Thanks
It’s at the U-Pull&Pay in Denver. There are multiple locations in the area but this is the actual “Denver” one.
Very common (probably universal?) in Europe to have twin scale speedo calibrations.
I suspect the metric/imperial switch is for a trip computer. Should have asked for test drive, Jim, you could have checked 😉
Why? Because sometimes Americans drive in Canada or Mexico.
Also, I believe, it is required by law. The Carter administration, under Joan Claybrook, was strongly pushing the 55mph national speed limit, and hoped to spur the adoption of this law by requiring speedometers to highlight the “55” marking (or add one), as well as limiting displayed speed to 85mph (effectively 80mph since many speedometers were calibrated in multiples of 10), thus making 55mph seem fast since the needle was most of the way to the right. While they were at it, they also mandated dual English/metric calibrations, since the U.S. was set to adopt metric road signs in the near future.
The 85mph law lasted less than two years, quickly rescinded by the Reagan administration, as was the 55mph callout, although both persisted for many years beyond that, especially on American cars. Eventually the 55mph speed limit itself was abolished too. But I think the metric markings law is still in place.
Yes, this car appears to have the optional trip computer. Below is a picture of a dash like this all lit up (the English/Metric switch is just labelled E/M in this example).
Oddly, the trip computer is not the screen directly above the English/Metric switch (that’s the door ajar graphic), but is rather on the left side of the instrument cluster.
Thanks, I think you meant *right* side of the panel.
What gets me on this dashboard is having a single button to repeatedly press to toggle to the HVAC function you want. That would get annoying in a hurry.
Right, I meant “right.” Sorry.
Another oddity about the HVAC that I didn’t notice until I mega-zoomed your instrument cluster picture just how tiny those indicators are for whatever HVAC mode you’ve selected. They’re buried as tiny warning-light thingies at the bottom-right of the instrument cluster. Hard to read for the driver; impossible for the passenger, I presume.
I had the Eagle Premier version. The only thing the metric switch affected was changing the climate control temp readout to Celsius. The other quirk was that the cruise control could not be set to hold a speed above 85 mph. Tested my patience on long cruises across Nevada & Utah until I discovered that switching to metric overrode this limit on the cruise control. Other than that, the metric-English switch seemed totally useless. Unlike many, my car was very reliable. Ended up giving it to my father-in-law when it hit 200k miles. He kept it a few more years without trouble although he added only a few thousand miles.
I don’t know that I’d say “blocky as a barn”, considering what it replaced. I was wondering about its predecessor and when I read “Diplomat” I thought “now there’s a vintage ’80s TV cop car”.
Now I’m off to find out how many used Volvos I looked at with a relative of this engine.
I know that the spelling isn’t right but the first person that I thought of after seeing that Monaco LE badge was Col. Klink.
RE: the hood release. If memory serves, GM used a floor-mounted hood release on some of its vehicles around this time as well, including the first-gen Lumina (and presumably other GM10s?)
I could just imagine myself in 1991 and being in the sedan market… and I’d look at a Monaco. With my affection for overlooked cars, I’d probably have liked it… roomy, comfortable, decent performance, and unusual too. What’s not to like? Oh, and even the boxiness is good… I think this design wore a boxy design better than nearly any other boxy sedan of its era.
So I can see liking it, but then my wife would say “Didn’t you say it’s really a Renault? and has a French engine? NO! You’re not buying that… 7/70 warranty or not!” So we’d buy a Taurus instead.
And then a year or two later, she’d ask “Are those Monacos still made?” And I’d say No, and she’d say “Told ya.”
Anyway, this was a great find. And here’s a Monaco magazine ad to go along with your commercial:
“a trip computer that will give you everything but directions”, LOL
1991: “well of course, even computers aren’t that smart”
2020: “what kind of crappy computer doesn’t even have navigation?”
Eric, my parents were in the market for a car in late 1990 and looked at a Monaco. They purchased a Dynasty instead.
Kind of a frypan-versus-fire choice, eek.
From a design standpoint I liked these – the exterior shape was very clean. Imagine if this had come with a engine as good as GMs 3800 V6.
Dealers around NYC were blowing these out for $9999.00 which had to be a fire sale price. I remember seeing the ads in the newspaper each weekend. I do not recall ever seeing one in person.
Yes, these were selling wayyy cheap, partly like was mentioned, out of Chrysler’s obligation to purchase a certain number of Renault engines. I nearly bought one for our young family, as they really drove quite nicely, were roomy, and (except for reliability) were the equal of a Camry (which was needing a refresh) and certainly the equal of a Lumina. I ended up with a leftover new Taurus that served me well for 326,000 miles. I don’t think the Monaco would have done that!
Great find and report. For a European-inspired near-luxury car, I’m slightly surprised it appears to have been sold with the generic Dodge wheel covers from that era. These same wheel covers appearing on base Shadows, Spirits, and minivans.
I recall making a Photoshop of the Eagle Premier at CC a few years ago. If Renault engineers weren’t constrained by engine configuration, a longer wheel-based Premier/Monaco, with front wheels positioned farther forward, may have looked more Acura Legend or Mercedes-like in its profile. The design goes from looking awkward with excessive overhangs, to a more elegant look.
I remember also mentioning then how closely the Premier/Monaco looked like the 1983 Mazda 626 sedan. Just add the additional front and rear overhang of the Eagle/Dodge.
Very nice. At first glance in the miniature I mistook your LWB example for a W124
Thanks. The longer wheelbase may have provided the design a flagship-like presence. Count on Renault to bake-in enough oddity to their designs to limit their wide acceptance. 🙂
Like how you added chrome moldings to the bumpers while you were at it
I saw nothing really wrong with the proportions of the Premier/Monaco, rather its coolie-cutter anonymity. Its styling had nothing distinctive about it.
Well it looks nice. Now could you give the car about a foot of hood length. Id like to see how it looks thank you
My sister was one of the few that bought one. Mother had a Premier and liked it swell, so when my sister was in need of a new sedan, she was encouraged to look at the Monaco.
My memory isn’t strong on the details, but I believe this was late in the 1991 model year, and combined with the fact that Dodge dealers really didn’t want to sell these but were forced to take some allotment, they were blowing them out cheap. *Really* cheap.
According to my source, MSRP on a Monaco LE for 1991 was $13,695 and if I remember right, the Dodge dealer was blowing them off the lot for $9999 – a fairly significant savings. And honestly in 1991, this was a lot of car for ten grand.
I think the car served her fine for 5 years or so, but then it had no resale value… yet I suppose she got her money’s worth.
These were heavily promoted in the full-line Dodge brochures, where they were considered the top of the line Dodge sedan. I doubt it appealed to anyone who liked the old R or M body though, and most Dodge buyers looking for a mid-size to big sedan in the early ’90s bought a Dynasty. The car magazines were shaking their heads at this, why aren’t people buying this modern, roomy Monaco instead of the boxy, old-style, K-car based Dynasty? I think the buyers were one up on the car mags though; the Dynasty was a more reliable, less quirky, and much easier to maintain car than the Monaco was.
The Dynasty was also available with six passenger seating, although smaller overall.
We could wonder what if they gived a Premier clone to Plymouth instead of Dodge?
As I recall it, Chrysler had nada to do with these cars until they gobbled up AMC just as the things were getting into showrooms. Chrysler did do some updating midway through the run, though.
Allpar says that what few of these (Eagles, at least) brought in a very desirable buyer demographic. It is a shame that the cars were not better – engines and transmissions were both trouble spots. I remember test driving a new one when out looking at cars with Mrs. JPC. She kind of liked it, but they were quite new and the big discounts had not started yet. I was leery of anything developed by Renault/AMC – and I turned out to be right on that one.
These cars had unusually performant headlamps featuring new computer-calculated reflectors—the latest technology from Valeo/Cibié at that time—rather than the usual simple parabolas. Much more effective and efficient. Workkng headlamps were a feature that didn’t make it onto any other Chrysler products for many years after these.
My 4th-grade teacher, Ms. Collins, bought one of these (a Premier, actually, like it matters) just after the ’87-’88 school year started. A few of us got a ride in it to a field trip, and we thought it very classy.
I think these had a Renix (Renault-Bendix) engine management system inflicted on them. There was much celebration one day at the yard when we finally found a compatible ECU to revive one of these cars that had been given in after the owner gave up on a persistent no-start. We sold the car.
Starting with the 1990 model year both the existing Premier and the (new) Monaco had all the Renault electrics replaced with Chrysler parts.
That was surely a big improvement; Chrysler’s engine management systems were rather good and dependable.
I do remember some of the early SBEC PCMs having an issue where they’d fail and lock themselves permanently in “security” mode. Symptom was that the car would start and immediately die.
I remember this mostly because when I worked at an indie garage back then, we had a customer bring her Dynasty or New Yorker or whatever in for this symptom. We couldn’t get to it right away (which we told her at the time) but that didn’t stop her from calling every 20 minutes to ask if we’d looked at it yet. Finally, after getting it in and diagnosing it as a failed PCM, she called back and said “oh, I found out it’s still under warranty and I need to take it to the dealer. Thanks!”
I remember Car and Driver being extremely critical of the LH cars’ headlamps as well as those of the “cloud” cars. I think what they said in one article was “Chrysler seems as inept with lighting as they are brilliant elsewhere.”
The Neon and ‘96 minivans got equal criticism.
The LH headlamps were exactly what was specified: Legal, cheap, and pretty—in that order. “Pretty” was defined as miniature and clear-lensed. “Legal” was a very low threshold because while the maximum allowable performance has been periodically raised, it was still at 1978 levels when the LH cars were being developed, and the minimum allowable performance had been significantly reduced when replaceable-bulb headlamps were introduced in 1983. So the LH cars got headlamps that were much too small and much too cheap to do anything but provide bare-legal-minimum levels of light that left owners pining for the performance of even an old non-halogen sealed beam. The export-spec LH-car headlamps had a little more money in them, and better optics, so they weren’t as bad, but they were still much too small.
Virtually all the rest of Chrysler’s cars and trucks got cheap, minimal, pathetic headlamps until Fiat came in and gradually started putting a little more priority and funding into lighting. What seemed like exceptions to this, such as the ’98 Intrepid, pretty much only seemed that way because everything else was so abjectly awful.
Kind of ironic that the Eagle Vision had such terrible headlamps, which you commented on in response to R. L. Plaut’s COAL about his Eagle Vision.
The wide eyed surprise look of the headlights that surely facilitated their excellence was deeply out of favor right around the car’s debut. Within practically weeks, Grand Prix’s squinty sealed beams pulled in one direction while Accords’ clear jeweled headlights pushed in the other. Just one more style that AMC got just as it was passé. If the Premier had landed in ’86, it might’ve written a different story. That said, the Alliance needed replacing by 1988, and I don’t think that was going to happen as the similar world model soldiered on many years after Alliances were rusting in junkyards.
In 1990 my father had narrowed down his potential new car to two options, the Premier and an Oldsmobile Touring Sedan. I remember he found the Eagle to be extremely comfortable, but there was a dealer demo Touring Sedan steeply discounted so he went that route. I am not sure he made the right choice, if there was one, as the Olds had numerous annoying problems that were unable to be exorcised permanently.
The ‘Dodge’ and ‘Monaco LE’ badging appearing as cheap-looking decals on the tail light assembly, rather than affixed as plasti-chrome lettering on the rear edge of the trunk lid, is not impressive. Kind of loudly reflects to a buyer in the showroom, Chrysler’s uninspiring dedication to this car. Something you might expect on a re-branded entry-level car.
I seem to recall Chrysler doing a lot of that decal-badging around that time. It looked similarly unimpressive even on small economy cars like the Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance.
You’re right. The base Shadow and Sundance had conventional trunk lid mounted chrome plastic badges. However, versions of the Shadow America, Shadow ES, Sundance America, and Sundance Duster, had decals. On a low-priced car it may lend the impression to some buyers unnecessary costs have been eliminated, to save money for the purchaser. But on a more premium car like the Monaco, it looks somewhat cheap.
Those chromed-plastic name callouts Chrysler put on so many cars in the late ’80s and early ’90s were made in Japan.
Which is fun because at the time Iacocca was mouthing off about the Japanese every chance he got.
“We never forget the competition is always on our tail. We intend to keep them there.”
Obviously, Iacocca was referring to Japanese-made badging on the back of his cars. 🙂
I had a co-worker who had a light blue Monaco. She drove it quite a few years, and I never heard of it giving her any trouble. Traded it in on a Bonneville.
I remember riding in one of these then-new Monacos in the summer of ’91. I remember thinking it had a ton of interior room for one adult driver and four (or five?) teenagers.
I also remember reading about the coefficient of drag being super-low, which only to show that cars with straight-ish lines on them could be aerodynamic.
I’m sure Castaing insisted on the LH keeping the longitudinal FWD layout so they could save money by not having to completely retool the plant.
You got the Renault based sedans in the USA in exchange for Jeeps thru French Renault dealers. In my view your version of the R25 was far better than the Euro version. .. Large French sedans are worthless after 3 years in the UK market.
The PRV6 was one of the worst engines to have been installed in a US Chrysler product prior to Daimler ownership, and also the six cylinder engine sold in Peugeots, Renaults and Volvos for many years. Hmm… Maybe someone could snag a Monaco V6 to build a hot-rod DeLorean. It’s got twenty extra horsepower and a similar abundance of torque!
The Renault/Eagle Premiers were sold at Jeep/Eagle dealers, which no one went to unless they wanted a Jeep. Along with a version of the Renault 21. They also had a version of the Mitsubushi sporty car called a….Talon. Terrible name, if the best version of those.
I test drove a Premier back then, even though I was faking it and was not in a position to buy one. It was fine. The German ZF automatic shifted down as you slowed down. All the talk was about how weird the instrument panel was and the wavy gear selector, like this was some big deal. It wasn’t. The console was too gray plasticy plain though. I’m not bothering looking anything up, but I’m sure the interior was up on interior width by half a foot compared to the narrow K based Dynasty. Anyway, it drove fine.
I drove across the country and back soon after that. What was weird was the number of these I saw on the interstate and in rest areas – a lot of them for a car that no one bought. Then a couple years later they had all disappeared, I’m guessing because of PRV V6 problems, or maybe electronic problems as mentioned here before they got switched to Chrysler stuff. Renault Fuegos were similarly plagued.
I have no idea why Renault or Jaguar put out fantastic product with clearly deficient things about them that soon sabotaged them and should have been easily found and corrected before they made any of them. But they did.
I forgot to mention: this was a car that needed an image created since it had no history and was coming from a semi-new company that was failing and just got sold to Chrysler. At first there was a fairly large number of TV ads considering how few they actually sold. The ads were crap and the opposite of what was needed. And the cars, while very well styled as usual by ItalDesign, were too bland. They needed more of a memorable look to establish an image.
In 1990 all Chrysler products featured driver’s side airbags. They even cheaply reconfigured the 12 year old Omni/Horizon dashboard to use an airbag, and then stopped making them after a couple months. They didn’t bother with the Premier/Monacos. Clearly they had given up on them.
After looking at that interior I’m surprised they sold that many.
Does “LE” stand for “less extras”?
For at least one buyer. that was their favorite car
Once you spot it, the Renault 25 heritage is obvious, especially in the door shapes and the front profile and overhang.
The 25 was an underrated car, which had a certain appeal, even if the French didn’t really go for the V6 rather than the 4 cylinder diesel. It made a decent leftfield choice against the Rover 800 or Ford Granada, if not the Merc W124