The valley fog hung low over town like a cold, wet blanket for almost a week. When the sunshine finally broke through, everyone spilled out of their houses. We walked to Skinner Butte, a perfect spot to acclaim the sunshine. Others were doing the same, and this Acclaim looked like it was showing the effects of its sun worship. Of course one just needed to climb even taller Spencer Butte to be above the fog, but it was nice to actually see the town and valley instead of a sea of white punctuated by the taller hills and mountains.
That paint job looks 50 years old. It would seem more fitting on a rat rod than on a car like this which is otherwise non threatening.
Google the ‘slugmobile’. That paintjob would be better suited to a sleeper like that!
What a sad car. Not just the condition, but the Acclaim itself. These were not at all bad, and if only they had been styled to have the least little bit of youthful appeal.
I wonder if anyone has ever strapped luggage to the trunklid luggage rack on one of these sedans. Maybe they made a mini plastic luggage pod to fit?
Yeah I’ve always felt the Acclaim’s design was about 5 years too late. I mean when it came out in 1989, it was competing against far more aerodynamic and modern cars like the Taurus, Sable, Accord, and GM W-bodies, all of which had hit the market 1-3 year prior. And if it seemed outdated then, it was ancient by the time Chrysler discontinued it in 1995.
Doesn’t surprise me though. With Iaccoca at the helm, every Chrysler-designed vehicle up until the LH in 1992 was ultra-boxy, from the roofline to the dashboard.
I think they would have done better if the just named them after the original K-cars, the boxy styling would have worked with the name recognition carrying over the Reliant/Aries names.
Iacocca had a legitimate grudge against Ford and the Taurus/Sable design success within the industry rubbed Lee the wrong way. Out of sheer hatred and spite he made Chrysler stick with the boxy styling and look for ways to make Chrysler products as visually different from the “flying potatoes”, as he called the competition.
The guy who struck gold with upright grilles and broughamification, wasn’t ready for the next styling trend. While Iacocca could smell a marketing trend like a pig can find a truffle buried in a sewer pipe – his style demands had an expiration date he didn’t recognize.
“While Iacocca could smell a marketing trend like a pig can find a truffle buried in a sewer pipe…”
Phrase of the week!
The Acclaim also competed against GM’s A body car line and the A Bodies ran circles around the Acclaim and Spirit and out sold them (especially the Century and Cutlass Ciera) even though the A Body line was 7 years old at the time the Acclaim debuted. Hell even after the Acclaim/Spirit were killed off at the end of 1995, the Century and Cutlass Ciera still hung on for one more year and still sold over 100,000 units each in the final year. So the Acclaim/Spirit were not only competing and being outsold by the futuristic Taurus/ Sable but also being outsold by the aging A-Body FWD platform which debuted the same year Aussie band Men At Work hit the charts with Down Under and Who Can It Be Now. I think Lido was slipping in the 1990’s.
To be fair, the Acclaim was one most comfy cars I have driven. I had to take a 3 hour trip in traffic with one and the seats were very comfortable.
I feel the same way about the Eagle Premier featured here a few weeks ago. If it had been introduced 3-4 years earlier, it would at least have had a chance against the GM C/H-cars. (Not that the reliability would have been any better!)
Pretty picture Paul, except for the sun burned Plymouth.
Oh the memories of those…makes me shudder.
I am certainly jealous of your weather out there. It’s finally broke out of the single digits today and it feels like a heat wave.
I’ve seen many Chrysler products from this era with similar paint condition – only that sad thing is I started seeing them before the year 2000. For some reason, I have this vivid memory of seeing a early-’90s Caravan, of the same color blue, with a peeling, rusted hood and roof, at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru. I couldn’t have been more than 5 years old, making the Caravan only about 7 years old at the time. I think it’s safe to say that paint quality wasn’t Chrysler’s biggest strength in the 1990s.
GM paint jobs of this era were even worse.
Hey, it’s my driver’s ed car! It was that light blue, and had the 2.5 4-cylinder (I think). Good times. Not such a great car, but OK for a driver’s ed car.
Probably better than the lime green Chevrolet Spark driver’s ed car I see riding around my town.
I feel like you develop a deep hatred for whichever car you had for driver’s ed. In my case it was a 2006 Corolla. I remember liking those cars when they first came out in ’03, but ever since having to drive one, I’ve detested Corollas – even the current ones!
This would make a good QOTD!
1983 Mustang 4cyl was my drivers ed car, and yes I despised it. I took driver’s ed during the winter:
Me: Hey this is rear wheel drive, can we do some skid control in that parking lot?
Instructor: Uhh, no. This is actually my car.
Good idea. I may just do that for a QOTD soon.
Maybe I’m weird (OK, definitely), but I liked driver’s ed. I liked the cheesy movies, the classroom part, and definitely the driving part.
We did it a while back, and got 99 comments. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/cohort-outtake-1961-falcon-driver-education-car-not-so-what-was-your-drivers-ed-car/
Is it too soon to do it again?
Get the Facts about Melanoma…..
Richard Rawlings would just clear coat over that paint job and call it done.
The sun beaten paint, the Jesus Fish outline, and newer license plates leads me to conclude that this Plymouth is probably from the Bible Belt. Here in Portland I see a bunch of K-cars and Chryslers of this era, but the only common Chrysler vehicles from the Mercedes Benz era are the Minivans and Pickups. In fact yesterday, I kept pace with the Le Baron version of this car for a few miles on I-5. My guess is their 3.0 Liter was working just as hard as my Caravan’s 2.4 Liter and we did not feel like giving it more beans. Last week the weather was mostly sunny and I rode my bike to work nearly everyday, but not this week, too cold and wet.
Our much-loved 1990 Acclaim served us well for 10½ years. As ours was gray – ahem… “Dark Quartz” – we didn’t have the peeling paint issue, but I kept ours clean and well-waxed. I wish I could find one of the zillion pictures I took of it, but they all seemed to have disappeared somewhere, and I haven’t found them.
The Acclaim/Spirit twins – a faithful reincarnation of dad’s 1950 Plymouth! That was a great car, too.
FWIW, I saw three of these last week.
I was thinking you(Paul) shot another CC here…was it a Firebird of some sort?
I love Patina.
I’ve shot and posted probably ten by now from up there. But, yes, I remember that the Firebird one left an impression with you: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake-t-tops-are-made-for-this/
Ahh, that’s it: thanks for the reminder! It’s one of the most beautiful pics on this site to me and I’m not even a fan of that generation Firebird. Talk about a whirlwind of memories, dreams, emotions, etc. I enjoyed revisiting it.
That is an outstanding photo Joel. The contrast of the weathered hood and rough textures on the ground, looks really good. Plus the faded green and red are complimentary colors. I really enjoy this one.
i’m flattered, thank you! I’m an inexperienced cell-phone photographer wannabe & get a neat one in out of every hundred or so lousy ones. Taking good pictures is such an art — it’s difficult to get it right..at least for me anyway.:)
It is indeed; just how I like them 🙂
In Central Canada, the Acclaim/Spirit/LeBaron were quite rust resistant. They tended to wear out, or owners would get tired of them, long before serious rust took over.
I’ve never seen rust on one of these like this before. Certainly, where I am, the rust goes from the bottom up on all cars. But it was pretty rare to see Chrysler passenger cars from this era with severe rust. The minivans were another matter. But I think people tended to keep the vans on the road longer.
AS JPC stated above. These were entirely reliable and competent cars, let down by bland styling. The interiors were quite comfortable and roomy. Having known a couple owners.
Paul, that pic looks like you took it up by the Column in Astoria. I had to google Skinner Butte to figure out it was down your way. Still a nice shot of a crusty but trusty car. I remember when the roads were literally CRAWLING with the Acclaim and its Dodge/Chrysler siblings. These were solidly built if blah looking cars.
In the CC on the Acclaim there are a lot of mentions of the Spirit and its R/T version. Id have to go back to Allpar to get the specifics (Ive read and re-read it, due for a refresher) but I remember it sharing the ‘fastest fwd vehicle in production’ with the Daytona IROC R/T, and only a few BMWs and Mercedes were faster 4-door sedans. Certainly among ‘Murican sedans, nothing could touch it. For both, the 0-60 times was sub 6 second which was insane in the early ’90s. Hp was 225-ish.
R/Ts used a 16V DOHC cylinder head designed/tuned by Lotus. Most of the R/Ts (‘Tona and Monaco) have been snapped up by a small but rabid community of turbo Mopar enthusiasts. Any junkyard R/T cylinder heads get plucked via the vulture effect, as you might guess. My understanding of it is they’ll fit ANY 2.2 block so if you can score one its an easy way to a lot of HP. For comparison, no other turbo mopar was in the territory until the 2.4L HO turbo (DOHC 16V) was developed and installed in the PT Cruiser GT and Neon SRT-4.
Having been to the Column in Astoria, it is similar (a big basalt pile). Skinner Butte is right smack downtown, or more like the north edge of it, between downtown and the river. We’ve made it the destination of our regular urban hikes, and there’s almost inevitably a CC up there to shoot.
MoparRocker74
My Dad had a Spirit R/T… Oh the stories I could tell.
The weak spots on the R/T are the head and timing belt. I want to say he had the head replaced twice and at least 5 timing belts put in it, all under warranty. It was a fun car for sure. I went neck and neck with my cousin’s 87 Mustang GT 4 times one night at or favorite (illegal) drag spot. The R/T would start oh so slightly pull away from the Mustang after 100mph.