While the human Seven Deadly Sins – lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride – clearly play a part in any automaker’s fall from grace, Detroit cultivated its own favorite deadly transgressions. Chrysler’s recurring dirty little habit was premature ejection: spurting cars out of the factory door well before they were ready.
The shoddily built 1957s devastated the company’s hard earned rep for solid, well-engineered cars. The 1960 Valiant suffered from similar if not such an extreme violation. Chrysler only barely absolved itself through the penance of hard work along with the (eventual) blessing of the sacred A-Body (Valiant and Dart). But in 1976, Chrysler fell from grace again, and this time it took the intercession of the Great White Father in Washington to keep it from eternal damnation. And not for the last time, either.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the A-Bodies to Chrysler’s survival during its difficult years. The Valiant and Dart, along with their Swinging Duster off-shoots, developed a well-earned reputation for rugged simplicity. And they sold like stink. In fact, contrary to usual Detroit-think, they sold better the older they got. In 1974, in their fifteenth year, some 720k new A-Bodies found homes. And I’ll bet that the percentage of them still on the road today is the highest of any American car sold that year. There’s still a number of them still on the streets of Eugene, like this yellow 1974 Valiant that lives a few blocks from my house.
Chrysler must have known that replacing the A-team successfully would be a mission-critical task. Boy, did they ever flub it. Their compacts went from being the most durable to the most-recalled in history, up to that time; GM’s X-bodies soon stole that title. It was 1957 all over again, but worse. At least Chrysler had the foresight to call them “F-Bodies”. From an A to an F, without any intermediate stops; what a fail.
Beta-testing new cars on a mass scale is just not a good idea. Build quality was all-round crappy, at best. It went downhill from there: five mandatory recalls covering a variety of ills with suspension, ignition, fuel system, brakes, steering and body. The one that had the highest visibility (literally) was pre-mature rusting of the front fenders. All Aspares had fenders inspected, removed, replaced and/or galvanized, and repainted to the tune of $109 million. That was serious bucks to Chrysler then, especially since the whole mothership was rusting away.
Lee Iacocca had this to say: “The Dart and Valiant ran forever, and they should never have been dropped. Instead they were replaced by cars that often started to come apart after only a year or two. When these cars first came out, they were still in the development phase. Looking back over the past twenty years or so, I can’t think of any cars that caused more disappointment among customers than the Aspen and the Volare”. Honest, but easy for him to say, since he wasn’t responsible.
Ever since losing the #2 spot in the US after WW2, Chrysler’s financial position and its vulnerability to downswings increased substantially. Their 1957 quality woes as well as the collapse of the large car market in 1958 led to massive losses, wide-spread layoffs of white collar workers, killing their ambitious new 1962 large program and retrenching with lower cost (and somewhat smaller) models.
But under the pragmatic guidance of newly-installed President Lynn Townsend, Chrysler recovered in the mid-late ’60s. But they were significantly smaller than GM and Ford and much more vulnerable to market swings like the energy crisis of 1974 as well as to self-inflicted wounds like these F-bodies.
By 1980, the delayed but full impact of the pre-mature twins was obvious; sales were down to under 200k per year. And sales of the Volens’ direct replacement, the Reliant and Aries K-cars, never topped 300k. The A-car franchise was now a distant and painful memory, and materially contributed to the Pentastar’s collapse.
Chrysler barely avoided bankruptcy in 1979 thanks to federal loan guarantees, and went on to fly high again. But it wasn’t the last time its pet sin was committed (think Neon). Meanwhile Volare and Aspen soldiered on a few more years, before they morphed into the dull M-Bodies: Diplomat, LeBaron, Grand Fury, New Yorker, and that final supreme devolution, the Fifth Avenue, which doddered along until 1989. Does it only seem like that was yesterday?
Can we find something a little positive to say here? Sure; the original incarnations were the best looking, before all the neo-classic grilles and half-vinyl tops. The Volare and Aspen were an attempt to redefine the intermediate size car, since the abominations that had once been called that swelled to ridiculous proportions in the mid seventies. And quality improved markedly after the first year; within a couple of years it was back to more usual Chrysler standards: mostly reliable but uneven assembly quality.
The station wagon in particular exemplified the best qualities of that effort: clean, practical, handsome, almost Volvo-esque.
The coupe: somewhat less so. Its styling just didn’t ever ignite any excitement or enthusiasm.
Ignoring the driveability/smog control/Lean Burn issues that were common to the era, Chrysler’s engines and transmissions were a well-known quantity: pretty much bulletproof. You could even order a Super Six, a two-barrel version of the slant six which put out as much power as some of the Chevy small blocks of that illustrious lo-po era. With a floor-shifted four speed (3 speed and O/D) to back it up, it was about as euro as Detroit got back then.
Ride and handling were decidedly anti-euro: softer. The A-Bodies were generally the best handling domestic compacts, at the expense of refinement in ride and quietness. The Volare and Aspen introduced a new transverse torsion-bar front suspension, with greater isolation, and the result was just that. Chrysler was trying to imitate Ford’s popular soft-rider Granada, and it succeeded spectacularly.
Just as the impact of the Volare and Aspen’s fall from grace hit, along came the 1978 Ford Fairmont and pretty much did it all better. The original Fox body was lighter, cleaner, crisper and more efficient; the closest Detroit ever got to the old Falcon or Volvo formula. But of course it too soon morphed into padded vinyl-topped mini-Lincolns. As well as the real thing.
Probably the best thing Chrysler did with the Volare and Aspen was their names. By changing their body designation from “A” to “F”, and by not naming them Valiant and Dart, they at least avoided dragging those names through the mud. Now that sin would have been unforgivable.
Note: This is a revised new version of a post from 2011. The original and its comments can be found here.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1978 Dodge Aspen Wagon – Defying Expectations Since the Carter Administration J. Shafer
Curbside Classic: 1980 Dodge Aspen – Rock Bottom And Loving It Perry Shoar
COAL – The Cars Of My Childhood 1 – 1977 Dodge Aspen SE Gene Liu
Vintage R&T Review: 1976 Plymouth Volare Wagon
Junkyard Classic: 1977 Plymouth Volaré Coupe – The Question Is How Did This Last 42 years in the Wild? Jim Klein
Brilliant Blunder: 1962 Plymouth & Dodge – The Real Reason They Were Downsized PN
My parents had several Darts and Valiants, used and new, and all lasted with zero problems. My aunt followed their example and bought an Aspen. The suspension broke twice in the first year.
EXCUSE ME? While I agree we are STILL able to have our own opinions, I must take issue with your opinions of the 83-88 Fifth Avenues. I owned 83 and 85 Fifth Avenues and found them great automobiles. The Formal styling (especially roof), comfort, interior room and Luxury appointments were on par with other upscale vehicles I have owned, including Town Cars and RWD FLEETWOODS. I do agree with most of your opinions. But for some of us, the preferred mode of driving is on the GRAND scale. That being said, I’m on to VERSAILLES in my Town Car! 😉
“And quality improved markedly after the first year; within a couple of years it was back to A-body levels.”
True, we had ’68 and ’72 Darts as drivers for awhile, and in 1990 found a very low mile 1980 Aspen, Super 6 automatic. After I disconnected the TF lock-up it was actually an excellent car and had no rust, the body was much improved by then.
Have to take issue Rick W. Having had real Mopar luxury cars, the last 5th Ave was a joke, a gussied up Iaccoa-ized Aspen and mere pretender to the throne. I also had a ’69 LeBaron, ’75 Lincoln, ’75 DeVille, and several ’70s Olds 98s. The late and not great 5th was a not real luxury car, but an Aspare in drag. Mopar’s last was the R-body like my ’80 5th Ave, pictured. This was still a real luxury car in the classic US mode.
“The A-car was now a distant and painful memory, and contributed to the Pentastar’s collapse”. It think it is supposed to say that because the A-car was now a memory, the Pentastar was the lesser for it….or the Pentastar’s collapse was in part due to the A-car being axed.
Anyway…the improved quality of the F-car, after the first run of cars, seems to be a tightly held secret. The abominable quality and recalls of the first F-cars painted a broad brush impression that all of them were junk. To the extent that the F-cars are remembered at all, it is for their rusting out and recalls. First impressions do seem to stick.
The build quality was still subpar.
Consumer Reports tested an Aspen/Volare in 1978 and 1980, and noted that workmanship and quality control were bad even by Detroit standards of the time.
Chrysler had the right idea with these, not nearly as bloated as a 4 door Cutlass or grotesque like a Ford Gran Torino. They were a good bit nicer/better trimmed than the Dart/Valiant, so repeat customers would seriously think about trading in their old basic steed. Sucks that they completely blew it, should have left the old cars in production for another year while they actually finished testing the new f bodies.
As for the Diplomat, 5th Ave etc I do like them a lot more than an ugly Fairmont. Or the Oldsmobile or Buick Seville 4 doors with non-rolling down windows. Still though the LeSabre and Olds 88 were better cars back in the 80s. Both in their old RWD guise or kinda ugly FWD late 80s models.
Replying to Randerson. To be clear, I was referring to the RWD 80s Fifth Avenues. When Iacoca went Loca with Kcars traditional Chrysler became a joke. The Executive Limo? Truly a stretch in more ways than size. A NOT so grand finale for New Yorker, Fifth Avenue, and Imperial. The once INCOMPARABLE Imperial sadly was incomparable in the worst way, I loved the previous big New Yorker and Fifth Avenue. Walter P. Must be spinning in his grave over the demise of his Empire. And PLEASE don’t say Stelantis!
It always sat funny with me that the F-bodies were so problematic, because there weren’t many mechanical or technological changes from the A-bodies. The engines and transmissions were almost 100% carried over from the A-bodies. The steering and suspension designs weren’t significantly different from those used in the Valiant/Dart. It should have been easy and the cars should have been good. But they weren’t.
Like they somehow went out of the way to make them “far from good”.
I don’t know how well these ever sold in California but I’ll take a guess that it was poorly. They did arrive into the state as the state was going heavily to foreign makes with Accord showing up in 1976. They were a rare sight for me back in the day and stayed rare. I have been checking used cars for sale every week since 2000 and watched the disappearance of models over that time. Also noted other models that were never seen as I would search Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, and so forth. Never saw one and have noted that also K cars have disappeared since 2018 for sale and in the junk yards.