There is a big part of me that wants to triumphantly and enthusiastically title this essay “Dodge Dynasty – Among The Best Cars Ever Built”.
However, there is another part of me that wants to boldly and loudly title this piece “Dodge Dynasty – The Automotive Version Of Chlamydia”.
The hell of it is both would be correct because as often seems the case with Dodge there is no middle ground. Enriching this experience is how life has provided ample opportunity to have driven more of these buggies than the average schlub. No wonder my thoughts about them are so bipolar.
The Dynasty first entered my life in the annual Motor Trend update for the new 1988 model year. I seem to remember there was some literary skewering of Chrysler for naming their newest, largest Dodge the “Dynasty”. It’s hard to know what possessed Mother Mopar to give a car such a lampoon worthy name.
Yes, there was a nighttime soap opera at the time that shared the name but I prefer to think perhaps somebody at Chrysler had just made the voyage of a lifetime to China and had the Ming family on the mind. I also helps to think said person was gleefully oblivious to popular culture, mistake though it was.
Thinking about the Ming clan sounds so much better than some television show in which one was always worried about the possibility of sleeping with someone who was actually their amnesiac uncle (aunt, grandma, brother, etc.) or encountering their long-lost evil twin. Appropriate, as with all the Dynasties I’ve driven there was some evil lurking in a few of them.
The first Dynasty I laid eyes on had been proudly parked in my parent’s driveway by my maternal grandparents Albert and the late Violet. They were fed-up with their 1985 Dodge Aries, dumping it in late 1987 for a new base model 1988 Dodge Dynasty. My casual mention of the Dynasty being powered by a Mitsubishi built 3.0 V6 was nearly enough for my World War II veteran grandfather to become uncharacteristically apoplectic and threaten to return it to the dealer. After some amount of (dis)cussing the source of the engine, he calmed down. Part of that may have been due to my grandmother telling him to button his lip. He and my grandmother kept that car until late 1992. It never gave them an ounce of trouble except for the switch that turned on the a/c compressor.
Speaking of World War II, Grandpa Albert is doing great at 95. He’s been living in assisted living since late 2017; he is flourishing as he views it as an all-encompassing resort. During my last visit, as mealtime approached I got to witness Grandpa’s routine of walking down the hallway, knocking on doors to tell residents the “mess hall” was open. At one door was Louis, a slow-moving man whose hearing had departed him sometime prior. Poor Louis was slow to respond but that’s okay as he had just turned 100 a few weeks earlier.
Anyway, my grandparent’s Dynasty was so flawless as to inspire my parents to purchase a gray 1991 Dodge Dynasty LE in the summer of 1990. It was the first 1991 model anything I had seen. Unlike my grandparent’s Dynasty, my parents had purchased one with the 3.3 liter V6 and the Ultradrive automatic. Being an LE, it was also pretty well equipped.
The 3.3 in their Dodge was an amazingly smooth engine that was well suited for the size and weight of the Dynasty. It was also quite efficient for the time, often netting 27 or so miles per gallon on trips and around 25 miles per gallon in everyday driving. For my size and build, it was also a phenomenally comfortable car to drive. Drive it I did, too, as this was the car I would drive as far northwest as Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1995.
As another aside, that gray Dynasty my parents owned was capable of 120 miles per hour. I did it at least twice (and I suspect my sister did over 100 a time or two). It would have done more but the dashboard was shaking too badly at that point to explore further. Oh, the missed opportunities of youth….
The Dynasty had accumulated 135,000 miles by the time it was jettisoned in late 1995. In that entire time my parents had exactly one issue with it, a weird problem which turned out to be a bad sensor that would stall the engine three seconds after starting it. It happened two days after I returned home from my trip out west at which point it had around 125,000 miles. That was the extent of its problems. No hiccups from the Ultradrive, no trim falling off, no rattles, nothing. That Dynasty was, apart from one isolated event, as reliable as the sunrise.
In 1996 I began my professional career. My first job involved a considerable amount of travel so every time I had to travel, I’d go get a car from the motor pool. Invariably for the first year it was a Dodge Dynasty, mostly from model years 1992 and 1993. I drove green ones, white ones, baby blue ones, gray ones, dark blue ones, and one that was burgundy.
Most were forgettable, silently doing their job of providing drama free transportation to countless drivers and passengers. These Dynasties were all equipped with a V6, primarily the 3.0 although a few had the 3.3. They were renowned for their effortless ability to smoke their narrow and undersized front tires at will, although the 3.3 had better low end torque for doing this.
By my best estimation, I’ve driven about two dozen of these Dodges.
Remember the lurking evil mentioned earlier? While maybe that particular baby blue Dynasty I was assigned wasn’t evil it was certainly possessed. And that possession made itself known when I had to make a sudden and unplanned business trip to Overland Park, Kansas. Naturally, I had to sweet talk somebody to get a car with no notice and that possessed baby blue Dynasty was the only passenger car available.
In retrospect, I would have had less drama had I taken the decade or so old, one-ton Chevrolet flatbed that had been parked nearby. The trip from Jefferson City to Overland Park is 150 miles – not far, but quite tedious when the Dynasty you are driving has consistent transmission slip. If forced to say something positive about this Dynasty it would be to say it never got worse as it was equally bad when I returned home as it was when I left.
Naturally I reported the problem when I returned. It likely got a new transmission. A coworker at the time got another Dynasty from the motor pool when the transmission decided to retire along I-44 near Springfield, Missouri. It retired so throughly he claimed it would still roll despite the transmission being in Park.
The odd thing is whenever I hear the Dynasty being maligned, I have this sudden bout of inner turmoil. How can they be so bad, I wonder. I was around some really good ones. Then I think about the really good ones and wonder what happened for them to avoid the mechanical maladies to which others succumbed and I experienced. The turmoil is real.
What is also real is there still being a Dynasty on the road; well, on the road four years ago. That same day I also found two similar vintage Imperials which tells me these cars aren’t as fragile as many would think. There were a lot of other cars from that era that aren’t being seen with any regularity.
So was the Dynasty all bad? No. But then again there is a reason they have cultivated their less than desirable reputation. My overall exposure time to all things Dynasty was great with the bad being but a fraction of the whole. It would be great if that scenario was more universal.
Found May 2015, Hannibal, Missouri
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Related reading:
1991 Dodge Dynasty – Enter Alexis by Brendan Saur
They called them DyeNasty for a reason. Heater cores went often and meant dash RW and re. A couch on wheels. My Father was offered one when the Chrysler Peugeot partnership came to an end. His 86 505STI has spent more time in the shop than in our driveway. He brought it home for my approval and I laughed. He made a somewhat better choice with a Shelby Daytona which stayed with us a year til he bought a new SHO. Another buggy bad for heater cores but…what an engine.
The Dynasty and its twin, the 1988 and 1989 Chrysler New Yorker and the 1990 to 1993 Chrysler New Yorker Salon, were flawed vehicles that still managed to check a lot of boxes. They were “arguably” competitive against the mid-sized (and even the full-sized) competition from Ford and GM. In terms of dimensions they managed to come within inches of the interior volume of the down-sized GM full-sized front-wheel drivers (Pontiac Bonneville, Olds 88, and Buick LeSabre).
Back in the day, one of the more interesting things I recall reading was a comparison of the mid-sized Dynasty against the compact Honda Accord in which the Dynasty supposedly had a lower overall cost of ownership than the Accord. The cars were very similar in purchase price and supposedly in terms of performance.
The 4-cylinder Accord was obviously smaller and had less room. It got better gas mileage, was more reliable and needed fewer repairs. However, it had shorter intervals for routine maintenance and when that maintenance was required it was more expensive than the Dynasty’s. When the car did break down, replacement parts and the repair costs were more expensive than the Dynasty.
The V-6 Dynasty was larger and had more room. It got worse gas mileage, was less reliable and needed more repairs. It had longer intervals for routine maintenance and when that maintenance was required it was less expensive than the Accord’s. When the car broke down, replacement parts and repair costs were less expensive than the Accord.
Anyway, supposedly the Dynasty had lower ownership costs than the Honda Accord.
In 1989, Chrysler discontinued the M-Body Chrysler Fifth Avenue.
At the time it was my favorite rental car. Thrifty (which was owned by Chrysler) had them all the time as a luxury-car special barely above the cost of a plebian sedan. Even though it was based on the 1976 Dodge Aspen, I enjoyed driving them, although they lacked the spunk and taut handling of my own (retrofitted) Aspen.
And then they were gone. Thrifty had no luxury replacement, so I went for the Dodge Dynasty.
They were of two personalities. The ones with a four-cylinder engine, some with only a three-speed Torqueflite, were dull and rather boring. The ones with a V6 were a lot more positive driving experience, especially the 3.3L ones. They were all quiet and smooth-riding, actually quite nice cars to sit in. But all had a propensity for squealing their tires in hard cornering. I had a suspicion that it arose from stretching the wheelbase of the original K-Car but retaining the rather narrow track.
I don’t know whether the agility and cornering ability would have improved with a wider track.
Chrysler developed a police package for the Dynasty with a 3.8L V6. I don’t know if those squealed their tires, too. It never went into production and only a few were built for testing in the field by police departments, because the Dynasty was already scheduled for discontinuance.
The Dynasty’s biggest flaw, apart from Ultradrive teething troubles, was styling that was ten years out of date the day job one rolled off the line. Iacocca didn’t like the new “jellybean” look and gambled enough others didn’t to carry an all-new model through a full product cycle. For the first few years it worked, but once everyone’s grandpa had theirs, it became – well, the car for state motor pools.
I dont know how these sold, they were offensively ugly IMO. And I do love some boxy cars like the Caprice and Cadillac Brougham. These were too narrow, too upright, even the original K cars and New Yorker turbo looked better, which isnt saying much.
I was fortunate enough to have owned 83 and 85 RWD Fifth Avenues which IMO compared favorably with other upscale cars I’ve owned. When Iacoca went loca with Kcars, I bid a sad farewell to Chrysler. I firmly believe the Dynasty name was intended to bring sales from the popularity of the TV series DYNASTY. Whether that makes any sense, one thing is sure. THIS Dynasty looks (Like Chrysler Corporation) like it did DY a NASTY death.
I’m sure its been said many times, but Dynasty is a terrible name for a car, all I see are the last 5 letters, you have to wonder about auto executives sometimes.
Good to know the cars had some basic toughness about them.
And you have to respect 120mph with a bit left to go from this tin box on wheels
I didn’t mind the look of these, but they had a bit of a resemblance to a stretched K-car. Sort of similar lines I suppose. Very upright as was pointed out. Never drove one of these however.
Drove one as a rental in early/mid “nineties”. Didn’t have it long, seemed to be “ok”. Drove it along “Sunset Blvd”.
Friend of my mom’s had a “89/90ish”. Kind a ‘sage”, color I’d say.
The drivers side “airbag”, evidently “inflated” while she was driving on “I 79”, near “Pgh”.
She suffered some bruising but did not lose control of the car.
Heard she and a lawyer got a rather decent settlement.
If memory serves correct, she had a “Buick Century”, when she came to my mom’s funeral. ( that was in “2002”)
By the time these showed up in our rental car pool, we had had enough with the squared-off Kcar look. They were perfectly fine, but no longer had a design buyers found interesting. Better than what GM was putting out, but no contest compared to Ford and the Jap cars.
Using “Chlamydia” to describe a vehicle that gave sterling service makes me ponder just how awful they must have been to drive .
-Nate
Glad your Grandpa Albert is doing well. He would have gotten along well with my departed Dad, maybe a year younger (would have been same age as my Mother who’s 94) but he was too young to be in WWII, though it influenced him greatly, he enlisted in the Army and instead of going to Korea, a train accident transporting troops to Ft. Atterbury from their home location in PA ended up killing several of the troops including several who’d reenlisted after the war, my Dad was already at the camp having gone ahead to prepare for their arrival but had to travel back to Ohio (where the train accident happened) to accompany the bodies back to PA. He ended up in Germany instead of Korea, on the iron curtain boundary with Czechoslovakia.
He never had a Dynasty, but in 1986 bought a Dodge 600 which I guess is similar…Part of the reason was his prior 2nd car, a 1980 Omni lacked A/C, and he’d moved to Texas in 1982, braved the summers for 4 years without it and finally had enough. Also the 600 had nice velour seats instead of the vinyl ones in the Omni which seem to make things hotter in the summer. I think 1986 was the last year you could deduct sales tax from car purchase, I think that also affected the timing. Unfortunately my middle sister borrowed the 600 when her own car was in the shop and ended up totalling it when going through a stop light and getting hit. She was banged up but came out of it OK…Dad ended up buying the first of 3 Mercury Sables in a row that he was to own as a replacement for the 600… the last MOPAR he was to ever own (his first car was a 1956 Plymouth Plaza stripper he bought new…no radio but may have had a heater).
So these were the replacement for both the Diplomat and Dodge 600? Kind of what GM was intending with the Ws but they ended up keeping some of the As.
In the summer of 1995, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Germany as part of an exchange program. I had the opportunity to travel from Hamburg to Amsterdam to visit a friend who was studying abroad for the year. My father rented a late 80’s – early 90’s VW Polo for the trip, and I got to drive on the Autobahn. Droning along at probably 70mph, I had this recurring thought about what my mom’s Dynasty would do on the Autobahn.
Later, I thought to myself that this Mopar wouldn’t do much…but now, hearing that one could hit 120…makes me satisfied that I wasn’t far off base while slogging along in that Polo.
Sadly, my mother’s ’92 (Metallic sand with a tan cloth interior) was one of the bad ones. Bad transmission, trim falling off, power windows failing…when it ran, it ran great. But it soured my father on anything Mopar ever again.
My aunt had a black over red that also had transmission issues, and a good friend’s family had two (a ’92 baby blue over blue and ’89 red over red) plus a white Imperial and they had few problems.
As far as I remember, the very first year (or two) had the older 3-speed Torqueflight based transmission and were far less prone to issues than the Ultradrive later models.
My grandma’s last car was an immaculate, always garaged, late-80s Dynasty. Well, when I say immaculate, I mean if you could look past the rust. I think she stopped driving and it went away sometime in the mid-00s, and this was in Wisconsin, so I don’t know that you’d blame the rust on Chrysler. I don’t have many memories of riding in it; I grew up in MT, we visited once a year, and she always rode with someone else when she could. She wasn’t a bad driver, just didn’t care to drive. Which is ironic, because apparently my grandpa who passed before I was born wasn’t great behind the wheel, and cruise control was a massive boon to him because he had a hard time taking his eyes off the road for anything.
Anyway, the Dynasty reminds me of the first-year Tempo that came up recently. In the best case, you got a very unremarkable car that got you from A to B pretty reliably. In many cases, you got one of UAW’s duds that took a while to sort out, or never really did in the worse case. The Tempo was probably more hated, but mostly became of the thrashy engine and typically spartan accommodations. Neither is a car anyone remembers favorably – or at all in most cases – unless there are memories attached to one.