If we are honest with ourselves, much of what we do is in the nature of reaction to the forces swirling around us, rather than the result of thoughtful planning. In 1987, Chrysler swallowed AMC/Jeep and in the process, created a new brand – the Eagle. The 1993 Vision would become the last new vehicle designated as an Eagle. In 20-20 hindsight, this turned out to be, well, not eagle vision.
When Chrysler bought AMC, it did so to get Jeep. But there was a catch – AMC/Renault had spent a fortune developing the Premier and was under an obligation to buy 260,000 V6 engines from Renault over five years. So, the car had to stay, or else Chrysler would be liable to pay some nasty penalties.
Some thoughtful planning might have figured a way to incorporate the AMC/Renault cars into the Chrysler lineup. But then there was the easy way: just keep the Premier (and the other inherited cars) in the existing AMC/Jeep dealer channel. But the AMC cars would at least need a new name. So, Chrysler resurrected the DeSoto nameplate, and assigned all of the AMC legacy cars to the brand. Kidding. Actually, they did NOT call the cars DeSotos. Instead, they created the Eagle brand (the cars, not the condensed milk). But Eagle or DeSoto, it didn’t really matter.
In fairness to those who gave birth to Eagle, we should remember that DeSoto was born under similar circumstances. Walter Chrysler had tried to buy the Dodge Brothers company. When he failed, he cooked up his own mid-priced car, which became the DeSoto. But before the first DeSoto was built, the Dodge Brothers’ widows changed their minds and Chrysler had both Dodge and DeSoto on his hands. Walter Chrysler (a first-rate auto executive) decided to roll with both. The triumph of reaction over planning is not just a modern phenomenon.
Thus began the Eagle automobile – a collection of misfit orphans. In addition to the Premier, Chrysler continued to offer the Medallion (a Renault), the Eagle wagon (the ancient AMC 4wd version) and the Summit (a Mitsubishi). The plan going forward seemed to be to make Eagle something appealing to the high-income demographic of Jeep customers. But curiously, Chrysler morphed the brand from misfit orphans to a collection of badge-engineered cars that would have made anyone at Mercury or Oldsmobile proud. The Vision was the last (and maybe the best) of them.
The 1993 LH cars were revolutionary in the industry for their large size, their cab-forward architecture, and their forward-thinking engineering and style. Based upon the unloved AMC/Eagle Premier, the platform became one of Chrysler’s best sellers in the 1990s.
Sandwiched between the Dodge Intrepid and the Chrysler Concorde, was this car: the Eagle Vision. Like the DeSotos of yore, the car was virtually identical to its platform-mates and squeezed into the Oldsmobile-sized hole between Dodge and Chrysler. The idea was that the Vision would appeal to a more upscale, euro-centric crowd than the NASCAR-loving neanderthals in the Dodge showrooms and the AARP members shopping the Concordes.
Actually, the Vision sold steadily and reasonably well – about one hundred thousand units per year. But at some point, someone at Chrysler decided to do a little thinking and planning, and wondered just why the DeSoto – er- I mean – Eagle was really necessary. Whether it was the planned Daimler merger or just simple analysis, Jeeps were folded into Chrysler-Plymouth dealerships (some of which were converted from Jeep-Eagle franchises) and the Eagle joined DeSoto in the Chrysler Museum of Dead Brands.
A couple of confessions are in order here. First, every time I see one of these (a rarer and rarer occurrence), I want to pronounce it as a single word, like “television”. This is because when my oldest son (at about age 3) first learned about the existence of this car, that is what he called it – an EAGLEvision. I have never been able to shake it.
Second (and more reasonably) I have always considered the Vision to be the best looking of all of the first generation LH cars. The Intrepid was fine until you got to the strange taillights that were too small and too high, and I never cared for the black C-pillar treatment. The Chrysler had that strange grille designed to trick senior citizens into thinking that this was a suitable replacement for their old Newports. The Vision was the whole package – attractive from front to rear. And it never, ever came with a column shifter.
But as nice as the car was, the whole naming thing was just strange. Eagle Vision? I guess this would make their owners Visionairies, which would not be a bad thing. There was also the Eagle Talon. Chrysler never gave us the super-high gas mileage one (the Eagle Feather) or the convertible (Bald Eagle). It is also unfortunate that Chrysler ditched the old Nash/AMC Weather Eye climate system, because it could have been called Eagle Eye. Owners could call their garage the Eagle’s Lodge – but I suppose there would need to be a bar, or at least a keg of beer out there. Enough with the Eagle puns? Awwww – I was just getting started. Maybe this is a task best left to the CC readership. But I digress.
The whole Eagle era (another possible car name?) disappeared quickly, and did not leave much of an imprint on our automotive memories. The Vision was killed at the end of the 1997 models and was forgotten pretty quickly. At least DeSoto left us with some memorable Fireflites and Adventurers, but the brand was around longer, too. I suppose the Mopar faithful were happy to let the DeSoto rest in peace, but it seems to me that the DeSoto and Eagle legacies are about the same.
A car can be a big success if it is 1) a good car and 2) it has a reason to exist. In its day, the Vision nailed the first criterion. Although the first generation LH cars did not age all that gracefully, they were groundbreaking and compelling cars when new. But was there a worthwhile market segment for this car? This, unfortunately, was a box that remained unchecked with the Vision. This car (and the whole Eagle experiment) showed that in his ability to read the market, Lee Iacocca and the rest of his team did not always soar with the Eagles. But they did leave us with a really cool logo, as well the best of the early LH cars.
JP , you went deep in the memory hole on this one. Eagle was here and gone as a nameplate before most people had any awareness of the brand.
I remember quite well our local ChryCo dealer announcing the debut of the Eagle line at his dealership because he purchased a remote broadcast from the radio station that I worked for at the time. (circa 1988 or so) We set up in the parking lot with our giant boom box, handed our free cokes and pizzas,T-shirts and other detritus and really tried to knock his doors down with enthusiastic customers.
He sold one car.
By the time the LH Vision came on the market, it seemed to me that these were “factory beaters” that were sold to people that couldn’t really afford them by using um, “creative financing” and other gimmicks to put people in them that should have really been buying a used car.
Later, when they started showing up on title pawn lots, they just looked sad and forlorn. I haven’t seen one here in years.
Unless there’s a corresponding event strong enough to draw people on the lot that day, expecting people to come to any car remote and buy a car that same day is an epic fail.
Once I was at one of the major Ford lots and people were invited to come to sign up for a chance to buy a car for a dollar…which turned out to be a 14-year-old Buick that wouldn’t start. But it created buzz and got a crowd on the lot. Don’t remember how many sales they actually made.
Car remote broadcasts are all about brand-building and top of mind awareness that often generates sales days after the broadcast. At least that’s been my experience. If Herb Tarlek sets the expectations properly with the dealer, then it’s all good.
JP, your comparison of Eagle to DeSoto was about the best descriptor you could ask for to describe the brand’s condition almost from the get-go. Seems like it lost its luster within just a couple years.
Sometimes I wonder how a company that has gone from failure to failure still exists today…
It doesnt its part of Fiat for the time being,wonder whos next.
I read somewhere that the Chrysler 300M was originally designed to as the second generation Vision. It would’ve suited the “upscale, euro-centric” model for the Eagle brand quite nicely, as I recall those were the exact same customers who were targeted (if wrongly) when it was sold as a Chrysler.
Have any spy photos or prototypes of the second-generation Vision/300M badged as an Eagle Vision ever surfaced? I’ve never seen any. When the second-generation LH cars were previewed in the car mags in 1997, the Dodge and Chrysler versions had photos, but the Eagle did not (though a new Vision did seem imminent at the time, and the articles hinted that the styling of it would be “radical”).
http://www.dodgeintrepid.net/showthread.php?t=37759
I think they had an extremely hard sell on their hands from the start. The problem IMO was trying to market Renault as “upscale European” after they already had a strongly-established reputation for producing econo-junk like the LeCar and Alliance. Chrysler tried to position Eagle against Audi, which might have been factually reasonable but in the USA very few were willing to risk buying an expensive, upscale car from Renault. When Chrysler gave up and made it an LH there was little reason for it to exist anymore.
ISTR the Eagle Talon was somewhat popular for a couple of years (with many people calling it the “Taylon”, which always makes me think of some alien Klingon splinter group), and the AMC Hornet based Eagles had their adherents in snowy, hilly areas. It was the decision to make Eagle “upscale” that probably killed it.
i never really cared for the chrysler cab forward thing. i do have to admit that they were very roomy but the looks left me cold. the eagle was the least ugly of them. i did really like the eagle premier. i assume it was some sort of re-badged renault.
Allpar says that the Premier was largely an AMC effort led by Francois Castaing. Renault supplied a basic platform (from the Renault 25) but AMC handled the rest of the engineering, sourcing parts and sub-assemblies from everywhere (as had become standard Jeep practice). The 3.0 V6 engine was purchased from a joint venture between Renault, Peugeot and Volvo and ZF supplied the 4 speed automatic transmission.
I would love to find one for a future CC. It was a first-class effort by AMC with what little resources it had. I remember that my then-girlfriend (now wife) drove one of them around 1988 or 89 and really liked it. I think that it failed because it was just too unfamiliar – Renault had burned a lot of people and much of the car came from sources unfamiliar to most Americans.
I seem to remember, when it wasn’t selling up to snuff, that a badge-engineered version called the Dodge Monaco was at least announced, possibly came out. Can’t say, as I’ve never seen one with the Dodge badge.
I almost bought a Dodge Monaco in 1991. I really liked the Premier, I needed a new car, and the local Dodgeatorium was blowing them out for ridiculous prices. Picture a Premier with a Pentastar instead of an eagle head on the steering wheel and a cross-hairs on the grille and you’ve got it.
As I remember it, the Monaco was roomy and drove well, but it had motorized shoulder belt passive restraints that I couldn’t stand. I decided to go for a Mercury Sable with an airbag instead.
I didn’t know much about the Premier before, but I knew the DeLorean DMC12 used a V6 that was the product of a joint venture between Peugeot, Renault and Volvo. I looked it up, and it turns out both vehicles used engines from the same “PRV” family.
That engine is a total piece of crap
Good enough for 88 mph!
But only when equipped with a flux capacitor.
Yes, agree, if the engine sitting in a Volvo. Volvo made their own heads, with to small oil passages, so now you know why these engines collapsed-
Not really, had one in a Renault 30. It wasn’t the most powerful engine but quiet and smooth – don’t recall any major problems with it other than having to do the usual servicing which used to be much more frequent than today.
The PRV 3.0 v-6 would make an interesting CC as there were a lot of them in production.
Well isn’t the 2.7 PRV V6 the first incarnation (and the one with legendarily soft camshafts and the reason why there aren’t many Volvo 262/4s or 760 V6s left?).
It was supposed to be one of the first modular engines. A V8 was supposed to be “crafted” from it? And then the Oil embargo made a even thirstier V8 version than the 6 obsolete. I saw a Peugeot 505 V6 for sale once and was tempted to test drive it to get a feel for that engine. There’s a youtube video of a Premier V6 starting here. Kinda sounds nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTDbvBTWF9k
The Premier itself was probably too European without the Cache of a European badge. Or it was “French” and by 1985 French cars in the states were a joke.
But I have to join in on saying the Vision was the most attractive of the initial LH cars (just like how I think the 1957 DeSoto’s are the prettiest of the forward look second round). Maybe if Uncle Vic had gone with a Vision TSi with a Moonroof I wouldn’t have such a apathetic relationship towards the LH cars. They’re mighty sharp even 20 years later.
A friend of mine in high school bought himself a Volvo 264GL–nice car at the time, this was in about ’86 and his was a ’79 and in very good shape. I’m not sure it ever occurred to him why there were so many more 240 Volvos around than 260s. It’s been years since I’ve seen one.
Yes, that V6 has been around, hasn’t it! Would be great to see it featured in CC.
Spent some of my childhood years in the back of a ’76 Peugeot 604. Don’t see those around no more–even in France. My brother drives a 1997 406 coupe with the 3-litre V6. Goes like the dickens, plus very nice Pininfarina styling. They had reworked the V6 by then, making it less thirsty and more durable.
My recollection is that the Premier/Monaco was well reviewed at launch. The dashboard layout got some drubbing, but I think the general critical consensus was that on balance, it was a pretty credible rival for a Taurus or Lumina.
Burned into my brain is a commercial featuring Lido, saying of the Premier that it was “the most aerodynamic sedan built on this continent!”
I liked the looks of the Premier. The engine looked easy to work on under there, with room down each side to get in there and fix stuff. As a former tech, engine bay roominess almost automatically gives a car +10 bonus points with me, everything else being equal.
As for the Vision, there was something about it being the first of the LH cars having a manumatic shifter. A Mopar-loving buddy once touted this factoid.
I also agree the Vision is attractive, but I always prefer the LHS over all the other LH cars, style wise. Love that C pillar.
Bald Eagle! Good one.
In retrospect, why didn’t they…
– Let the Lancer/GTS replace the original K-car sedans, rather than just letting them cannibalize each other?
– Let the Premier join the Chry/Dodge lines with fanfare in ’88, with an ad campaign that blatantly targeted the Taurus/Sable, rather than letting whatever youth appeal they had disappear like an old lady behind the wheel of a Dynasty?
I think you may be right about the Premier. At the time, I always had the sense that Chrysler tolerated the car because it had to, but it never really embraced it. Behind the scenes, the car was embraced as the basis for the LH, but nobody knew that in 1988-90.
That the LH has any sort of basis in the Premier is a myth, Chrysler started designing the LH before their hook up with Renault via the purchase of AMC/Jeep. The fact that the LH had a longitudinal engine placement was done so that it would be easy to make the car available as a FWD for consumers, a RWD for police, and AWD as a premium consumer car. Unfortunately they ran out of money to actually tool up the RWD and AWD designs until they started calling it the LX which was nothing more than dusting off the old designs.
“…nothing more than dusting off the old designs…”
I have a hard time believing that. The 2005-present LX cars were developed in the Daimler-Chrysler days, so the LX suspension is derived from a mixture of W210 E-Class and W220 S-Class Mercedes parts. The AWD system is based on Mercedes’ 4Matic system.
The only thing that was “dusted off” was the styling from the 1998 Chronos concept.
Edit: Actually, Allpar says that Chrysler had begun work on a RWD/AWD car in 1997, but Mercedes’ influence after the merger drastically changed the plan.
Dig a little deeper at AllPar and you’ll find one of the engineers that confirms the LH was intended to be available as a FWD RWD or AWD from the beginning and that they could have “started production at anytime”. Yes, Daimler did force some of their IRS pieces into the car “for cost savings” as well as their transmission. Some of the basic front suspension design for the LX was carried over directly from the LH.
Also take a look at the huge tunnel down the middle of a LH, that was designed for a driveshaft.
“Let the Premier join the Chry/Dodge lines with fanfare in ’88”
Well , they sort of did that. Remember the Dodge Monaco of 1990-1991-1992 ?
This Monaco was a notoriously slow selling car. I remember at the time that The Wall Street Journal pegged Chryslers supply of unsold Monaco’s at 435 days-a record.
The only reason for the Monaco was that the car was selling too slowly as an Eagle to meet the contractual engine quota. Slap a different badge on it and stuff it into a much bigger dealer network. What could go wrong?
I remember this car, but by 1990 there was a recession and the whole company was looking shaky, again, and there was also a similar-sized Dodge Spirit in the same showroom. In ’88 they probably could have gotten close to 100k each out of the full CP-D network? Maybe? I think I agree with the theory that the product planners really didn’t want this thing.
I remember maybe in late 1989 being at Chis Nickel’s Mopar dealer in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a kid, and in the showroom was Dynasty, a Spirit, a Diplomat (!) and the Premier. And even then, it seemed really, reaaaaaaally stupid.
I remember that era well. Don’t forget the Aries, Daytona, Shadow, Colt, LeBaron, Stealth, and “Maserati” all sitting beside them! Chrysler really lost their focus back then. It struck me that they were (rightly) afraid of another failure, and the lack of confidence resulted in the “throw it all out there and just see what sells” approach.
Dodge was very crowded with the Daytona, Spirit, Shadow, Dynasty (who was sold as a Chrysler in Canada as well as the Daytona). I find it strange then they didn’t badged it as a Plymouth?
I heard once there was also a proposed 2-door coupe derived from the Premier codenamed X-59 to be added in the line-up but it was cancelled.
Eagle Vision, you’re right that is sort of a strange name, but it could have been worse. There could have been a “Hernando De Soto.”
The Vision and Premier were my favorite versions of their respected platforms. I sat in a Vision at the NAIAS in my high school days. I was suitably impressed. But for selling so many during it’s run I see so few on the road.
Respective.
Sorry, pet peeve…
🙂
No harm no foul
Eagle DeSoto, of course! Never thought of that – history repeats itself. Eagle Adventurer could have been the high-performance model. Eagle Fireflite? Not so good.
The local Craigslist has four Visions. One’s listed as “1995 Eagle Vision ESi (Intrepid)”.
Oh, how the plot thickens. The uber-competence of the AMC team, collides head-on with the King of Badge-Engineering, Lido. Meantime the Hero Car is cursed with the damnable name of Renault.
They reskin it and give it a Dodge moniker, and it works. And King Lido thinks he’s proven the virility of Badge Engineering. So the Eagle Badge Division is born; the Dodges and Mitsubishis are borne; the AMC dealers are endured.
Except that the Miracle of Badge-Engineering is well-known as a childish party trick. Soon the AMC dealers are reinvented as Chrysler dealers, and the Eagles are orphans. And the Hero Car, the cab-forward LH, is damned by the new master, Daimler…destined to roll down a narrower, increasingly distant road as the Car That Could Have Been.
These cars certainly did not age well. Right after the warranty was up, the car started to shake itself to pieces. The exhaust manifolds of the 3.5 V-6 fried the high mounted, Renault designed, steering parts. The brakes were weak. The car suffered water leaks. The transmissions were never much better than the Ultra-Drive.
The Premier/Monaco was even more horrid. Nobody can tell me the PRV motor was useful for anything other than a boat anchor. At 100,000 km the cars would have no oil pressure and it simply wasn’t worth fixing it. The interiors were junk, things broke and fell off as fast as you could fix them. Finally, the electrics were so awful I would not recommend driving one at night. Renault makes crap-ola and nobody is going to convince me otherwise. The only reason they survive is French nationalism-masochism. Oh, that and import quotas. Which brings the Fiat 500 to mind, see what that car is like five years from now. But I digress, too….
I know this from working as a service advisor at a Chrysler store. One of the worst jobs I have ever had. Instead of driving across a bridge on my way home every evening I regularly contemplated jumping off it.
I personally witnessed the steering linkage come apart on an Inteprid taxi in Saskatoon in 1999. The tie rod simply let go. I thought at the time this was an unacceptable failure in this day and age. Out of curiosity, I did a little further research and found out, via NHTSA and other sites, that these cars are rife with steeing failures. Hell, even the bolts holding the tie rods to the center-take-off rack have been known to sheer. Why a safety recall has never been issued on these is beyond me.
The car that should have saved Chrysler (again) turned out to be the Volare-Aspen of the 90s.
There was a safety recall to install a heat shield to prevent manifold heat from cooking the linkage. Didn’t do much good because all the parts were crap anyway.
mmmmm Eagle shit?
This was my experience with a low-mileage four-year-old ’96 Intrepid. Lulled into complacency by my Dad’s trouble-free ’93, I bought a tie-rod-eating monster that seemed to need a weekly alignment and also snacked on its AC compressor and starter before I traded it for my first Japanese car. Used ’00 Altima was a new Lexus by comparison.
Apparently there were a few good LH cars produced. I know someone who’s had the Chrysler version for many years and it’s been totally trouble-free. I can’t remember if it’s an LHS or a New Yorker, or which year it is. It has the split bench with fold-down center armrest and column shifted automatic, which for some reason I think looks really cool in such a modern car. It’s also pretty comfy and feels nice and tight, though there’s more road noise than you’d expect. I really like the look of the car inside and out.
Unfortunately, of the 8 or so people I’ve known or met who had an LH, only two got a good one. Both were the Chrysler version, so maybe those were put together more solidly? My sample is too small to draw that conclusion, but I’d like to believe it. 🙂
I’m occasionally very tempted by cheap LH cars on craigslist, but it does seem quite a gamble. A shame, otherwise I’d definitely pick up one of the Chrysler versions. They’re certainly quite attainable, and all these years later they still turn my head whenever I see one.
This was one car that I aspired to, back in the mid 90’s. It was not easy back then, as I had two young children and couldn’t see spending $20K+ USD on a car that would have young children in it.
Our local CPJE dealer that had an Eagle Vision TSi on the lot, black with a parchment leather interior that stopped me in my tracks everytime. It was a really stunning car.
Until the redesigned 1997 GM W-bodies came about, I had every intention of getting a Vision (or Intrepid). Somewhere along the way, I traded my trusty H-body Lancer in on a Dakota instead, and never found my way back to the Vision. Or a W-body Grand Prix, for that matter.
II bought an Eagle Vision TSI (fully loaded) new in the summer of 1994. It’s the only car I ever owned that I was excited to drive out of the dealership with. It had amazing features, great styling, and a fantastic sound system. On my drive back home, I was chased by a Chevy Astro owner who wanted a better viewing angle as I motored down the highway. I had that car for 10 years (125,000 miles) and the person I sold it to actually keeps in touch me with on Facebook. She said it was the best car she ever owned and would buy anything from me in the future. (She sold the car a few years back, so it might still be burbling down the highway somewhere). I liked the car so much that I posted it on cardomain years ago (and added aftermarket rims and tinted glass) and it’s still there as a record of my enthusiasm for the car. Thanks for the memories.
I have always considered the Vision to be the best looking of all of the first generation LH cars.
I would have to agree. With virtually all the other LH cars, it seems they mated a nice looking rear onto a hideous front, or vice-versa. The Vision is relatively good looking.
The Chrysler had that strange grille designed to trick senior citizens into thinking that this was a suitable replacement for their old Newports.
You’d have to have pretty poor vision to mistake the Concorde for a Newport, or for any C-body Mopar for that matter. 🙂 The waterfall grille was a New Yorker trademark theme, not a Newport theme. The New Yorker did migrate to the LH platform for MY1994.
Speaking of the Concorde, I thought the grille on the 1st gen Concorde was pretty nasty looking, til they redesigned it for 1998. One of my co-workers had a 2nd gen Concorde. I nicknamed it “the Trout”. If he’d put those old-school curb feelers on it, it could’ve been “the Catfish” instead.
This car reminds me of the movie “Office Space”…
I don’t see too many of these anymore, but it sure must have looked futuristic in 1993. Just think of the ungainly “stretched” K-Cars that Chrysler had been making before that – the LH cars must have shocked the public (in a good way)!
I thought they were stunning at the time.
That’s because they were. There was nothing else quite like them on the market at that time.
The Ford Taurus was still doing it’s mid 80’s victory lap, not realizing what was about to happen to it (1996 redesign). The GM designs were all stuck in their conventionality, the Accord and Camry were just UJC’s (Universal Japanese Car) that were perched to take the Taurus’s spot on the best seller list. Although, I do have to admit a bit of admiration for the 1992-1997 generation of Camry, it was a very nice car.
Nothing else was even close the LHs. But, the LHs were not inexpensive, and I think that was a hard pill for Mopar fans and other non-fans to swallow.
I remember these (the LX’s) being a giant leap forward compared to what Chrysler was spewing in the ’80s. The Eagle was the best looking, with the most “Euro” flair, and I think they did a good job differentiating it from the Concorde and Intrepid.
I certainly haven’s seen one in ages.
There weren’t many of thses sold over here, but a few (rebadged as Chrysler Vision, we never got any other LH as far as I recall) are still out there, or being worked at I guess.
From the front I always mistake these for Preludes btw. Is there any likeness or is it just me ?
Not that I’ve seen many of these in Norway (rebadged as Chryslers here, we never got the Intrepid or Concord) But they did look a lot like the Prelude from the same time. I wish they had called them Desoto.
A rare car in Norway (rebadged as Chrysler, we never saw the Intrepid or Concorde here) it didn’t impress for more than the first wave, and when it became ocvious American cars hadn’t gotten better it stopped again, until the C300,
I always thought they looked alot like the then current Prelude?
I seem to remember something about the Eagle Vision being the first car in the US with a “Tiptronic”-style shifter. Or maybe the first non-Porsche… or something. There was definitely something almost-innovative about it.
I understand that the mechanicals are garbage, but I still respect these cars a lot. They represent a different way of thinking about what the shape of a large car should be. Not as left-field as, say, a Tatra, but still very different from what other manufacturers were offering in this class. The visual difference between these and their predecessors (stretched K-cars) is astonishing; it’s an even greater leap than Chrysler made when shifting from the Aspen/Volare to the K-cars.
Correct, the Vision was the first American car with a “manu-matic” shifter like the Porsche Tiptronic system.
Slap me silly, but you almost said it – a Hitler joke – so I’ll volunteer – call your garage the “Eagle’s Nest”? There, that’s out of the way! Budda-Boom!
Back to business: We owned a 1996 3.5L Intrepid, white, which was a good color for that car, especially with those thick vinyl-coated, padded steelies, which were also white and silver.
I liked the Eagle Vision for the better looks as well. When we lived in Florissant, Mo., we had the triad of ChryCo dealers: Chrysler-Plymouth, Dodge and Eagle-Jeep. The Dodge dealer got most of my attention as it was right up my street and the kids, the dog and I would take walks and see how much junk on the parking lot the kids could drag home!
The Eagle-Jeep dealer was in bike-riding distance, and I used to go there every so often and look at all the quirky stuff (anyone remember the “Raider”?), especially the Summit wagons – or were they “Micro-Minivans” in two sizes!
We actually bought our new vehicles, Reliant and Acclaim, at the Plymouth dealer.
Sorry, not much to contribute about the Eagle Vision besides my thoughts on its looks – I never had the opportunity to drive one.
I bought an Eagle Vision TSI (fully loaded) new in the summer of 1994. It’s the only car I ever owned that I was excited to drive out of the dealership with. It had amazing features, great styling, and a fantastic sound system. On my drive back home, I was chased by a Chevy Astro owner who wanted a better viewing angle as I motored down the highway. I had that car for 10 years (125,000 miles) and the person I sold it to actually keeps in touch me with on Facebook. She said it was the best car she ever owned and would buy anything from me in the future. (She sold the car a few years back, so it might still be burbling down the highway somewhere). I liked the car so much that I posted it on cardomain years ago (and added aftermarket rims and tinted glass) and it’s still there as a record of my enthusiasm for the car. Thanks for the memories.
The Vision was the whole package – attractive from front to rear. And it never, ever came with a column shifter.
No sale!
Fortunately for the rest of the planet NOTHING comes with column shift.
A neighbor of ours has the Dodge version of the Premier, still drives it. That’s as close to an Eagle as I’ve seen in years…
It sounds like you’ve got a solid gold curbside classic piece just waiting to happen.
Oh yeah, and does anyone else think that the 2004-present Maserati Quattroporte looks like it might have taken some inspiration from the 1994-1997 New Yorker/LHS version of this car? (Especially in the roofline and taillights.)
Or am I just crazy?
A picture of an LHS…
…and one of a Quattroporte…
I remember some comic riffing on car names back around that time – he said you could have a garage that contained a Vision, an Eclipse, a Prism, and a Shadow. According to him, if you couldn’t find your Prism in a parking lot, it might be because it changed colors in the sunlight. Your Eclipse often hid behind a big SUV so you couldn’t see it. If your little Ford was stolen you’d be out of Focus. And if you had one too many drinks you might have a Vision….
I was going to make a change my previous post, but I couldn’t stand the thought of a revision.
At least they didn’t make the turbocharged SuperVision. Or the extra-long wheelbase Double Vision.
But the plans to complement Ricardo Montalban’s Chrysler commercials with another 70s TV star pitching Eagles never came to fruition, so there was never a Telly Vision either.
The strange but true one was the former AMC Eagle – the hoary old Sportabout-based 4X4 wagon. It continued as an Eagle for 1 year (1988). Although it was officially the Eagle Wagon, it should actually have been called the Eagle Eagle. I would buy one of them just for the name.
I think you’re a bit off on those sales numbers. No way did they sell 100k of these a year; I think it’s more like 100k total for the entire production run. Chrysler did well with the LH cars, but I’m not sure any particular model cracked the 100k mark in any given model year.
The Vision was a pretty pointless car from a consumer prospective. But the Eagle brand made a lot of sense for Chrysler, at least initially. And I wonder if management ever truly saw it as anything more than a stopgap. The logical move when they acquired Chrysler would be to convert the old AMC-Jeep franchises to Dodge or Chrysler-Plymouth stores. But given the arcane and highly-litigious nature of franchise laws, there was no way that was gonna happen overnight. They needed something, anything for the new dealers to sell until they could fully bring them into the fold (and satisfy that requirement to buy all those retched PRV engines). Oddly enough, some 25 years later, many of Chrysler’s strongest franchises started out selling Ramblers.
And for a halfassed stopgap brand, Eagles tended to look better than their badge-engineered siblings.
It should have been clear to everyone, though, that Eagle didn’t have a chance. Plymouth was already finished by the ’80s, as it continually lost out to Chrysler on new mid- and full-size offerings. And for its part, the Chrysler brand was tarnished selling products that really should have been Plymouths (like the E-Class and Dynasty-based New Yorker Salon). Most of the time, Chrysler, Plymouth and Dodge were virtually indistinguishable in terms of appearance, equipment and even pricing. At the time of the ’87 buyout, Chrysler already had two brands two many.
I don’t know if Plymouth was completely gone by the time of the LH cars. I’ve wondered how things might have panned out if Iacocca, rather than creating the Eagle division had, instead, devoted more effort on enhancing the Plymouth line.
By creating the Eagle Vision, it seemed like the Dodge Intrepid moved down into what was traditionally Plymouth territory. Plymouth not getting an LH car may have increased the decline that eventually resulted in not only Eagle going away, but Plymouth, too.
In effect, instead of:
Chrysler Concorde
Eagle Vision
Dodge Intrepid
Maybe:
Chrysler Concorde
Dodge Intrepid
Plymouth (Vision?)
Might have been more successful, and Plymouth would still be around.
But I don’t think the Plymouth division really fit in with Iacocca’s style, and is the real reason Eagle was formed and Plymouth was allowed to whither away under his stewardship of Chrysler.
So close…but a near miss.
They just about had it right…but the marketing office and the bean-counters, hosed them. Imagine what they could have done if they’d focused on something other than badge-engineering; if they’d taken the time to iron the bugs out of the LH?
I never owned one. Drove one a couple of miles…moving it for a friend. I liked the car; and I had favorable experiences with Chrysler products of that era.
Had three minivans…a first-gen I inherited from my father, a 1988…then a 1995, beat to snot; and then a 2007. The 1988 was mostly trouble-free except for electric fuel-pump problems. The 1995 was rusted and not a fair example, but it started and drove reliably. And the 2007, last of that generation…I whaled the tar out of it, towing heavy trailers, getting into a situation where I had to drive ten miles on off-road-vehicle pathways…never a problem. Never.
I traded that last off because I figured the bill would come due. It still looked sharp, so I dumped it for what I could get…and considered the cost the expense of abuse.
Anyway…it’s only been here I’ve heard consistent comments about the troubles of the LH. Too bad, too bad…that car was really a trailblazer.
“The idea was that the Vision would appeal to a more upscale, euro-centric crowd than the NASCAR-loving neanderthals in the Dodge showrooms and the AARP members shopping the Concordes.”
So they could have called it Eagle Eurovision! Though it could not have been that terrible to warrant the name!
If not for the distraction and emphasis on the Eagle experiment (which ended soon enough), more attention might have been paid to the Plymouth division, and it still might be around.
Iacocca is generally lauded for his expertise in the automotive industry, but he made errors (some of them plenty big), too, and it seems like Eagle was one of them.
Had never heard of an Eagle version of the LH cars..
But had already seen it.
It was badged as a Chrysler in Europe. As JP says it was really the best styled of the 3.
Am I allowed to comment today? i tried 5 times yesterday, so I can’t be bothered to write much…
zykotec: I don’t know what happened, but your comments went directly to the Spam tank, not even to the Pending one. Otherwise, I would have been notified of your comments awaiting moderation. Let me know if it happens again.
Odd, because there are no links in your comments to make it look like spam.
Wow, that’s uncanny similarity, right down to the design of the ‘nostril’ grilles. I never noticed before. Which came first?
My parents bought a 6 month old 1995 Chrysler Concorde to replace their 1991 Honda Accord EX 4 door as it just wasn’t big enough for my Dad. He had long legs and got leg cramps on long trips so needed the extra legroom of these cars.
And it would put them back into a Mopar for the first time in over a decade.
Theirs ended up being reliable, the only thing was the factory tape deck was a POS, had poor amplification that often required one turn the volume way up, to the point that it got hissy, just to get any ooomph out of it.
Mom ended up selling it in 1999 to a friend and former professor of my youngest sister’s who still drives it to this day and we’ve never had any major mechanical issues with that car, no steering problems or anything. Don’t know what motor it had either.
Mom sold it to get back into a Honda as it was more her size as these LH cars were just too big for her after my Dad passed on in the fall of 98.
I still see these on the roads around here since rust isn’t an issue though not as plentiful as they once were but I still see plenty of the Chrysler Minivans of all years still plying the roads with the 1995 up being the most plentiful with the second gen being the next plentiful and then the first iteration, especially the later flush headlamp versions from 1987-1990.
I’ve always liked the cab forward 1995-2001 bodies the best of the lot with the very first iterations second (without the later front clip redesign).
Today
My dad got a new Grand Cherokee Orvis in 1995. Shortly after, it was keyed in our driveway. While it was being fixed, he got a new emerald green Vision ESi as a loaner. Hubcaps and cloth interior, not the fancy TSi. I was too young to drive, but it was a nice riding car. The room in the back seat was amazing. We also got a new Grand Caravan ES in 1992, so I got to go to the dealer quite a bit when Mom took it in for oil changes. It was weird to see a Dynasty Brougham next to an Intrepid, they were both available in 1993.
54 chevy belair
57 chevy belair
69 malibu 2 dr
7 volvo
audi 100
76 seville
buick regal
delta 88
lesaber
eagle vision
these in order are the cars my older Brother drove. I sure was puzzled when he picked me up @ the airport in his Eagle Vision. I was impressed though. It seemed like a man’s version of the LH series. (Must have been the ESi or whatever they called the sporty model.
ESi was the basic one, TSi was the fancy one. Think Intrepid SE vs. Concorde LXi equipment-wise.
How foolish Chrysler was to get rid of this brand. This would have made a superb all-wheel drive model for Jeep/Eagle.
The ‘Eagle Eagle’ didn’t last long under Mopar. Almost as soon as they got the keys to the offices, Lido cut the old Hornet based AWD car. Only about a month or so of 1988 Eagles were built in summer 1987.
BTW, Renault is far cry from it’s low quality days, Carlos Ghon runs them with Nissan. Doing much better these days, and not owned by French Gov’t anymore.
In doing more research:
“Total 1988 [Eagle wagon] model year production was 2,306 units, all station wagons. The final car rolled out of AMC’s original Brampton Assembly Plant in Brampton, Ontario on December 14, 1987.”
Still, the Hornet descendant was on the chopping block as soon as Mopar got keys to the place.
My best friend dated a mechanic at the Jeep/Eagle dealership. He didn’t have much good to say about these cars.
I test drove an Eagle Talon. The salesman was pushing that car HARD. They may have ended up giving it away. I liked the car and the styling but ended up with a Tbird.
I like the new yorker best.