Is time slowing down? Just fifteen years separate this 1960 Imperial and the Horizon’s birth. Or was it just that Detroit was terribly slow to embrace the inevitability of modern European design? Better late than never, because not only were the Horizon and Omni the first proper small cars ever built in Detroit, they also saved Chrysler from irrelevance and bankruptcy just in the nick of time.
Before we turn the clock back and rediscover the origins of Omnirizon twins, let’s briefly put that fifteen year span between the Imperial and Horizon in perspective.
Thirty-five years separate the Horizon from this 2010 Golf. Has automotive evolution really slowed down that much? Unfair comparison, perhaps. Well, there is no 2010 Imperial to compare it to, since that species long ago became extinct. And the Golf does loom large in the Horizon’s existence. Or is it the other way around?
Our timeless main story begins with the Simca 1100 (at the left on the top, and right on the bottom, mislabeled as an R12). This photo is here courtesy of allpar.com, which has an excellent article about the birth of the Horizon by its creators here. We see it in a comparison of the C2 Horizon’s proposal with the brand-new Golf. The C2 was the intended replacement for the Simca, and it’s easy to see that they (Simca, C2) sat on the same platform and followed its general shape.
When the Simca 1100/1204 first appeared in 1967, it set the template for the modern hatchback small car. It was the true winner of our CC virtual 1971 Small Car Comparison. One of the first cars to employ that template was the 1975 VW Golf. Some of the Chrysler fanboys at allpar argue that the Golf imitated the Simca. Conceptually yes; stylistically, the photo above is the damming evidence that once the Golf appeared, Chrysler’s fine-tuning of their C2 proposal was deeply influenced by it, to put it politely.
The final of our comparison photos: the evidence is all too obvious, right down to the kink in the rear door. Well, if you’re going to imitate, the original Golf was certainly a good model, and it was a sight cheaper than hiring Giugiaro, like VW did.
The development of the Horizon has other compelling aspects beyond the stylistic cribbing. As the headline says, it was the first time one of the Big Three pulled its head out of its ass and decided that a modern FWD European design did actually make more sense for a small car than the crap it came up with by itself: the Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto and AMC Gremlin. In case you’ve forgotten, click the links, but in a nutshell, Detroit was obsessed with the idea that small cars needed to look like a shrunken Mustang or Camaro (not sure what the Gremlin was supposed to look like). Combined with RWD, that meant they were atrociously cramped. Perhaps they were punishing their buyers for being so stupid to want a small car instead of a (more profitable) real car.
It didn’t have to be that way, and cars like the Simca 1100 and the Golf showed the way. Certainly, by today’s standards they are quite small indeed, perhaps even smaller than a Fiesta. But at the time, when even cars like the over sized Nova were none too roomy, this was a revelation. And the Horizon was bigger than the Golf, by far the roomiest of any small car at the time.
Chrysler, fortunately lacking the funds to emulate the Vega-Pinto debacle, looked to its European subsidiary for a life-line, having already been convinced of the Simca 1100′s capabilities, despite its poor US sales and reliability issues. In a very closely coordinated effort, Chrysler undertook a three-way development effort with its French and British units. That presented huge challenges, given the substantially different priorities and the metric-inch divide. But the body was fine-tuned on both sides of the continent, and for the fist time ever, digital scans of the clays were exchanged via satellite. A first, and not bad for 1975.
It became clear early on that the US version would be a very different car except for the basic body. Well, at least that was shared. The Simca’s supple but more expensive long-stroke torsion bar suspension was jettisoned for more pragmatic MacPherson struts in the front. Americans either didn’t deserve or just wouldn’t appreciate that famous French ride. On the other hand, the Americans wisely stayed clear of the Simca engine, which was generally fragile and usually developed terrible valve clatter within 20k miles or so. In another nod to the Golf, Chrysler instead bought long blocks from VW, a 1.7L version of the Golf’s 827 engine. Chrysler added its own manifold and cantankerous carburetor, foolishly eschewing fuel injection for several more years.
The Americans also developed the front automatic transaxle, a miniaturized TorqueFlite, which turned out to be pleasantly similar to its big brother reliability-wise (whew!). And Chrysler showed off its electronic prowess by fitting the US car with the first popular priced trip computer. Of course, the domestic version got an interior more in keeping with the um…slower-to-develop taste of Americans at the time. Still, it was a refreshing place to sit in the late seventies era of bordello interiors, with excellent visibility and decent ergonomics for the times.
Either way, the Horizons on both sides of the Atlantic were well received by the press, both winning respective COTY awards. That may have meant more in Europe, where it’s voted on by hundreds of auto journalists. Still, the American press and public reception was pretty universally positive, even though it was clear that the Horizon was not a Golf in certain key respects, mainly in the handling department. The Omnirizon’s suspension was Americanized in more ways than one. Its handling was decent for the times, but neither actually fun nor very inspiring.
Maybe that was a worthwhile tradeoff for the American versions’ much better rustproofing; the Euro Horizons were some of the worst rusters ever, and there may likely be less than 200 examples left on the whole continent. I’m sure I could find that many in Oregon. Our city water and electric utility had a fleet of them until just a couple of years ago.
Of course, those were undoubtedly from the latter years of the Omnirizon’s long US run, from 1978 through 1990. And typically for American small cars, they slowly got better and better, later adopting the Chrysler 2.2 L four, fuel injection, and a 1.6 liter Peugeot engine as the base mill. Meanwhile, though, cars like the Civic, Corolla and Mazda GLC/323 were evolving at a much quicker pace.
So, even though the Omnirizons were pretty progressive when they arrived, time in the eighties was not standing still. The Japanese upsurge kept Omnirizon sales in check, although in its first three years it averaged over 200k units and some 1.8 million were sold during the whole run. Those first couple of years were critical, because Chrysler was in the depth of its brush with bankruptcy, largely in part because its big cars were obsolete or deadly sins.
But it wasn’t just the sales numbers alone. Without the Horizon and Omni, it’s highly doubtful Chrysler would have been able to develop their K-Cars in time and on budget, or at all. Chrysler had a huge head start with the Horizon and its fwd transaxle, and Lee Iacocca could prove to his Washington DC bankers that he really did have that leading edge fwd technology, much like GM with its Volt more recently.
Of course, the legendary hi-po versions of the Omni developed with Carroll Shelby can’t be ignored here, although the odds of finding one on the street today are slim indeed. But starting with the 1984 GLH (“Goes Like Hell”), the VW GTI had a wild and woolly competitor. The first version was actually the most GTI-like, with the 110 hp tweaked 2.2. The optional 146 turbo version was already something different altogether. But then the GLHS appeared with an uprated 175 hp turbo. A crude and rude little beast it was; the wildest combination of torque steer and turbo lag bang for the buck.
The Omnirizon twins did nothing to stave off the Japanese invasion of the coasts or dissuade VW lovers from their Rabbits, but they did finally expose heartland Americans to what a proper small car could be, including a fitting hot-rod version of it. For that, it deserves a special place in my history book. And if Chrysler had kept developing it properly, my last combination picture could be comparing an original Horizon with a 2013 Horizon. Oops; make that a 2013 Omni.
No such luck; Chrysler decided its small cars (e.g., the Caliber) should look like trucky SUVs instead. Well, the Caliber’s replacement, the Dart, was of course based on a European Fiat. So maybe automotive time hasn’t slowed down; it’s just running in circles.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
A lot sure has changed with small cars since 2013. They’re almost all CUVs now. Whether positive or negative, it is the evolution you said hadn’t occured since the first wave of hatchbacks.
I was a Chrysler fleet service zone manager at the time. Someone sold the New York City Police Department on a fleet of Dodge Omnis to replace their Monacos and Gran Furys. Needless to say, it didn’t work out well.
It’s hard to tell a NYPD fleet manager with 40 years on the job that these cars are fine and “small transmission leaks are normal”. Of a 600 car fleet, 250 were down all the time.
The transmission housings were porous. That red fluid leaked right through the castings even before the cops could burn it.
Chrysler’s answer: Wipe the case down with alcohol and spray it with lacquer to seal it up.
After a year or two they were all gone.
My Dad bought a new ’80 Omni; he only had it through ’86 when he bought his only other Dodge, a 600, probably largely due to the 600 having A/C while the Omni (bought while he lived in Vermont) did not, and he didn’t want to add it. I mirrored his purchases buying a ’78 Scirocco in 1981 (starting my long ownership of watercooled VWs which also lacked A/C and as I similarly moved to Texas, I dealt with not having A/C for 3 years until I too bought an ’86 GTi.
His ownership of the Omni started with a broken clutch cable in less than 500 miles where he got a hard time for having an almost new car getting towed. My brother-in-law drove it from VT to central Texas in 1982 (my sister and her family eventually did too, but 23 years later). The Omni was his commuter car, and nice enough; I even put a cassette tape deck in it for Father’s Day 1981 (when he went up to Montreal with my Mother, his grade-school best friend and his wife).
When I moved to Texas they put my Scirocco on the moving van with all my stuff including textbooks, and still came to less than 5000 lbs. I think the Scirocco was under 2000 lbs. That’s the difference I see when I look at the 2010 Golf (and even the 2000 Golf I now own)…they may resemble the 1975 Rabbit, but they’re more substantial cars (which seems true in general, the content of cars has gone up tremendously since 1975). No they’re not Imperials but the cars weigh quite a bit more than in 1975.
I wish they still just sold Hatchbacks. I don’t want my car to resemble a CUV, or SUV to “blend in”, but don’t have much choice, it seems that’s all that’s being sold new now. Kind of like when they still sold lots of minivans and GM tried to make their Uplander look more like an SUV I guess so people wouldn’t be seen as driving something unfashionable like a minivan. These Omnis and Horizons look like Chrysler was serious about downsizing their cars (maybe a bit too serious, once these came out even mainline models went away in favor of smaller FWD vehicles, even though it still seems like many people want to buy a hatchback (guess I’m different than most that way).
My mom had a light blue ’83 or ’84 Horizon during my early childhood in the 1990s–it looked a lot like the one below. I remember it up until 1997 or ’98 when it was replaced by a red ’97 Mercury Tracer LS sedan (which lasted until my high school years) after the transmission cable broke at the worst possible time (it’s ALWAYS the transmission isn’t it?); I was only 3 or 4 at the time when it happened & don’t know much else about it. Besides the Horizon and a ’97 Jeep Wrangler Sport my dad & older brother would later acquire in the 2010s (and still have now), we have had no other Chrysler vehicles. And considering all the trouble Chrysler has had in recent years that may be a good thing.
The practical family cars that could do it all . An American vision : a perfectible ‘Citation’ 15 years after the French perfected it with their R16s.
It’s almost like Fiat never perfected the transverse FWD layout years before VW or anyone else. Other manufacturers were close, but the Fiat 128 drivetrain is the default standard.
Exactly. Fiat did initial development with the Autobianchi Primula, followed by volume production with the 128 – and Simca was also working with Fiat. There was even the Fiat 128 Familiare 3dr hatchback. The VW was a copy – they added rear doors and a twist beam rear suspension.
I assume you know that the Simca arrived two years before the 128? So I don’t know why you’re calling it “the default standard”. FWIW, DKW was building transverse FWD cars in the 1920s, and the 1947 Saab 92 was the first to have its transmission inline with its transverse engine.
By 1970 just about everything had been tried by somebody, so where you want to place the orign of something will always be somewhat arbitrary. The modern formula of a transverse 4cyl, 4 stroke engine with an inline transaxle, with a strut suspension and electric cooling fan was done on the 128 first. Fiat was doing initial work with the Autobianchi Primula without the struts, which is more similar to the Simca.
The VW Golf and the Horizon are much more similar to the 128 layout. Not sure where the reluctance to give Fiat credit comes from.
I’m not reluctant to give the 128 the very substantial credit titdeserves. It was a brilliant little car and clearly very influential. I just pointed out that it was not the first with a front transverse engine and inline transmission. And the Simca 1100 had the hatchback that was profoundly influential; that’s something the 128 missed.
The 128 did have a hatchback.
Of course, but not the popular sedan version. The Simca popularized the hatch as a standard feature of the basic car, and that was something that has become essentially universal. The 128 with the hatch was called the Familiare, a name used for station wagons, which it essentially was.
The 128 had three body styles on the same wheelbase/chassis – 2 & 4dr with trunk, and 2dr with liftgate.
The Golf had 2 & 4dr with liftgate on the same chassis, and the Simca 2 & 4dr with liftgate.
How does one tell which is a hatchback vs. a wagon? It’s a distinction with a difference as they’re clearly the same.
How does one tell which is a hatchback vs. a wagon?
One: Because Fiat called that model “Familiare” which is Italian for station wagon.
Two: Hatchback sedans typically have less rear overhang; they are typically shorter than a trunked sedan or station wagon. Think Golf vs. Jetta
Three: There was a genuine Fiat 128 hatchback, the 3P (below).
The problem for the Euros was width; two/three-cylinder two-strokes were OK, but an inline ‘four’ wouldn’t fit. Hence the BMC/Peugeot ‘gears in sump’ or the Honda motorcycle layout being the only options.
Giacosa wrote that they (FIAT) very nearly gave up with the Primula – the 1100 engine wouldn’t quite fit. Then some bright engineer had the idea of losing the bellhousing/fork and putting the clutch in back-to-front. the diaphragm spring could then be pressed via a rod through a hollow primary shaft, with the hydraulic actuator on the far end of the ‘box. Of course, all cars are too bloody wide these days, so ‘no ‘tanti’.
I always thought your Omnirizons were a lot more logical than ours. Chrysler Europe was potless so essentially was forced to carry-over the SIMCA 1100 in two lengths; the Alpine/1307 and Horizon. Yet Chrysler proper dids find the dough for the intended lower floor, the intended McPherson struts and a transmission that was strong enough for the engine. The slushbox ended up in the Citroën CX eventually…but it resulted in our Horizons being crap.
Funny how clutch cables were the bane of the 1970s. I’ve changed so many.
Paul, as I’ve read this article, the part that sticks out in my 62 year old mind is American’s didn’t grasp, or want to grasp, the idea of smaller, better built and fuel efficient cars.
Now, my dad was forty when I arrived. He had served in WW2 and was working, as an engineer, at North American Aviation. He always drove Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and Lincoln. But in 1980 at the age of 59, he finally bought a 1977 Corolla SR5. I remember him saying that it was a big deal as “he’d fought those same people who could build a better car.”
I wonder if there were a lot of people who took that mind set?
My oldest sister (20 years older than me) was married to a man who drove MG’s; the third of my four sisters drove VW Beetles. So, better cars were all around my dad, but he just took a long time to concede.
Now, as my articles have shown, I followed my dad’s lead. But, he was an alcoholic so I would do what I could to keep his attention-even driving big, not efficient cars. Today, after many years, we own a Nissan. And (I sent Rich an article) I’m absolutely delighted with it. The quality, while not that of Honda or Toyota, makes my wife and I wonder why we didn’t change many years ago!
Anyway, just some random thoughts on this Friday.
As for us, we’ll continue to drive our 78 Cadillac for car shows, I ended up getting my 04 Mercury back after the neighbor decided he didn’t want it, and my wife uses the Nissan. I can say though, with certainty, that should we need one more car, it’ll be a Toyota or Lexus. I’d say we’ve learned our lesson.
the part that sticks out in my 62 year old mind is American’s didn’t grasp, or want to grasp, the idea of smaller, better built and fuel efficient cars.
You nailed it. And that’s obviously still mostly the case now, actually more than ever. The only real major exceptions were during the years when gas was expensive (or scarce). But given their choice (and cheap gas) Americans always seem to default back to large cars.
And I’ll never understand why fully.
My mom told me stories about my first sister being born and she was pregnant with my second when dad was called to duty. She shared that times were very tough. She said that the people in the base housing would often make and share meals.
I guess I didn’t really see the impact of the early 1970’s gas shortages because the company dad worked for (he was working for a building firm that did residential and commercial) had deals with the local Sohio station… I suppose they dropped their cars off early and got them filled?
Anyway, I think back to my BIL who drove MG’s. He ordered a brand new 72 Vega GT red with black stripes and black interior. He kept it one year because of how horrible it was and went back to MG’s. I saw him about 12 years back and he told me that the Vega was his only American car ever. I suppose he got it!
Have a great weekend
Solid post, Paul. I love the Simca details.
These are important cars. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about Chrysler Corporation’s transition to front-wheel-drive from 1977 through 1990, and I was struck by how much the Omnirizon hatchback sedans and their coupe relatives got things going before the K-cars came along. They were also reliable sellers until almost the very end in 1990.
Back in 2017, I wrote a post on the 1980 Horizon. Recently updated, it’s here:
https://eightiescars.com/2017/08/14/1980-plymouth-horizon/
I actually always liked the Omni/Horizon. Around 1986 I finally decided to sell my modified Fiat 128, as I was driving a lot of longer distances and the 4.42:1 final drive without overdrive was getting tiresome. I test drove a GLH, and it was actually kind of fun, but the interior was just so terribly cheap I couldn’t buy it. I ended up with an ’86 Escort GT with the 1.9L CVH. The Ford was much better made.
From the article:
“The Omnirizon’s suspension was Americanized in more
ways than one. Its handling was decent for the times, but
neither actually fun nor very inspiring.”
Well, this Yankee, for one, appreciates taut road manners, steering with some weight and quick returnability to it, and strong on-center feel!
At least the front seats in those photos remind me of how comfy the hatchbacks were to sit in (MOPAR always did seem to be in favor of more ‘cush for the tush’)
From the article:
“The Omnirizon’s suspension was
Americanized in more ways than one. ”
Well this Yankee, for one, actually prefers a more taut handling, heavier steering with quick returnability, and straight line stability.
I do remember, from sitting in an Omni when younger, those seats being most pleasantly comfy. (MOPAR definitely favored more ‘cush for your tush’)
I had a Horizon back in 91, I believe. Yellow, auto. Slug.
It’s so amazing to me that looking at comparison to the Golf. They are almost identical shapes, But the Golf looks good to me, and “Omnirizon” (for short) or “Horni” (even shorter) looks, NOT good. Maybe it’s the front end, I can’t tell. Horizon looks Taller, I think.
Chrysler used VW 4 speed manual transaxels as well. Chrysler did not supply internal parts for these transmissions, several times I ordered replacement parts from VW and they were exactly the same. Worked at VW dealership in the ’70’s/80’s.