According to Wikipedia, Middle Child Syndrome is a popular, non-clinical term describing the feeling that middle-born children are overlooked, neglected, or treated unfairly compared to siblings. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to my eye, the Stratus suffers from that middle child-identity crisis. Let’s go a bit deeper and see how that applies to these JA-body mid-size offerings that arrived in 1994.
The stubby hood and tall trunk that look good on the Neon just don’t work as well on the larger Stratus. In Brady Bunch parlance, if the Neon was cute Cindy and the Intrepid was popular Marcia, the Stratus would be Jan: Somewhat attractive in an awkward way, perfectly capable, but constantly upstaged by one and living in the shadow of the other (and likely screaming “Intrepid, Intrepid, Intrepiiiid!”).
I came across this Stratus in a parking lot near my office building. As I was looking at it, it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d seen one of Chrysler’s Cloud Cars: Cirrus, Stratus, and Breeze. Danielle, the owner, uses it as her daily driver, which is quite the accomplishment for a 28-year-old car not normally known for quality.
Brendan Saur has written extensively about these cars, and I’ve included the links to those posts at the bottom if you want a more detailed history. In short, the JA cars replaced the AA Spirit, Acclaim and LeBaron – the last of the cars spun off Chrysler’s K platform. This gushing Cirrus Car of the Year article from Motor Trend has a nice overview of the development of the sedans.
As was the case back then, the Chrysler was the luxury one, the Plymouth the economy one, and the Dodge the sporty one, especially in ES guise. And, as usual, they were differentiated primarily by grille, taillights, badges, and some interior and exterior trim.
In their fourth year on the market, not much had changed since they were introduced. The 150-horsepower, 2.4-liter four-cylinder, previously optional in the ES, was now standard, as was the leather wrapped steering wheel and shift knob. I forgot to ask Danielle whether this one had the standard engine or the optional 168-horsepower, 2.5-liter V6. As it’s still on the road and doesn’t appear to have AutoStick, my guess is that it has the four.
As one of a respectable 107,136 Strati sold in 1998 (nearly 1/3 of Dodge’s coupe/sedan/sports-car production), the base retail price of this ES was $17,665 ($35,787 adjusted). Had the original owner opted for package 26R, which provided the V6 and AutoStick, it would have cost an additional $1,145 ($2,320 adjusted). Choosing the 26S package added a cargo net, the remote/illuminated entry group, an 8-way power driver’s seat and low-back bucket seats for an additional $870 ($1,762 adjusted). Other options included child seats integrated into the back seat (which, unfortunately, deleted the fold-down rear seat), a security alarm, an engine block & battery heater, and various cassette & CD stereo options. Aside from 26R, the most expensive option was the power sunroof, which was $580 on the ES ($1,175 adjusted). Candy Apple Red paint would set you back $200 ($405 adjusted), but 1998 also added new no-additional-charge colors including Deep Cranberry (which looks like the color on this one), Alpine Green, Bright Platinum, Champagne Pearl and Deep Slate.
While the Ford Contour – also introduced in 1995 – is seen as the Stratus’ direct domestic competitor, the Stratus was substantially roomier. The 108-inch wheelbase, cab-forward design, and roomy 15.7 cubic-foot trunk could comfortably seat four adult passengers and store their luggage, all in a vehicle that was only 3.5 inches longer than a 2026 Toyota Corolla.
But what drove the original owner to purchase this Stratus?
My first guess would be value. The Accord was all new that year, and a four-cylinder EX would cost you $20,800 ($42,137 adjusted). Even if you wanted to be charitable and scale down to the LX, it was still $18,290 ($37,052 adjusted). The all-new Altima SE would set you back $18,980 ($38,451 adjusted) for a smaller car on a much shorter wheelbase. As for the Camry, the base CE started around the same price as the Stratus ES and skyrocketed from there.
Moreover, the Accord, being all-new, probably was going for close to MSRP. The Camry likely had a small incentive while the Nissan’s was probably a little larger. I’m willing to bet the Stratus had a four-figure incentive with dealers more than willing to bargain on top of it. It’s the main reason my father bought his 1995 Cirrus LX – a V6-powered Chrysler for about the same money as a 4-cylinder Camry LE.
As for that respectable number of sales? I remember these being popular rental car fodder back in the day, so a good number of those were likely to Dollar and Thrifty.
So just like those rare times when the popular boy asked Jan Brady or Sarah Powell (I couldn’t resist throwing in a Charles in Charge reference) to the dance instead of Marcia or Jamie because he could see the inner beauty through the awkwardness, there were those who bought the Stratus for the same reason. And those buyers, as well as the bargain shoppers, were likely very satisfied with their purchase if they got a good one. But the Stratus, try as it might, would never be as cute and fun as the Neon or as badass as the Intrepid.
Further Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1999 Plymouth Breeze – Breeze In, Breeze Out
Curbside Classic: 1999 Chrysler Cirrus LXi – Remember When Chrysler Showed Hope?
Curbside Classic: 1998 Chrysler Cirrus LXi – Head In The Clouds
Classic CARmentary: 1999 Chrysler Cirrus LXi
Our 1999 Stratus (bought used) was one of the good ones. It served as the family car for several years.
Girlfriend’s daughter bought one of these. Battery died. No problem, I’ll change it for you. Open hood. Where’s the @#$ battery? Inside the wheelwell! You have to pull the wheel to change the battery!!
How many of these were junked because of that?
“How many of these were junked because of that?”
None, unless the owners were really dumb. Changing a battery once every 5 years or so and having to take the wheel off is not that big of a deal. Also there was a jumping terminal under the hood .
The design of the cloud cars was really innovative, but the assembly was typical 90s Mopar…….wretched.
I had a 98 ES with V6. One reason people bought them over Camrys and Accords was how they rode and handled (at least with V6). They were huge inside, very comfortable and handled like a sports car. One huge problem though was that the only thing I did not have problem with was the Mitsu V6. The rest of the car was just typical Mopar crap. Electrical problems made me insane and I finally got rid of it at 70 something thousand miles.
When it ran right, I loved it but as it aged I grew to distrust and despise it.
I don’t see too many of these or their Cloud stablemates on the road anymore. But I see far fewer (as in almost zero) Contours or Mystiques.
Same here. There’s still a couple of these around but zero of the ill-fated Fords. My MIL had a Contour since it was new and she managed to keep it running in her little town of Iowa thanks to a devoted mechanic. She drove it until she was 95. She then moved to the Bay Area for her last two years. It finally got hauled off to the junkyard last year.
Someone who works at my grandson’s daycare has the twin to this car, only in really nice condition, daily driven. I do not know how it has lasted this long here in salt-ridden Wisconsin.
One of my nieces briefly owned a Cirrus like this. She called me one night and said her engine (the infamous 2.7 V-6) was leaking oil and was making a rattling sound. I crawled under it to find the screws holding the oil filter adapter to the block had come loose; it had hemorrhaged its entire load of oil and now had a rod knock. I was the lucky one who had to tell her that her car was now scrap.
If it was this generation, it was the Mitsubishi 2.5-liter V6. If it was the following, more conventionally styled generation (2001 to 2007), then it had Chrysler’s own 2.7-liter V6. Neither engine is known for longevity. I rented one of the following generation with the 2.7, and I remember opening the hood to see if it had the four-cylinder because it was so weak and loud.
It was the later generation, you’re right. Too bad, because it was a pretty nice car.
I actually saw a 1996 Contour on the road here in Kingsport TN yesterday! In the famous champagne color as well. I couldn’t get to my phone fast enough for a picture but had my window open to hear that sad four cylinder.
It’s been years since I’ve seen one!
Oh by the way, my health has improved! So you’ll have to put up with me a whee bit longer.
Glad to hear it Chip. We’d all hate to lose you!
Thank you sir! Now to come up with another article…
Good news!! And its our pleasure to have you here as a contributor.
I owned the Chrysler version of this car, a 97 Cirrus with the 2.5L V6. It was a very good car. I didn’t buy it because of the price, I bought it because it was better than most of the competition. It had better styling, design, and handling. I believe that Chrysler used a double wishbone suspension front and rear on these cars. They had very good handling. The interior design and ergonomics were great. And I had no quality problems with this car. I enjoyed it. Followed up with a 2002 Sebring. Same platform but more conventional styling. Still a great car to drive. The Sebring design from 2007 on was terrible. Those cars were engineered under the DaimlerChrysler era.
You’re fortunate. My father’s ’95 Cirrus wasn’t horrible, but the car did have issues. After a couple of months of ownership he realized half of the front grill wasn’t chromed. The speedometer cable started buzzing. Most egregiously, the air conditioning compressor seized. In September in Florida. For the second time in a year. While I was down for his funeral.
The last thing I remember about the car was the reflector between the taillights filling up with water. My buddy Mitch drilled a few holes to drain it. My mother did keep the car until 2005, but she drives very little. She’s had two Toyotas since then.
I concour about the middle child syndrome. I’m the Stratus of my family, yet somehow now the voice of reason and the one who gets things done.
Anyway, a great surprise to see this, I haven’t seen (or noticed) one in many years. Tidewater Dodge is in Virginia so that partially explains why this one is still around.
I worked for a major automotive supplier when these were released, so I saw a lot of them. Compared to the Honda and Toyota competitors, they were cheap, tinny, poorly-made pieces of crap.
Everything ran 20+ degrees hotter than in the comparable Toyota/Honda, because they didn’t know that when you put air into the radiator pack, you’ve got to have a place for it to come out. Instead they jammed the engines right up against the back of the radiators. In hot weather the AC would cycle on high pressure, at 60 MPH.
Their approach to mitigating noise was to hang weights with rubber mounts on things that seemed to be vibrating. I was under one of these on the lift once, and counted something like eight or nine noise-reduction hang-on weights.
They also had something like four engine options where the competitiion had two – with sales volumes a quarter or less, so some of the engine options had to have almost nonexistent production volume. If memory serves they offered a 2.5L V6 that had slightly lower HP and slightly worse MPG than the 2.4L four.
But they made us spend untold hours designing a bracket to hold an electrical connector because the “underhood beautification committee” had dictated that all electrical connectors had to be oriented exactly horizontally.
Yep, Chrysler “engineering” at its “best”.