(first posted 1/22/2016) Here’s another double feature from R&T’s 1983 July issue, this time of two sports cars.
Well, the Porsche certainly is:
How about those G-Bodies, sporty enough for you?
Vintage R&T Road Tests: 1983 Porsche 928S and G-Body Laser/Daytona
– Posted on March 22, 2022
Daytona/Laser were Chrysler G-body.
L-body was Omni/Horizon/TC3/O24/Charger/Turismo etc.
Completely different animals.
G-body was K-car derived.
L-body was Simca 1204 based.
You are obviously correct- I have no idea where the L came from…
Corrected, thanks.
The K car didn’t come from the L body?
No, it didn’t. There were obviously influences, as Chrysler USA just had finished modifying the L for the USA market in 1977/8.
I’ve always liked these Chargers. I think they look better than the Mustangs of that era, which I owned two of. I’ve never been in one though.
These aren’t Chargers…. see my earlier post.
You are correct, I got my names mixed up.
For some reason, I find long front overhangs aesthetically pleasing. Same with setback axles on trucks and buses. The Daytona/Laser car is a gold mine in that it appears to have a longer front overhang than the rear. Of course, in the L-body it’s a functional necessity for its front wheel drive nature, but it still looks good regardless.
I’m a Mercedes fan myself and don’t have much interest in Porsches, however, I always thought this model of Porsche looked good. Appearances aside, watching Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear UK thrash on the used version of that car was amusing to watch. After decades of wear, it seemed to handle pretty good on the track if I remember the episode correctly.
Correction to self after reading above comments: yes, the Daytona and Laser twins are G-bodies and not L. Correction made at 9:16 am atomic clock time that I presume Windows taps into (give or take a few seconds for internet lag and computer circuit/clock battery inefficiencies in between clock pings) looking at the lower right time on the computer screen.
I find the Daytona/Lazer a little perplexing on a few levels. They were nice looking, decent handling, generally nicely packaged cars, but I remember at the time not really understanding their necessity, nor their pricing and marketing structure.
These were sold at the same dealerships at the same time as the Charger/Turismo AND the Conquest. Goes to show that there was surely a pretty healthy market for hatchback sport coupes during those years (As a matter of fact the Daytona was sold alongside the Shadow 2-door hatch as well). My brother had a base (non-turbo) Daytona for a while in the late 80’s. He liked the car, but I always hated that split rear seat setup, as the back seat was always open to the luggage area behind it due to the gap between the bucket type seatbacks. Anything back there made its presence constantly known by rattling or sliding around, and if it was small enough might just come hurtling forward into the passenger compartment in a hard braking episode.
In our family between ’79 and ’90 we had at various times 2 L-Body 2 door hatchbacks, 1 G-Body, and an ’85 Conquest. I always felt like the Charger was better than the Daytona as a fun, tossable front-drive sporty car. The Omnirizon platform just seemed to lend itself better to sporting aspirations than the K-derived G-Body that came later. The Conquest (re-branded Mitsu Starion) was head and shoulders above the higher end turbocharged Lazer/Daytona. The existence of these cars just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I do like the exterior styling though.
Why do I like the original G-Body Laser / Daytona twins so much in 2016? I remember seeing the heavily restyled ’87 Daytona at the Detroit Auto Show that year and thinking it was a completely redesigned car, I liked it that much. But in 2016 – the original styling with the exposed quad-headlights, sloping rear panel and Swiss-cheese alloys really appeals to me now. If cross-shopped against an ’84 Mustang GT Turbo, I probably would have gone with the Daytona.
I remember riding in the back seat of a buddy’s red, ’86 Laser XT Turbo as a 19 year old college student, on a 70-mile (one way) trip from Gainesville to Jacksonville, FL. Rear legroom was nonexistent. I was basically straddling the bucket seat in front of me, even with the front seat pushed way up. Still, we were all shocked by its performance. Once the turbo kicked in after the lag, we were feeling it. Dennis’s car justified my love for these.
These were the same BASIC platform as a K-car sedan, so I actually don’t see the need for such long overhangs….except to keep the angle of the hood from dropping off too steeply, perhaps?
Yet, I do like these cars, but prefer models done in monochrome paint schemes. (A Daytona painted like those Shelby Chargers might be interesting, though.)
They’re surprisingly similar looking cars; the Daytona/Laser looks like the 928 smoothed with a straightedge on the sides. Similar side window profiles, similar proportions, similar low profile, the shapes overall are very similar of all the windows.
It seems a shame that Porsche didn’t continue developing the 928. I suppose the sports coupe model was dwindling to the point that the 911 covered it. The 928 was always, in my opinion, leagues ahead of the 924/944 in styling and a better performer.
Certainly the Laser/Daytona were credible affordable sporty coupe entrants in the ’80’s and were featured in C/D as what the overweight Camaro should have been. In 1983, fwd was the FUTURE, and made a lighter, more nimble, space efficient car as compared with the RWD dinosaurs.
What happened to all the sporty coupes of yesteryear? They started dying off in the mid to late 90’s, I suppose young folks cannot afford to buy new cars anymore? Probe, Saturn SC, Cavalier, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Geo Storm, Grand Am, Eclipse, – – – there’s not much left but the Camaro, Mustang, Challenger, and I suppose some Infinitis and the Hyundai Veloster, but None of those are really what I would consider AFFORDABLE for someone in their early twenties.
Shame on y’all for forgetting the Plymouth Duster and its most ’80’s of advertisements. If I had to pick one artifact to explain an entire decade in 90 seconds, this would absolutely be it.
Wow. That is positively Crap-tastic! I really wanted to stop watching that at about 15 seconds, but I just couldn’t pull myself away from it.
Ahaha!
In the Nineties, I ended up with one of those Turismo 2.2s (Same body, they just added the Duster name later, …If they’d call the Dodge a Charger, then I think they may as well have called the Plymouth a Duster from the start. ) …with all the decals and little body kit and the good stuff. (By then, those fading decals kind of made him look like a toy car that’d been in some kid’s pocket a while. ) Actually really loved that car, but sadly, unibody rust doomed the little guy. If I’d had the means I might have taken heroic measures, though. Hatchbacks were on the way out and this was just a fun little car for all the practicality. 🙂 It’s a body style I’ve kind of been hoping might return when there’s high-tech lightweight glass to make the hatch glass out of. 🙂
I wish Dodge had called the Daytona the second generation 024; it seemed to me to be its successor. Maybe the price differential between it and the first gen 024 was too great to attract the same buying demographic. If so, then Dodge should have put a fastback hatch on the Shadow and called IT the second gen 024.
Instead, the 024 was renamed Charger and sold alongside the Daytona. (I guess if you wanted a Charger Daytona, you’d have to buy one of each.) Just another example of US manufacturers aimlessly changing car names in the hopes of attracting buyers rather than taking time to build equity in an existing name.
Presenting the 1987 Dodge 024.
I like it!
“A time capsule car to show the future our best effort.” (last sentence of the penultimate paragraph of the article) Prescient indeed.
That Porsche has stunningly mediocre performance.
(for a Porsche)
I owned an 85 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z. which was totally loaded. It was originally ordered by some wealthy neighborhood guy for his son, but the son realized he didn’t like it, so the guy decided not to buy it, and the dealer kept it on the lot. It was black over black leather, had the factory tilt/removable sunroof, along with every other option including the Infinity Premium Sound System. It was a fun car to drive, but by todays standards, it didn’t have much power. When the turbo kicked in, it was fun but otherwise it was lackluster.
The most annoying thing was the talking warning system… BEEP BEEP BEEP… “You’re engine oil pressure is low”, “You’re electrical systems are malfunctioning”, “You’re washer fluid is low”, “Please fasten your seatbelts” , etc. This used to drive me crazy. I remember my wife taking out the car one day, and a few minuets later she had to pull over and called me from a pay phone (remember those?) crying that she wasn’t going to make it home because the car was telling her all these bad things…
*laugh* Ah, the Speak&Spell cars. A friend once had one of the sedans that had that, every time he went around a corner the car would say “Your door is ajar.” 🙂
Yea, that idea and feature was stolen from the 1982 Datsuns… The 280zx, Maxima and 200sx.
The famous talking lady. 🙂
Detective Hunter: Hey, McCall, isn’t that your Daytona Turbo Z?
Sgt. Didi McCall: Yeah, what is it doing there?
I’ll take the Porsche 928 any day over the Dodge Daytona/Plymouth Laser.
Two of my brother’s friends bought identical black/black Daytona Turbos in ’84. One drove in several inches of water and cracked the engine block, the other wrecked his within 2-3 years.
I guess the 928’s weren’t what they could have been, (except for the 928S4) but I’d take one in a heartbeat. Good, but not great performance and knockout looks. I have heard reliability is less than stellar. Like so many interesting cars of that era, for a time they were cheap. Unfortunately that time is long past, most of them are now gone and the ones that are left, good shape or not, are not cheap.
The Chrysler products? Yawn.
The Daytona/Laser was Iacocca’s next attempt to return to the sporty ponycar market after the demise of the E-body and the TC3/024 2-door Omnirizons. It didn’t really pan-out compared with V8-powered Mustangs and Camaros but I guess it did okay against the V6-powered ones. At least the FWD aspect of the Daytona and Laser made it more tractable in winter weather.
It wouldn’t be until the resurrection of the Charger-based, RWD Challenger that Chrysler actually had another ‘real’ ponycar.
I remember the TV show “Hunter” showing McCall’s Daytona Z doing doing a lot of handbrake turns and jumps during chases.
It just wasn’t the same as a rwd “anything” doing an oversteering drift.
Still a pretty car.
But such long overhangs, my goodness!