Remembering The K-Car

Evans looks back to the humble compacts that saved Chrysler…

- Huw Evans

Forty years ago, Chrysler’s future as an automaker was far from certain. The mid-to-late Seventies had seen Detroit’s number three stumble from one disaster to the next. Its new line of full-size cars introduced for the 1974 model year (just as OPEC shut off the gas taps) could not have been more poorly timed and ageing intermediates did not help either. The introduction of the 1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare, which quickly became the most recalled cars in America, further added to the woes, while dealers were becoming more and more disenfranchised, often finding themselves having to provide customers with rebates in order to dispose of cars that neither the automaker nor its customers really wanted. No question, Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. And then something happened.