1984-1986 Dodge 600: The Ugly Truth
My first car was almost a stripped down 1984 Dodge 600 sedan. At the time my father was going to get it for me while I was in college. Being pre-internet circa 1988, I scrambled to remember what it looked like. After finding an old magazine article at the library, I recall thinking how ugly it was. By the end of the ’80s its boxy design was not aging well. Fortunately for me, opportunity landed in the form of a nine year old Honda Civic 1300 and the rest became history. I imagined that I would never encounter or even look at another Chrysler product again – that was until a new 1992 Eagle Talon became my first sporty new car.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had a near brush with a Dodge 600 in the form of a Plymouth Reliant K, the car used in my high-school driver’s ED class back in 1984. The Dodge 600 had a lot in common with the K Car, as did every Dodge in the ‘80s it seemed.
The Dodge 600 was an extended (E-platform) version of the original K-platform cars, with three more inches of wheelbase added to the sedans (coupes and wagons kept the same wheelbase as the first K cars). It debuted in the 1983 model year, two years after the original K cars made it to market. Other E-platform cars were the Chrysler New Yorker, Chrysler E-Class, and (later) the Plymouth Caravelle which replaced the 600. Many of these cars seemed to blur in retrospect.
With a lot of model shuffling the 600 became the Caravell and seemed to set an all-time standard for bland and ordinary. The 600 family of cars wasn’t always so bland or ugly, especially when it had two doors and a soft top. To their credit, they were mostly reliable, cheap to own and maintain and were reasonably quiet and comfortable. Perhaps the reason my Dad considered one as my first car was for those reasons (and they were cheap). They were also the kind of cars that did not attract undue attention. Economy and the ability to blend into the background may have contributed to a base Dodge 600 sedan replacing the Reliant K as my high school’s drivers ed car.
The Dodge 600 might be the earliest version of a modern sports sedan I can recall from Chrysler. For me a modern Chrysler was anything after the K-Car or the era where corporate chairman Lee Iacocca was featured in it’s ads. The concept of a sporty sedan seemed to take off as the Big Three realized that their market share was being nibbled at from the low end (Japan) and the high end (Europe and later Japan).
There were three engines available for the Dodge 600. The base engine was a 94 hp 2.2 liter inline four with fuel injection in the SE model. Dodge’s European aspirations initially came with a Mitsubishi sourced 101 hp 2.6 liter four standard in the ES trim. The 2.6 Mitsubishi’s Astron series 4G54 was oddly old school with its two-barrel carburetor. The 600’s claim to European performance became more credible when a high-performance option appeared in 1984. Called the ES Turbo, it featured the base engine with a Garrett T3 turbocharger coupled with fuel injection. With 146 hp, the 600 ES Turbo was a credible performance car.
With the ES Turbo package, Dodge offered its first real modern sports sedan of sorts (the Big Three was perpetually at war with European luxury makers claiming Mercedes or BMW quality and performance). Most buyers were not fooled, but for many these sporty Dodges offered considerable value and a respectable level of performance. The only thing they lacked was good resale value, as most people could figure out the humble K-car linage in even the sportiest ES Turbo.
The ES Turbo models were mostly sedans, although for 1986 there was a coupe convertible which became the star of the 600 line. And for good reason. The convertible undercut the little domestic and foreign competition it had. Particularly attractive were the 15 alloy wheels which would find their way into many of the Chrysler Corporation’s sportier cars into the ‘90s.
As attractive as they were, neither the sedan or coupe could hide its K car roots. The squarish body was typical of the era, but somehow looked like every other Chrysler product stretched from a K car. Having said that, Dodge did do a good job of imparting a sense of elegance in the sedan and sportiness in the convertible. By employing tasteful details like chrome trim and white wall tires on SE and non turbo ES trims, buyers got the look if not always the feel of luxury. Dodge’s main competitor the Pontiac 6000 STE (the domestic class leader) was a better car by most accounts, but the 600 was much cheaper.
I’m not as appalled by the Dodge 600 as I was when it was new. You have to give Chrysler credit for making the most out of scraps. It’s talented designers have always given buyers more for their money (or the illusion of value). Today the Dodge 600, even the most appealing convertible versions are lost to history. With the exception of the original K-Car and minivan, Chryslers from this era are mostly ignored. There is good reason considering how Chrysler products improved in looks and quality as the decades progressed.
Autopolis 
I enjoyed this post—especially the styling comments. Years ago, I wrote about the 1985 Chrysler 600 Club Coupe: