Show of hands if you remember the Plymouth Laser RS like this 1990 model. ChryCo went through so much badge engineering before its acquisition by Daimler that it was hard to keep track of what came from where. The Laser, which I had completely forgotten about, was offered between ’90 and ’94 and was the combined effort of Diamond Star Motors, a joint creation of Chrysler and Mitsubishi. This example claims only 54K miles of use and appears to be a survivor. News alert! The seller tells us that he’s dropped the price to $6,450 from $10,500 – such a deal! Interested? This Plymouth-in-mostly-name-only is located in Folsom, California and is available, here on craigslist.
The Laser, 115K units of total production, had siblings known as the Eagle Talon and the Mitsubishi Eclipse, the Mitsubishi version (’90-’12) being the best known of the trio. Similarities abound but there were some styling cues mostly upfront with a grille-less design that features a headlight bar. The hood “power bulge” is also a Laser exclusive. The seller refers to his car as a “time capsule” that was stored away for many years. The finish is great, there’s no sign of fade, oxidization, discoloring, etc. and the body panels and bumpers all look to be unbumped. One surprising feature is the wheels, they appear to be wearing silver ABS wheel covers and not the usually found, and preferred, alloy wheels.
No standard engine here, this Laser is powered by an optional 135 HP, 2.0 liter, inline four-cylinder engine which is attached to a five-speed manual transaxle, thereby spinning the front wheels. There’s no elaboration as to how operationally focused this Laser is but he does mention that he recently spent $1,000 on a timing belt change.
Other than the goofy automatic seatbelts (no airbags here) the interior looks great. The light gray fabric upholstery, a usual real dirt magnet, is bright and clean with no sign of wear. Ditto the carpet – it hasn’t seen too much foot traffic. The basic white-on-black instrument panel gauges are a pleasant refuge from the digital displays that were common in the era. Speaking of that era, this Laser is sporting a stereo equalizer – those were the times.
The seller concludes with, “Asking $6,450 cash. No trades- I think this is a fair price given the rarity and condition. Good luck finding another one like it!“. There were 42K Lasers assembled in ’92, a robust count so I wouldn’t consider this car to be rare. How many are left? Well, that’s another matter. And of that number, how many are in this condition with just 54K miles? Now that’s a valid argument! Considering this car’s condition, and likely fun factor, that reduced price might just be the ticket, don’t you think?
That is pretty clean and rare these days. Timing and balance belt services were a must with this engine. When these were towed in with a broken belt. At the least is was bent valves but I have also seen broken camshafts and rods sticking out of the block. More often the balance belt or idler pulley would fail sending bits into the timing belt. Mitsubishi owned the patent to the 2 counter rotating balance shaft design. Other failure points on these were leaky capacitors in the ECU and coolant intrusion into the idle control valve which would fry the ECU. Other than that they took the abuse dished out by young drivers pretty well.
Yep, that happened to me. Belt broke and dropped the valves, killing the internals. Luckily, it was still under warranty. The parts list was an arms length.
My Eclipse had the same engine and manual trans. Was a fun runner and certainly quick enough.
Have always appreciated these and their extended family siblings. Wife was a switchboard supervisor at Ma Bell and bought the Talon AWD version-terrific car for its time and rock solid if the maintenance was done on time.
This Laser is very nice, and in a very dry part of NorCal (that’s a reservoir, “Folsom Lake” behind it near Folsom Prison).
Cue up the cassette tape tho to find out how it’s been driven-wonder if it’s Metallica Gun And Roses or Alice In Chains..Totally awesome graphic equalizer on a bitchin’ stereo, dude!😆
The “power bulge” hood was not unique to the Laser. It was used on all Diamond-Star cars with the 2.0 DOHC engine. It was necessary to clear the cam drive gears.
I think the Dodge Daytona rounded out the badge engineering?
Nope, you’re prolly thinking of the Chrysler Laser that was a twin to the early years of the Daytona. That model was dropped after the first couple years while the Daytona soldiered on for many more to come, but Mopar later revived the Laser name for this model, their variant of the Mitsubishi Eclipse, this time sold under the Plymouth marque.
Very, Very clean and original, I’d snap this up for the price if it wasn’t all the way in California.
I always liked these cars as well, although I never liked the motorized shoulder belts from this era.
Does the R12 a/c still work?
Some people forgot to buckle the lap belt on cars with motorized shoulder belts – very bad & dangerous!
3000gt’s baby brother. Oddly, even with a LOT more sold!(i even rented 1 of these in Orlando!), i still see some of the 3000gts, but none of these! – did most of them rust out?
Can i assume the timing belt is more likely to snap in a manual trans Mits espec one that’s shifted to extremes, compared to an automatic that’s driven gently for the most part?
When I went to pick up my new ’91 Eclipse, the dealership that their first 3000GT on the showroom floor.
I was so taken by it that I almost cancelled the Eclipse and upgraded to the GT. However, smarter minds prevailed because that would have been too many $$ for me at the time.
Just to “get the look”, a very base stealth over at dodge with 15! in wheels, no rear spoiler, SOHC motor, manual trans, manual seats, crank windows, manual climate control & no antilock brakes might have be close in price to a loaded eclipse in ’91. Rear wiper & even a/c may have been optional, but i have never seen a car without either.
I remember seeing one pearl white base 3000gt on the road with NO rear spoiler! Very odd.
The extra features on the top of the line 3000gt turbo were heavy, expensive, & mind blowing for ’91 – espec the 4 wheel steering, active aero front & back, adjustable exhaust system, etc.
I agree, Joe.
For the time, the 3000GT had a very exotic look and the power / tech to back it up. But, like an exotic, it costs quite a few $$ to keep up with repairs and maintenance.
I was happy with sticking with the Eclipse, which ended up in the hands of my sister who enjoyed it for many more years.
Not to nitpick and not germaine to this particular car, BUT Chrysler was never “acquired” by Daimler. Iacocca pushed for several years for Chrysler to merge with VW but that never materialized. Instead once Iacocca retired and Bob PUTZ took over, he relentlessly pursued a merger with Daimler. At the time this was “accomplished” Chrysler had 10 times the cash as Daimler, more than 10 times the revenue, and 15 times the market share. PUTZ stupidly thought Daimler rep would improve Chrysler quality reputation. Blithely ignoring that by the late 90’s nearly all cars were built by the same robots. Despite being a tiny piece of the Chrysler empire, Mercedes execs realized just how pathetically desperate PUTZ was, so they insisted the company be named Daimler Chrysler, and got their corporate attorneys to sneak in a few clauses regarding information and engineering sharing which greatly favoured Benz. Desperate PUTZ pushed the so called merger of equals through. Chrysler has never been the same. Bob PUTZ was run off a few years later for this incompetence but too late to save once proud and mighty Chrysler.
You are referring to the wrong Bob. Bob Lutz wanted nothing to do with Daimler. He left before the merger was completed. Bob Eaton was the Bob who spearheaded the merger.
In actuality, Daimler bought Chrysler and was in full control of the operation. The merger of equals term was only used in North America. The Daimler people never heard the term. I know because I lived it.
You are correct, it was an out and out acquisition. The deal was a stock swap with the new name being DaimlerChrysler AG as in so many shares of Daimler AG given for those tendered by Chrysler shareholders. In 2007, Daimler “unacquired” Chrysler by rolling 80.1% of it to Cerberus. There was never a “merger of Equals” that’s what the 2003 class action suit was all about.
JO
Thank you for the clarification – I was thinking. “I don’t think this was Lutz doing this”.
Indeed, Bob Lutz has long been rightly celebrated as a true “car guy” with legit auto-enthusiast cred, who would never have sought or approved of the Daimler merger and, indeed, may well have left Chrysler in disgust/dispute as it became clear that merger was fast becoming an unavoidable done-deal.
Bob Eaton was the bean-counting corporate finance-managerial sort who didn’t much appreciate the product itself for its own sake, or the effect such a merger was likely to have, and ultimately did have, on said product.
I’ve long harbored suspicions that Daimler-Benz management saw the merger as a way for them to experiment with cost-cutting measures in a way that would not risk tarnishing the vaunted reputation of Mercedes, by applying them to Mopar models first. The ones that didn’t work out, well, it would only be a more “plebian” marque that suffered for it anyway, and the ones that did pan out fairly well, would then be applied to Mercedes models.
Witness how Benzes developed after the W124 and W140 platforms have generally declined in overall quality and reliability, such that they’re pretty much just riding on their dwindling residual “brand equity” earned from those and earlier models, and otherwise substituting “luxury bling”, gizmos, and marketing in place of actual value based in quality engineering and manufacture anymore.
I had a blue 92 like this with a stick. At 22 thousand miles it wouldn’t start in my parking spot. I had it towed to the dealer. I had purchased the full coverage bumper to bumper warranty against the advice of other people. Thank goodness I did. The timing belt jumped a tooth and ruined the whole valve train. They put a new top half of the motor on it. No questions asked. I always drove it easy too. It also lost those cheap hubcaps all the time.This was a Mitsubishi product and Mitsubishi products are not as good as Honda or Toyota.
I had a used Red EAGLE TALON Turbo 5 speed back around 1997 or so.
I used to eat Mustang GTs for lunch, thing was pretty quick!!
Ran good the year or so I had it.
When I worked at Bob Banning in the D.C. area! I worked at New car prep in the early 90,s when these came out! The were zippy to me! Good times!