I’m a wicked huge fan of special editions, the more crazy badges and decals the better. Special paint? Yes, please. This 1983 Dodge Aries is a 24K Edition and I dare you to find out any information on it on the entire internet. The seller has it listed here on eBay in Machesney Park, Illinois and the current bid is $1,325.
I love special editions, but when there isn’t a lot of information on those special editions, that makes it tough. I literally couldn’t find one thing on the entire internet about this car, and I even fired up the twin-turbo Commodore 64. Still, nothing, not one listing, not one photo, nothing. I know that one of you has heard of this special edition, what I’m assuming was a dealer option, maybe?
There it is in all its gold decal splendor: 24K! I doubt if anyone will agree with me when I say that I would love to have this car in all of its obscure brown and gold glory. A two-door K-Car in nice condition? I’m there. The seller has provided a fantastic video here on YouTube where he goes through this entire car front to back and top to bottom. Very well done, sir. They even show the underside and other than some somewhat light corrosion, it looks like a very solid car. Some dry ice blasting would clean this car up very nicely.
Where was it made?! How many were made? What did the 24K Limited Edition offer to its buyers over a regular Aries two-door? Did they make a four-door 24K Edition? How about a wagon? A guy can only dream about such a car, maybe with a 5-speed manual even. Hey, dream big or why bother? The interior looks great other than a few seam-splits on the driver’s side, but the back seat looks almost like new. The steering wheel also has a few cracks and it could use some new carpet and a headliner. Ok, it needs a lot of money thrown at it if a person can’t do those things him or herself.
The engine runs good, it’s a 2.2L inline-four which would have had around 90 horsepower. The carb has been rebuilt and there’s a new timing belt and quite a few other parts, but it also needs work under the hood. I can’t see anyone spending $10,000 to restore this car, sadly, but have any of you heard of this special edition?
As soon as I saw the K car picture I knew this would be a Scotty write up lol. Great write up, your K Car enthusiasm is infectious! I’ve never heard of a 24k edition and I almost wonder if a past owner did him themself. I love these K cars, or should I say other people K cars, I don’t feel the desire to ever own one again.
You know what pixxes me off about Hollywood, among other things, there’s an ad for some investment firm, who clearly must deal with successful people, “remember your 1st car?” and they show a K car like this, id badges removed, of course, but as if to say, “remember when you WEREN’T successful and drove this?” I’m sick and tired of trying to defend such an important car in our history, to people who have no connection to that time period, and frankly, don’t give a darn. I had a car just like this, brown, even, I changed the motor in an afternoon, by myself. It was one of the many Kcars I came in contact with, and I can honestly say, out of maybe a dozen, I don’t recall a bad one. Mostly driver neglect killed many, I had great luck with them all. Great find, not many kept or wanted a car like this, but they had their time, and if you are a Chrysler fan, you ought to thank this car.
Totally agree- I have 2 in pristine shape and working on a project car I inherited.
My folks were not “car people”, basic transportation was all they wanted. Their choice of vehicles reflected this mindset. As such, they had a 1982 Aries much like this (it wasn’t a “24K”, I too have never heard of this version). It was also a brown 2-door. They had it for a decade and it did its job just fine.
I always enjoy seeing bread-and-butter cars of their time.
Looks like a car bling from Autozone edition
Looks like one of those dealer-created jobs. They add $10 in content and charge $500.
Yep, especially with a brown 2-door not being the most wanted of Aries’.
Never heard of that edition. Seeing this things brings back “fond” memories of multiple breakdowns, dead on the side of the road in a brand new Plymouth Reliant company car I had back in the early 1980s.
I’m sure some may see a bit of irony in your statement, and AMC follower complaining about Chryslers problems. AMC was the butt of all jokes for their problems. We, in Wisconsin, took it with good candor, but even we admitted, it was true. As a truck driver during those times, I made a mental note of the types of cars I saw stranded on the side. Ford Taurus was the absolute king there, but I don’t recall many K cars, including mini-vans. I’ve said many times, to judge a car by one experience isn’t entirely fair. There are just too many variables. A slew of entities used Kcars, from the post office, to newspapers, and general delivery, with hundreds of thousands of miles to their credit. I hate to use the saying, “you got a bad one”, but they don’t come out of a mold all exactly alike, humans built them, and all cars had problems.
The AMC JAVLIN with the 390/4 speed was an awesome car from 70-71. My friend had a 70 or 71 Gremlin in-line 6 with a 3 speed stick. It was the sport model. Nice car and that 6 cylinder was a great engine.
Perhaps so but I can tell you I never had as many problems with my AMC vehicles as that Reliant, not even the ones I have today that are over 50 years old!
Aftermarket stripes, definitely not a factory option. Certainly not a “Spring Special” that Chryco was known for back the day.
Dealer added package
This reminds me to GM’s attempt to build small cars. X-Body.
Phoenix Skylark Omega
The paint looks a bit faint but to make it shine it needs a
very special polish compound. Just to say like the vintage
wax from Racine, Wisconsin.
1st car I took over 160K
Not issues to speak of
You won the Mopar Quality Lottery.
If you get a good one, Chrysler products can be as good as anything else but they have more than their share of lemons, consistently, across all eras or at least going back to 1957.
And it seems to be much more random than Ford, where after a few years its’ known which components and systems come from Good Ford and which ones from Bad Ford.
MOPAR was an awesome vehicle and right out of the showroom without any modifications whatsoever. The 426 HEMI A833 Hemi four speed nothing could touch. The 440 six packs with either the A833 or 727 was a monster set up. Far superior than any other American muscle car. The old 440 and 400 police vehicles were monsters. After 1973 with these emissions knocked every vehicles performance.
Above the glove box is that a 24 karat decal ?
VW had a “carat” edition. Too bad this wasn’t a 5spd for a sport-coupe cruiser.
Was that for the Rabbit models ? Rabbit..carat… sorry, I’ll let myself out
Some of these had a penchant for catching fire. My parents had one that did just that and we later found out that others had done so as well. I do not recall what the cause was though as that was long ago.
I had an ’83 Aries K-Wagon the same color with a stick. It had almost 100K on it when I bought her in 1991. The engine lasted until 265,000 miles. I ran the wheels of her. I’d like to have another.
The NYPD used K cars in the early 80’s to save fuel. More guys got injured and retired on disability than any other police vehicles we had at the time. The only good thing this K car was good for was being able to cut through the pedestrian crossing on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Which caused a cop in my squad a RIP. I hated these cars as did most cops. Try putting a 6 foot perp in the back seat.
An occasional timing belt and head gasket replacement and these cars will run forever
I have been doing the job 25 years now and agree that the K was no replacement for the Diplomat.
But as a civilian family car I had an 87 4 door sedan. It was mint and stodgy at the same time, but it was reliable and actually served my family quite well.
It would have sucked as a cruiser.
New head gasket with only 60 k miles? That odometer has rolled at least once
Troy, I bought a 1984 Chrysler E-Class with the identical engine with 36000 miles on it, in 1985, and at 49K the head gasket started to piss out antifreeze right through the radiator and grille. It cost me for it because the gaskets weren’t covered on the 5/50 warranty that Iacocca instituted. The engine ran for another ten years. The engines came with cheap gaskets, but once replaced they ran and ran. I would still have it but the entire floor of the car rotted out. The body was solid, but the floor was nothing but Queen Anne Lace looking rusted steel. It ran great all the way to the junk yard.
U.S. Escorts from 1981 – 1984 would only go about 50k before the heads would crack right between the intake and exhaust valves , replacing the gaskets on a K car at around 60 to 70k was not uncommon, and far cheaper than replacing a head
That chrome (?) valve cover…
I purchased a 1990 Dodge Dynasty LE Emperor 6-7 years ago with the new 3.3L V6 engine for 1990, and A604 Ultradrive transmission. It was identical to a fully loaded Chrysler New Yorker, but built & sold by Dodge. I’ve searched through quite a bit of Chrysler/Dodge literature and have never found any mention of this particular model. Although it’s more than a decal, it seems to be another example of an unknown “limited edition.” And this car could fly! On several occasions I pegged the speedometer at 120 mph without a lot of effort or distance, would spin the front wheels pretty good when flooring it from a standstill. I bought it with 135k miles on it, and sold it with 218k miles to the next owner. The last I heard it was nearing 300k miles, maybe I let it go to soon(?) Here’s a link to an Emperor in the wild: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cds488/39433463932
The Police version had a 2.4 engine. A kid on a skate board outran that radio car.
ok, we get it
They sold a lot of these heaps….with Lido (Lee) Iacocca’s incessant tv commercial blitz campaign.
The American Way to beat the pump. lol
In the early 80s everyone was scrambling to find the perfect combo of fuel efficiency and size , all with new computerized systems . These are the kind of cars we had, most of the cars were crap , underpowered , cheapo plastic interiors and thin steel , and generally boring. They were treated as disposable cars and had a short life . That’s why so few 80s cars have survived , and even as the survivors reach the age of 40 , they have little value with the exception of the sports cars . Would people be all over this at a car show or cruise night ? absolutely – would someone one love to have it ? very few.
SOLD for $1,350.
Seems like a lot of car for very little money, especially with the market the way it is.
I wonder if the seller regrets all the time and money he spent changing the head gasket, timing belt, rebuilding the carburetor, the wiper system, etc. and then selling it for a measly $1300. Seems like a waste of time and money. The best part about this car is the steel that could be melted down and used to build something else
Well I can’t believe that no one has said it yet…
So I will.
If I had a million dollars I’d buy you a K car.
A nice reliant automobile….
But not a real green dress…
That would be cruel.
The car that saved Mopar .Lot of aftermarket stuff on this car. Basic car not fancy at all ,Never heard of this addition. To each his own ,but not for me
It was built at St. Louis South Assembly and sold in Florissant. Even if it was a dealer package it would have cost $8-10,000 in 1982 to produce the plastic injection molds for all those different emblems. Not to mention the electroplating in small batches. They probably lost their asses on it. The seller made adequate money, because I helped do the work just to help keep the car out of the scrap where most of them end up because of opinions like most of yours. There wouldn’t be any shiny plastic hand-me-down Daimler muscle cars for you guys to beat it to if it weren’t for L and K body. Have some respect.