“Plymouth Horizon. It’s the one that has been consistently winning over so many Americans. Why? Straight ahead value in a contemporary front-wheel drive car.” So says a brochure for the 1986 Plymouth Horizon, a car related to the Dodge Omni. The seller has this example listed here on eBay in New Cumberland, West Virginia and they have a $4,500 buy-it-now price listed or you can make an offer.
I can’t tell if that’s a dent in the bottom of the passenger door or a different shade of gray paint, but otherwise, this Horizon looks great to me. There is some fading and/or trouble with the clear coat on portions of the car, but if it’s as solid as it appears, this car would have more people milling around it at any cars and coffee-type event than a new Ferrari would. We have seen some really nice Horizons here at Barn Finds over the last few years.
Chrysler offered the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon here in North America from late 1977 for the 1978 model year, all the way up until the 1990 model year. So, from the era of young men dressing like this, until things fell apart and they started dressing like this. I’m wondering if this is the same car that we saw back in 2018 here on Barn Finds? It appears to be the same exact configuration and that car had 31,000 miles and the seller says this car has about 32,000 miles.
The interior is beautiful in color and condition, at least from what we can see. The SE models came standard with high-back bucket seats in front. The seller doesn’t show the dash at all but we catch glimpses of it in the other photos with the doors open, presumably showing the rust-free condition and it does look like a solid car. The back seat looks perfect as does the rear cargo area, which is much bigger than the one in a car that I got for business road trips a couple of months ago. I should have waited for this Horizon. You can see a bit of damage to the upper portion of the rear seat in this photo.
The engine should be a Chrysler 2.2-liter inline-four – transverse-mounted, of course – with just under 100 horsepower. It sends power to the front wheels through a console-shifted automatic transmission. This one needs some carb work and that sounds like a common ailment from reading comments about the other Horizons shown here. If this car had a four or five-speed manual and was in perfect condition, it might be tempting as a local car show car, I’m sure it would be popular. Have any of you owned a Horizon or Omni?
Not every 80’s kid shopped at Chess King…
Merry-go-round?
Ha, Chess King! Excellent.
My dad was going to give me a Dodge Omni back in 1993 when I was 16 or 17. I remember that it had 2 shift levers to split the gears. Guess it was so gutless they needed an 8 speed.? Anyone else familiar with that set up?
I never got the car though so never had a chance to drive it. Dad got mad about about something and changed his mind… Sold it instead.
Dodge Omni never had a twin-stick, but the Dodge Colt did.
The L bodies never had the split transmission. The Dodge Champ (Mitsubishi) had a 1.6 with the 2 speed.
Was more likely a Colt and not an Omni. The Mitsubishi-built Colt had what they called a Twin Stick for either Power or Economy. Omni was larger and didn’t have anything other than a 5-speed or automatic.
I had a new 1981 Plymouth Champ with the twin stick trans. Man, was that a fun little car to drive! My wife and I drove it our to Ohio, from Connecticut, to visit family and got over 44mpg! My older brother drove it and said it reminded him of his 68 MGB, and that he would love the Champ, just for the fun of it. As for this Plymouth Horizon? We had an 86 Horizon with 2.2 liter and a five speed. That car was great! Fantastic in snow and just kept going!
Thanks everyone for the clarification on the twin stick. I’m positive the car from my Dad was a Dodge Omni, but considering I never drove it, I’m clearly mixing up the transmission with another car from my youth! Guess my memory isn’t as good as I thought.
My memory is so good I can recall things that never happened – Mark Twain
The front-wheel drive Dodge Colt made by Mitsubishi had a twin-stick transmission but never heard of other models using it….
To answer your question how many are left this one makes one to many
This is the only time that question has been asked.
I’m sure someone will chime in, “it will get a lot of attention at coffee and cars”. The answer to that is, so what. It’s an oddity at this point, that doesn’t stand on its own merits.
Steve R
I’ll stick with my Pinto, thank you.
I’m glad someone will preserve this part of automotive history, even if not everyone considers it worthwhile.
I still have my 90 horizon. And drive it all around, it’s a nice conversation piece at the stop light. Even if everyone not fond of the car. But, thanks I’ll keep mine!
I had a 1982 Horizon, with the 1.7 litre 4, and a 1987 Omni with the 2.2 engine, both bought new.
The ’82 was a better car than the ’87. The latter had carburetor issues that the dealer was never able to fix, as well as an awful shift linkage for its 5 speed manual transmission.
Both of those cars had mediocre build quality.
Since I had the Omni, I’ve driven Japanese vehicles, and have never looked back.
’87 was the last year for carbs in these, for ’88 they went to the (single-point) EFI the K-cars had already had for a few years by then.
K-swap!
Drivers ed was in an 82 with manual. Dad wanted me to learn stick shift, best move he ever made. You’re 16 and learning to start on an uphill in rush hour traffic, i made it
A crummy ripoff of the VW Rabbit.
Had a Rabbit, tried a friend’s Horizon. The VW was fun. The Horizon was not.
Factory ordered a 1979 Flame Orange 4 speed Omni. Volkswagen engine. FWD great in snow. Ran it over 100K. Ford dealer irate that we insisted on filling in mileage on title when traded 🤔 It was then displayed on the elevated stage out front to capture attention.
Very nice car! I don’t know why all the negative posts. It’s almost perfect except for some faded paint. $4500 seems like a pretty good deal.
They were all over the place at one time. A lot of people I knew were quite happy with them.
There was a guy who worked for select siers a artificial insemination company for cattel in Lancaster PA that had a horizon. In 1993 I had a farm and he came yearly to service my cattel, it had over 200,000 miles on it. He had did the required service and had no problems. He was in his late 70’s and retired around 2000 and still had the car. 😂
Heard alot of people around Lancaster County prefer to service their own cattle
And most of them wore straw hats
“How many left”, another indicator of the author, and usually gets a slew of comments, clearly for the unusual vehicles he posts. Sure gets us talking, the sign of a good journalist. I love how he mingles past and present renditions of how our society lost its way. To be honest, I never dressed like either photo.
“Relax, Horizon can handle it”, was their calling card. To accurately answer the question, how many left, a more important number is how many were sold. I read, over 2.5 MILLION Horizon/Omnis were sold. Naysayers say what you will, that’s an impressive number. The ones left are a mere shred of the total made. The only ones that berate this car, just weren’t there. America was in a bind. Inundated with small foreign cars, something needed to be done and fast. “Econoboxes” were all the rage, an economy car styled like a box, but more importantly, a sign of things to come, the absolute end to the musclecar, like it or not. Fuel economy, at the risk of abandoning certain American traits, was the new hot button, and most foreign companies already had a leg up on us. I say, the Horizon/Omni changed everything on how we thought about driving. The most unlikely buyers of small foreign cars, were trading in their LTDs, and suddenly seen driving Omnis. Go figure. I think they are historically important cars, turned Chrysler around, so they could invest in other areas( TC Maserati for one) but anyone there in the 70s, knows how important this car was. ALL were used, some heavily, and junked, and makes this find more astonishing than ever.
For me, there is not much to see here except this car is in excellent condition. Now if it was an Omni GLH, that is a whole different story. For those that don’t know the GLH (which stands for Goes Like Hell) it is a whole different car! It’s like comparing a standard 60’s Mustang to a Shelby 350 GT. The GLh is one of the original ‘Pocket rockets’!!
Yep. Shelby’s darkest days. Save for that Oldsmobile travesty.
My first new car was a 1978 Plymouth Horizon, VW engine, 4 speed manual trans, AM radio, pretty yellow tan interior, white side wall tires. Cost $4,300, my monthly payments were $77.00 a month. Great little car, I had a lot of fun with it. Very reliable. I would buy another one like it if I could. My local Dodge Ram dealer would service it. Quite a bit different from my 2021 Ram Quad cab which I love. I’m a MOPAR fan for life.
Oh, if this car was a five speed, I’d be all over it like white on rice. Say what you will about the L bodies; I’ve had four…..an ’83 Turismo, an ’85 GLH-T, and ’89 Horizon and a ’90 Omni that I bought for my height challenged Mum. They were all great cars. The GLH surprised many a poser in a Camaro or a Firebird and was great fun. The Turismo couldn’t catch cold in winter, but regularly got 35+ MPG. I drove the Horizon until the wheels fell off…at which point, I traded it in for my first Saab. Dealer gave me $3K as a trade in on a gently used NewGen 900….I couldn’t turn that down. Now, I’m kicking myself. The Omni was perfect for my Mum….she could back the car in and out of the garage and park it on the head of a pin. Big change from her Cordoba.
L bodies were tough, would run on anything that came out of a pump labeled “gasoline” and generally returned great gas mileage and decent drivability. The seats were comfortable and even the non-turbocharged cars would zip right along on the highway.
They weren’t perfect……the Turismo ate O2 sensors, the sluxhbox in the Omni lost reverse, the paint came off of the Horizon in strips and the GLH had monster toque steer, but the pluses outweighed the minuses in every case.
I owned an ’84 Horizon (passed down at that time from my folks). That car NEVER idled correctly no matter what you did with the carb or timing and that car often stalled at traffic lights. Sold it at the first opportunity I had. I had understood Chrysler switched fo fuel injection on these models beginning in ’85, but apparently I was wrong.
EFI became standard in 1987. All L bodies were carbuerated before that point.
We had 3 of these, 1st was an ’83 Omni with a 1.6 Peugeot engine and a 4spd. Talk about SLOW, but it got over 40mpg on the highway. In ’90 we traded for a new one with a 2.2 and a 5spd.With fuel injection that was like a rocket compared to the ’83. Thinking we needed a bigger car we sold that after 4 yrs. and got into a losing battle with a Cadillac 4100 (turned me off Caddys forever). So about ’97 when my wife needed a car for work we got a used ’90 Horizon with a 2.2 and a 5spd. This car was fully loaded and only had 20,000 mi. on it. I think that one was our favorite. After a couple of years we moved up to our 1st Caravan. None of our kids wanted it so I sold to a co-worker. He still talks about how much he liked that car.
vin check says it was sold at copart salvage I wonder why
Donated after the owner passed. many charities sell their cars in Copart
There were 2 or 3 Omni-rizons that went through the parents household in the early – mid ’80s… I had moved out by then, but still spent some time in them… They had the typically abysmal interior materials and fit/finish of US economy cars of the day, but they weren’t bad drivers… with good reliability (at least I don’t remember my Dad swearing at them). All manuals. Good snow cars, but I can still remember the torque steer. There was also a Renault R5 in mix during that time… which I remember it being vastly superior, if a bit slower.
Anyone that owned one of those silly little puddle jumpers with a lawn mower sized engine probably wont admit it. I remember many trying to pass my 65 Cadillac. I usually put it in 1st gear to give them a chance, then I waved bye bye in my rear view mirror.
The majority of Omnirizon twins were sold without power steering – the steering wheel had a reasonably sporty H-shaped deep-dish design with a fairly thick vinyl rim (‘cuz lemme tell you that steering was HEAVY). Our new for ‘83 Driver’s Ed Horizon, however, sported a Nimitz-Class tiller twice the size of the regular steering wheel, with an ultra thin hard resin rim, and two plastichrome spokes that plunged toward a teensy hub sporting the words “power steering”. You either had to limbo or scoot the seat all the way back for your legs to get under the wheel every time you got in or out of the thing.
I had an 82 Plymouth horizon with the 2.2 and the 5 speed. I generally liked driving it and I recall it compared well with my GF’s 80 Honda accord. It had tons of room and we used to pile 4 people in it to go skiing. The rear hatch was really useful. It was a woody as well with fake wood stickers on the sides. But I also recall the build quality was pretty shoddy. The inside door handles broke off, the steering wheel horn cover fell off and wouldn’t stay on, and the clutch pedal was a bicycle-like cable which wore a hole thru the aluminum clutch pedal and came apart twice. Had to replace the pedal! I also recall it ate CV joints. Replaced two of them by 80,000 miles. The 2.2 engine started drinking oil at 75,000 miles to the tune of one quart every 100 miles. Someone stole my radio when it was parked at LAX and when they ripped it out it cracked the dash in half – the dash was a single piece of plastic. Despite all this I liked the car and it was fun to drive but the build quality was terrible. I never had any carb problems and it drove well in the snow when I moved to Denver.
My mom owned an ’81 Horizon, 2-tone blue. It was the 1st year for the 2.2 motor, and the only year the 2.2 was painted blue (after ’81 they were black). It was the 1st car my mom owned with carpeted floors, cloth seats, power steering, power brakes, AC and cruise control. It was “luxurious” compared to the ’72 Adam-12 Satellite she traded in for it (yeah, I know, the Adam-12 Satellite was a ’71 model). It was a great car for 4 years, until my little brother rolled it. He survived, the Horizon did not.
I had just quit my job, but had a non compete. So I turned in my company car, and with no job, and no prospects of even finding a job, I went to the nearest Dodge dealership and bought a new Omni in 1981 with no down payment. Drove it for about 4 years with absolutely no trouble. Traded it in for a new Voyager in 1984. Also no troubles with that either.
Oh, boy, I had one of those; brand new ’86 . It was an automatic, don’t know anything about a “twin stick”. Put an aftermarket cruise control in it from Sears and ran pretty good with good gas mileage on trips, UNTIL it didn’t…kept it 4 years with 36,000 miles & traded for a new Ford Ranger. The Horizon’s shocks were shot, the AC needed everything and even after having the card rebuilt it died on the highway after leaving the dealership repair shop. The ’85 Plymouth Caravelle bought new from same dealer wasn’t much better, the 4 cylinder Turbo would blow away kids in their Camaro’s, but after 4 years the Caravelle blew its Turbo, the AC needed work, struts were shot and it had less than 50,000 miles. Thought 5 grand for repairs was a bit much so used the money for a down payment on a new Oldsmobile.
My mom had an ’86 with this car’s seats but in blue, and the “base” blacked-out window trim and side moldings. Not many full-fat SEs sold mid-decade because those seats were a separate option and the chrome-accented exterior trim was paying extra to make your new car look older. Later on I had a beater ’81 Miser with the 1.7 and 4 speed, it was aggressively ok but had a solid body and was done in by nickel-and-dime maintenance.
Back in the early ‘90s, I bought an ’85 Horizon for my son and an ’86 Omni for my daughter. I remember having a ball test-driving the Horizon. It was a stick, and I briskly accelerated it to over 70 and was still in 3rd! I remember thinking “my god, I still have two gears to go. Where’s the end in this thing?” Granted, I’m an MGB guy and that’s my standard of comparison. But that 2.2L was fast enough to put a smile on my face. Handling was taut. It was fun to drive. What’s more, the gas mileage was ridiculous! IIRC, it had about 50,000 miles on it and I got it for about $1500. Back in those days, resale values on Chrysler products were cheap. “Detroit’s best-kept secret” I called these cars. With a couple of replacement O2 sensors, the Horizon finally ate it’s clutch at about 185,000 miles. I parked it behind my barn to hide it – but a guy cutting hay noticed it, bought it, put a new clutch in it and last I heard it was still running strong at something over 230,000 miles. I will grant, interior fit and finish was minimal; handles broke and headliners sagged, but they were endearing, strong, fun, reliable cars.
I bought the Omni from a friend who ran an ‘88 Daytona and a GLH in drag races – routinely beating out a lot of Mustangs. This was his wife’s car from new. My daughter ran it up close to 200,000 miles and sold it back to the friend. Last I heard, it was going strong at something over 260,000 miles.
I’ve always been a Mopar fan – but not particularly for the muscle cars. My first car was a ’37 Plymouth that cost me all of $70. That was the first of many, many Mopars. A favorite was my ’99 Dakota. If the K-cars were a bit skimpy in the quality fit and finish department, that truck was extraordinary in every aspect of quality. I wondered if that was the Daimler-Benz influence but I’ve been told not.
Besides having been sold through COPART salvage before it made it to EBAY, the Experion auto check indicates a title issue and a odometer issue. Buyer beware. Oh, and my dad had one these also.
Had both Horizons and Omnis. Chrysler beat Ford and GM to the small fwd market by purchasing the drive train from VW. Vastly better than the horrible early GM offerings. These cars were essentially VW Rabbits. I also had an Omni 024, a fastback. I loved driving that car and it looked sporty. Never had any of the issues I’m seeing in other comments. My vehicles were all mid to late ’80’s models.