When was the last time you saw a Chrysler LHS, especially one this nice? It’s probably been a dozen years or more for me, if not 15+ years. I’ve never seen a red one, or one this nice, since a friend bought a new one 29 years ago. Even that car wasn’t as loaded as this one is. The seller has this time capsule listed here on eBay in Wayne, Michigan, and the selling dealer is asking $5,995 or offer.
When I ran across this car on eBay, I knew I had to send it in. What a beauty. Actually, almost everything was standard on the LHS, which was a stretched version of Chrysler’s LH platform (LH Stretched), and was pretty unusual for the era. Chrysler used the LH platform for the LHS, and also the New Yorker and Concorde, and also the Dodge Intrepid, and the Eagle Vision. Taking around 8 seconds to hit 60 mph and returning around 20 mpg, for less than $6,000, this LHS sure seems like a decent deal to me.
They offered several red colors, and I’m not sure what the exact name is for this one, and that’s taken about 17 years off my life. As you probably know, I like to track down the exact color names whenever possible. I’m not a big red car person, but I would love to have this one. I think it would be killer at any Cars & Coffee-type event, or just for using as, you know, a car. In case you were wondering, here’s what the trunk looks like inside. As nice as the rest of the car is.
Leather seating surfaces were standard on the LHS, and these in gray look good. The driver’s seat is showing some wrinkling after 132,846 miles, but that’s to be expected. As far as other wear goes, I really don’t see anything concerning at all with this car. A Pioneer system has been installed in place of the original stereo, just for the record. The back seat looks like new, and the underside looks much nicer than I thought it would. Is this a Michigan car? If so, it must not have been driven in the winter. They say this car was always senior-owned and responsibly driven. The first-generation LHS was made from 1993 for the 1994 model year until the end of 1997, and 36,525 customers drove away in a ’97 LHS.
The clean engine bay is where Chrysler’s 3.5-liter SOHC V6 lives. It sent 214 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque through an Ultradrive 42LE four-speed automatic to the front wheels. The seller says it runs and drives smoothly, and this one has had a lot of recent service, including belts, a coolant flush and fill, oil change, new plugs, a new air filter, and even new fuel injectors. Please check out the seller’s outstanding gallery of photos showing just about every square inch of this beautiful LHS, and let us know your thoughts on this car below.
Interesting that the previous post was it’s Grandpa Fifth Avenue. It does show the incredible evolution. In my neck of the woods LHS’s were not a common site and i actually never saw the New Yorker but the Concorde/Intrepid twins were all over the place. If i remember road tests of the era they were quite respectable cars in looks and comfort but long term reliability made them see early trade in’s. I’m guessing that at this ones age most of the bugs must have been repared so a week end or two of tlc should restore it to it proper glory
To answer your lead question SG, I don’t think I have seen one of these in…. many years? I always thought these were attractively-styled sedans. This one looks like it has had good care.
I’m with all the above about not seeing one in multiple decades, wow. Its in amazing condition. I think Chrysler called this Cab Forward design(?) And if Scotty already wrote that and I missed it I apologize. It looks very well cared for and I think a rather inexpensive way to get into an older car.
My neighbor had one, always thought these were 100% better looking then those boxes they were foisting on the car buying public in the years before. And yes, I’ve not seen one since he traded it in on a Ram pickup, round about 2004.
This is the second time the sell has listed in on eBay, last time it was $6,995, but didn’t sell. People may like it, it does have its appeal, but I wouldn’t be interested in buying it. That’s the problem, the pool of potential buyers is probably pretty small, which means the decision to do so is likely price sensitive.
Steve R
As somebody who owned a 1981 Citation X11 for a hot minute, you have to be careful with cool but oddball cars. Your market when you go to resell is going to be extremely limited, as will parts availability. So you never want to pay too much for something like this.
I fear that this asking price may be too much here, especially with the mileage, even though it is a pretty nice example of one of these, which I haven’t thought of in years! If you took it to a Radwood event, people would absolutely go crazy over it though. They would not want to whip out their checkbook and buy it from you, but you would get a lot of attention.
New 1 guy w one. A former boss. Transmission went on it and was a bundle to fix at the time apparently. He bought it used, and was a famously cheap fellow…but I remember the repair hurting.
These were really sharp in their day, still are IMO. My Stepfather had a black 97 that he bought used in 99. After riding in it I fell in love with it and set out to find a 95-97 for $10k or less. The 94’s had the pentastar grill ornament and it looked dated. Also many 94’s didn’t have a moonroof, I think it was optional for a 94 and standard 95-97. Anyway I only came across 94’s in my price range, so I bought a 99 Malibu instead. It’s a toss up which car would have been more troublesome, but at least the LHS had style. My Stepfather put over 200k on his, but it wore those miles hard. AC quit around 100k, transmission was the final nail. It fell apart cosmetically too, but I still wish I had found one.
Car design does not seem to have evolved much in the last 35+ years. This car looks like it could have been made yesterday. That’s not a criticism of this car, it looks great. But I guess designers ran out of ideas around 1997…
Chrysler and the French: The LH platform was derived from Renault thanks to their purchase of AMC. The Omni/Horizon and K-car platform were derived from a Simca design. Chrysler sold Simca and their vision of making inroads in Europe to Peugeot/Citroen. Now Chrysler is dying under the ill-conceived Stellantis conglomerate, which is heavily dominated by Peugeot/Citroen.
I live in the DR, and Peugeot/Citroen is a dirty word here. Why? Go to any mechanics shop that repairs them, and they all have a ton of them, all for head gasket problems and warped heads.
I had a Kangoo with a diesel engine, and I found out the hard way that these vehicles absolutely HATE hot weather, and overheat in a heartbeat- even new ones right off the showroom floor.
Replacement heads are non existent in the country, and there is nowhere where you can get one, even from Europe. Even if you can find one, the mechanics will not install them because they don’t want the backlash from customers who spend a lot of money to repair them, only to have them blow again and blame the mechanic.
I eventually had a used Toyota engine installed just to be able to use the damn thing.
Even the dealers don’t like them
Nice one left is like oh boy, this is the greatest turd in the punch bowl
Disagree, nice design, looks better in person. Good solid transportation with style.
Considering how many of these were made, I worked 6 and sometimes 7 days / week building these, you sure don’t see many around. Style wise they were great, ride & handling great, reliability was a crap shoot. Same cars off the same line, some went 300,000 kms no problems, others lucky to make 80,000 kms without major issues. But it does bring back memories.
In about 91 or 92 I saw a pre production LHS at the Detrroit Auto Show…. and decided to buy one when available so I could take my aging parents on trips. So mine was a new 94 with the moonroof…. in Moonstone color with tannish leather. It was extremely spacious and comfortable … very quiet… soft seats. The back seat was quite far behind the fronts… and yet it had a huge trunk to carry all of their gear.
It had a mpg meter and delivered 27 at 70 mph on level ground. I drove it for almost 10 years with only minor repairs. It did extremely well in snow and ice for a FWD car. No complaints about my LHS… which replaced a new 87 Bonneville LE… a much smaller car.
I loved my black’94. Yes it did have transmission and timing belt problems. But what a comfortable car. More comfortable than the last two Caddies I have had.
I almost bought one of these. Tons of space and legroom inside. Know who convinced me to not buy it? The salesman, who was a good friend of mine.
Hard to believe this car is almost 30 years old now. I remember when the cab forward design came out. They were pretty nice looking cars but never had any experience with owning one personally. Don’t think I’ve seen one of any model on the road for decades now.
It’s nice to see this one has survived so nicely! Different ones have commented not having seen one of these in many years. There was an exception for me. An older couple at our church found one of these and drove it for years, but that was a true exception as, other than that one, I have not seen one anywhere in ages. I test drove the sister to it, Dodge Charger and really enjoyed how it has a more European quiet to the closing of the doors and such. Wish I had room for this one as I think it’d be a great ride or addition to their collection.
I still see a few of these around. Elegant and still a striking design. Seemed like a serious attempt at the time. Too bad they didn’t at least have the mechanical rodustness/servicability of a LeSabre or Panther platform.
I bought a new 97 LHS in black. Loved the ride, drove great, BUT I’m glad I bought the Chrysler Gold Warranty after 36,0000 miles in the shop for things that never should be replaced under 100,000 miles. The list is quite long lots of A/C problems and right drive axle developing vibration. It cost me $50 bucks every time I took it in but better than a big repair bill. The transmission went out at the dealer when it was in for another A/C repair 99,000 miles and the warranty was just about to expire!!. I got rid of it. Yep you don’t see them anymore I saw one in Alaska a couple years ago.
There was a time when these “cab forward” Mopars were everywhere. I saw one on the road about a month ago and thought that it had been forever since I saw one. They all just fell off the face of the earth.
Scotty, they actually returned a solid 30 MPG on the highway. The 2.7 V6 was even higher but not as reliable.
Total game changer. We had old guys who bought Fifth Avenues who’d step inside the showroom door, point at the car and say, I’ll never be back. For each of those guys we’d get five or ten people who would never have shopped us were it not for this car and the other LHs.
I never owned one of these, but my father in law did. I believe it was a 97, he traded an 87 Fifth Avenue for it. Both were good cars but a world apart in style, ride, handling, and interior room. I remember hearing complaints about week transmissions on these but he never experienced any problems, then he was a stickler for maintenance by the book. Nice car here.