Looking fairly modern and crisp today, this 1985 Dodge Aries LE two-door sedan is a refreshing change from the busy designs of today. Unless your idea of modern car design involves overwrought and busy body lines, deep folds and creases, and an angry, pouting frowning face (grille). The seller has this little time capsule posted here on craigslist in South Scottsdale, Arizona and they’re asking $2,950.
I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with the busy, overly-creased, and angry vehicles of today if a person likes that look. How’s that for leading the witness? Chrysler had a mega-winner on its hands with the K-car family. A lot of you have owned at least one, I have. This car has 13″ wheels rather than optional 14″ aluminum wheels – those are 13″ wheel covers. Being a two-door sedan, I thought that this one would be at least semi-interesting car and it has an interesting story.
The 1985 Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries were the first of the bunch to receive a real styling update, even if it mainly consisted of rounding the sharp corners a bit. This car was owned by a couple of folks who were Canadian snowbirds and have recently passed away, unfortunately. The miles are listed in kilometers so this is a Canadian car which means that it has right-hand drive. NO, I’m kidding! It has just over 43,000 miles on it if you convert the 69,806 km to miles and it appears to be in pretty much like-new condition.
The interior is beautiful and you can see that it doesn’t have a 4-speed or 5-speed manual which is a bummer, but a Chrysler three-speed TorqueFlite automatic. This car appears to have stand-alone power door locks which is an unusual feature since it doesn’t have power windows. I thought that power windows and locks were a package deal, at least according to Aries literature that I found online. The seller mentions the power door locks so maybe Canadian cars were different as far as options packages? It does have optional low-back cloth bucket seats and they look like new both front and rear.
The engine is Mitsubishi’s 2.6L inline-four with just over 100 horsepower. The seller doesn’t give us any hints as to how this one runs or what works or doesn’t work on it but given the visual condition, I’m just assuming that it runs great and everything works. For $2,950 this would be an interesting grocery-getter.
Good write-up Scotty. I agree, in today’s world of (to me) over-styled vehicles, the simplicity of this humble white K-car is refreshing. Like you said, it could be a perfectly acceptable grocery-getter for not much money.
Take it to Cars & Coffee and most folks will ignore you, but hopefully not cast derision on you. But there will be some who smile and start the “my ______ had one of these” discussions, which are always fun, especially when they add a humorous related story.
I’d be all over this car at Cars and Coffee. I’m surprised it has buckets and a console though. My memory of the K-car includes Lido bragging about room for six passengers. I stumbled upon a late 1980 issue of CandD today where they were introducing the K-car. They particularly appreciated that its ride and handling was in the German mold rather than being modeled after the float and crash ideal of Detroit.
Had an 88 with five speed 14 inch 5 lug wheels. Bought it off the back of a dealership lot. Needed brakes, clutch and tires, struts etc . Never saw another like it, had bigger brakes they weren’t standard k- car brakes, had to match parts up. Remember when parts stores did that? Don’t remember what they were off of, car was very vanilla, had an am radio and that was it for amenities. Drove it for two and a half years and was a great driver. maybe a factory mule or someone knew what to order. Oh yeah replaced that radio.
I thought these were fairly modern and nice looking in 1985 when I was a kid, until the Taurus/Sable twins came out in 86 and changed everything. I do remember power door locks sans power windows being fairly common, GM did it a lot.
If this were is Nova Scotia I’d buy it in a heartbeat … that being said if it was in Nova Scotia there would be nothing left of it
Tho odometer in the pic reads 68,806. There is an apparent discrepancy.
It’s in kilometers. Speedo is km/h as well. I’m thinking the snowbirds brought it down from Canada with them.
I have noticed many times that people do not always read the whole article before commenting. Occasionally I sell cars on Craigslist and even if I put in the very first line to please read the entire ad before contacting me if interested, I still get people that do not bother to read the whole ad or look at the multitude of pictures. If they would, they would already have answers to many of their questions. I guess it’s just human nature for some people to skim over things.
Just a correction it’s a 2.6 Mitsubishi 4 cylinder not a 2.2 Chrysler. I worked at a Chrysler dealer from ’87 to ’90 and I worked on quite a few of those. I’ve got a ’88 2.2 Plymouth Reliant LE station wagon with a 5 speed. Not as much horsepower as a 2.6, but a lot more fun with the 5 speed. Nice article and I always enjoy the column.
I agree its the 2.6–I worked at a Chrysler dealer then. The 2.6 in Canada did not have the 3rd jet valve in the head and could run on regular gas up to 85 because there was no catalytic converter. I remember an oil consumption problem due to the piston rings, they would just pop out the pistons and replace the rings. One tech got really good at it and made good money at flat rate.
Thanks, Deron! I knew that but had a brain lapse since that’s the same engine that was in my LeBaron. Thanks, also, for being so polite when you could have gone the other way and been justified in doing that.
best Friends family had a Caravelle 4dr sedan w a 5spd stick…haha great car taught a generation to drive a manual
Where did all these 2-door late K-Cars come from? In my memories of the ’80s it seems like the 2-door all but went away after the ’85 facelift, if it hadn’t been for the fact they showed it in ads I’d have thought they’d dropped it.
Wow. A 2-door economy car that’s not a hatchback. They would sell exactly zero if these today. But it was a very different time. I seem to remember seeing a lot of the luxury K Cars like the LeBaron and the Dodge 400 in 2-door form, but few Aries and Reliants. Those were mostly 4 doors and wagons.
I had an 85 Lancer 4 door hatch. It was a very flexible auto. It had the 2.2 5-spd.
Not sure how reliable the Mitsu engine is, but I can swear (as I did many times) that my 2.2 was not. I had to replace what seemed like every engine seal at least one time and the shifter cable broke not just once, but twice. Luckily I was in second gear both times so I was able to limp home and then get a tow from the auto club to the dealer.
This looks like a well maintained 85. Since I am in Canada having the odometer/speedometer measure in kms rather than miles would be a bonus to me. Scottsdale is pretty far away though and I would still be leery about potential reliability issues.
This car is only about 45 minutes away from me and I’m trying to convince the wife I need a new daily.
Great write up. The reason for there being power locks and no power windows, it was part of a safety and security package here in Canada.
If your battery died on you in the downtown area of our major cities, it would allow you to roll up the windows before the packs of roaming polar bears would attack.
The response from the RCMP is quite slow in some areas due to the fact that their sled dogs are in the local Tim Hortons warming up.
Thanks for that info, Grumpy. I was wondering about that, it makes sense. I always liked that Canada had daytime running lights and even headlight washers on a lot of models that we didn’t get here in the US.
ugly non-descript point a to point b throw away vehicle…
Nice car and it doesn’t have all that computer crap to go wrong price not bad its exempt odometer reading in most states so swap the Speedo head to miles change the transmission fluid and filter and enjoy it for a few years
We had a fleet of K Cars. Mine happened to be a 84 2 door coupe with 5 speed. It was a fun car to drive. It even had an AM/FM radio and A/C. Chewed them up and threw them away.
This platform definitely saved Chrysler.
Considering today’s shortage of used cars on the market, I’d say this is a bargain. It’s near impossible to find a decent used car under $3,000.
The listing is gone–must be sold already, and I’m not surprised.
I looked at the car and it is very nice. But I have a line on a 89 horizon that I really like.
He sold the car I just talked to him.
I am now the proud owner of this car and it runs great! I named it scamp.
I live where the car is and now I know that my 84 convertible with 25K miles is worth alot more. Nice car.