One of the traditions my dad and I have is to always watch the John Hughes’ classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles on Christmas day. Well, we just finished up watching a few hours ago and what do I find when I hop onto eBay? A mint condition 1984 Chrysler LeBaron Mark Cross edition here on eBay with a $9,900 Buy-It-Now. Those aren’t pillows!
I apologize if you haven’t seen the movie – this is one gigantic inside joke if so. But that movie made the wood-slabbed LeBaron a star, even if it wasn’t the most compelling driver’s car. We just saw in an earlier post that some collectors take their LeBaron and Town & Country obsession too far, but when you see survivors like this example, it’s clear some Mopar fans are addicted to these fancy drop-tops.
This particular example is a rare (and loaded) Mark Cross edition. In 1984, Chrysler only produced 1,105 Town & Country convertibles with the Mark Cross option, so this is a rare find – especially with only 26,000 original miles. The seller claims it is an award winner, and justifies the $9,900 asking price by mentioning that more has been spent on maintenance in the past year than most LeBarons are worth.
Man, you could eat off of that motor. Thankfully, you’ll always be able to know how fast you’re going because the gauges likely aren’t melted like the ones in the movie. Frankly, you have a better chance of finding a three-legged ballerina than you do of finding another Town & Country convertible as clean as this one, so if you’ve been looking, this is the one to put underneath your tree. Merry Christmas!
I think I would prefer NOT to have the faux wood on this one! :-)
Frankly, I think I would prefer to launch an all-out search for a three-legged ballerina.
Ha! A top-ten modern movie for me.
I had a similar LeBaron Mark Cross Edition but in regular ol’ silver over gray leather. It was a nice, trouble-free car for the three years that I owned it. “Your door is ajar”, “Your lights are on”..
A ten K K car! Yikes
The car in trains planes and automobiles is green /wood. And it’s an 86.
This ones got the Mitsubishi 2.6L 4cyl good for just over 100hp. The 2.2 Turbo was the peppier engine choice at 142hp. I think the head gaskets on both engines weren’t very good. My dad and I each had the 2.2 turbo engines on cars in the 80’s and both of us had multiple engine failures. Mine went 3x in the 120k miles I drove her and Chrysler “customer good will” honored the repairs twice outside the factory warranty.
Chrysler wasn’t so nice about my turbo head gasket failures once the warranty was gone. A big part of the reason why I lost my unconditional love for all things Mopar.
A guy in my Marine artillery battery when going home on leave was on the bus during filming. He was three or four rows back wearing headphones if I remember correctly. Said everyone on the bus got fare covered and $75.
That’s a neat story. I guess that’s one way of getting extras in a movie.
10-4 on the 2.6 head gasket issues. Bought a Plymouth Sapporo new in 81.
Head gasket shot craps at 40K miles.
I remember relaxing head gaskets on some of these 2.6l but they were far from common, and typically the head basked was the result of a minor cooling system ( i.e. Thermostat ) that was ignored by the driver until it got really really hot. I saw far more problems with the 2.2l in both turbo and not turbo configuration. This is a nice car, not terribly valuable, but if you like top down cruising I don’t think you could go wrong here.
If I didn’t know any better I’d swear that this LeBaron is Jon Voight’s car! But it cant be! I’m pretty sure Lloyd Braun burned it to the ground soon after George bought it.
“Just drivin’ around in Jon Voight’s car…..”
Just watched this on Christmas as well. The entire LeBaron section of the movie is absolutely hilarious.