1981 Plymouth

Canadian Automotive Museum Audio Content

Our bilingual audio tour explores less well-known stories from the collection, in the voices of the Museum’s volunteers, historians, vehicle experts and more.
Transcript:
This 1981 Plymouth Reliant, built by Chrysler in several different Michigan plants, is not a revolutionary vehicle. It seats six, is fitted with a front-wheel drive four-cylinder engine that gives mediocre performance, and is generally what you’d expect from an inexpensive 1980s family car. What makes the Reliant truly special is its skeleton, or platform: this is one of the first K-Cars.

In the late 1970s Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy, dealing with extremely inefficient production of a half-dozen different base types of car with almost no interchangeable parts. The new K-Car wasn’t a car, but the skeleton of one; a skeleton that could be stretched, shortened, widened, tweaked and upgraded with a huge variety of engines, wheels and suspension types, allowing a large range of cars to be built on the same chassis. By the end of its lifespan, the K-Car had been the basis for a whopping 50 different types of vehicle, everything from two-seat sports cars to minivans.

Using identical parts on so many different cars made building them easier, and also saved the company a huge amount of money; by 1983 K-Cars like the Plymouth Reliant and the similar Dodge Aries accounted for about 50% of Chrysler’s income. The design is largely credited with saving Chrysler from total failure in the early 1980s.

The K-Car was heavily advertised by Chrysler as an all-American (and to a lesser degree all-Canadian) car. They even made an impact on pop-culture. The song If I Had a Million Dollars from the Barenaked Ladies gives the Reliant a shout-out.

And if I had a million dollars (If I had a million dollars)

Well I'd buy you a K-Car

A nice reliant automobile

And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love