Good morning! Today we’re looking at two ultra-low-mileage cars that I’d be willing to bet are estate sales. They’re both in beautiful cosmetic condition, but need a little mechanical work before being put back into service.
I admit that yesterday was kind of a joke, but I really wanted to feature that Cushman. Of course it lost; unless you want it to promote your business, it’s basically worthless. There is exactly one place I can think of where it would be perfect: The Vintages, a resort in Oregon that consists of a bunch of permanently-parked vintage travel trailers you can rent out. If they don’t already have something like it, this little Cushman would be ideal for running around the grounds.
For everyone else, there’s the big, brawny Ford F-250. That truck, for that price, is actually a screaming deal – so good, in fact, that some folks from Opposite Lock spent the day trying to figure out a group buy deal. It’s a gas hog, but it could do just about anything you need a truck for, and for the price of two or three payments on a new truck. I don’t expect it will be available for long.
It’s not uncommon for an estate sale to include a car. No one in the family needs or wants it, and it wasn’t bequeathed to anyone in particular, so up for sale it goes. I can’t say for certain that that’s what’s happening with these two, but based on the mileage and condition of them, along with the types of cars they are, it wouldn’t surprise me. But as clean as they are, sitting around isn’t good for any car, so you’ll need to put in a little work to bring them up to snuff.
1984 Plymouth Reliant – $3,800
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Glendale, AZ
Odometer reading: 17,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives, has been driven around the block regularly
If there were a hall of fame for boring cars, as ironic as that would be, the Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries twins would have pride of place. With styling that a five-year-old could duplicate, and a drivetrain that’s about as spicy as milk, these cars are nobody’s idea of fun. Sturdy, yes, and cleverly designed, and the engineering is a master class in doing more with less, but exciting they are not. But hey, not everybody wants excitement. Sometimes you just want to get to the grocery store and back.
This is the quintessential grandma-spec Reliant, a four-door sedan with a bench seat, a column-mounted gearshift for the Torqueflite automatic, and a manual tune radio that I’m pretty sure picks up both AM and FM stations. The standard issue 2.2-liter four was still equipped with a Holley two-barrel carburetor in 1984; fuel injection would arrive one year later with the styling refresh. This car has a scant 17,000 miles on its odometer, documented as original; the seller has paperwork going back to day one. It has been started and driven around the block regularly, but it still has a few cobwebs, and you should probably replace some belts and hoses before going too far. And check the date codes on those tires.
It’s in damn near museum quality condition inside; the seats hardly look like they’ve been sat in. Chrysler made a big deal when the K cars were introduced about them being true six-passenger cars, three in the front and three in the back, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time in various K and E cars over the years, and I can tell you that those six passengers had better be slender, or know each other really well. And in this case, they would be wise to double up on the deodorant; it has air conditioning, but the Freon has long since contributed to the hole in the ozone.
I’m guessing it has been an Arizona car all along, and kept in a garage; there’s no rust, nor is there much in the way of sun damage. The paint is still shiny, and the only fading I see is on the rub strip on the rear bumper. And it has all four original hubcaps.
1986 Cadillac Fleetwood d’Elegance – $3,999
Engine/drivetrain: 4.1-liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Smithtown, NY
Odometer reading: 24,000 miles
Operational status: Runs, but won’t shift out of first gear
In the mid-80s, Cadillac’s full-size lineup switched to front-wheel-drive. But not all of it; because Cadillac did a huge business with limousine and hearse manufacturers, it couldn’t abandon the body-on-frame RWD design altogether. But while the car was all-new, the nameplate was recycled, and things got a little muddy. The new FWD car was the DeVille, or in fancier trims, the Fleetwood, while the old RWD car became the Fleetwood Brougham. The seller calls this a Brougham, but it is in fact a FWD Fleetwood, with the hoity-toity d’Elegance trim package.
The engine is Cadillac’s HT4100 V8, a carryover from the old RWD car, mounted transversely and driving the front wheels through a Turbo Hydramatic 440-T4 transmission. The engine is fine in this one, but the transmission needs help: it won’t shift out of first gear. This is not an electronically-controlled transmission, so whatever is causing it to not shift is a mechanical problem. My money is on the throttle valve cable, which controls shift points; if it broke or came disconnected, it could keep the transmission from upshifting. But obviously you won’t be able to drive it home like this, unless you live in the same neighborhood as the seller.
The interior of these 80s FWD Cadillacs is a very nice place to be, with cushy seats, an easy-to-read digital dash, and plenty of room. As you would expect from the low mileage, it looks practically new inside. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but I don’t think it has a stereo installed; it looks like there’s just a hole where it should be. But the lack of one of those old Delco stereos is no great loss. You’d want something better anyway.
It’s clean and well-kept outside, with no rust. Someone has replaced the rectangular sealed-beam headlights with those awful retrofit LED lights, and then completely mis-aimed one of them. On behalf of every driver who might be going the opposite direction at night, please, please get that re-aimed right away.
Super-low-mileage cars like these can be a good deal, as long as you realize that they’re going to need at least as much work as a well-used example. Sitting around is bad for cars, and so is driving only a couple miles at a time. Honestly, the best thing you could do to either of these cars, after fixing their issues, is change all the fluids, replace the tires, and then take them on a road trip. Add a few hundred miles to the odometers at highway speeds, and I bet they’d both run a lot better when you got back. So which one will it be – the plain-vanilla Reliant, or the stuck-in-first-gear Caddy?
It warms my heart to see the Reliant in the lead. It’s not what I expected.
I’d get a hold of some original “swiss cheese” wheels from 84, maybe some white letter tires, lower it about an inch, and make it my daily driver for when I’m wintering in SoCal.
When you give up on a K-car, you give up on America.
The fleet vehicles that my driver’s education school had were all Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant. I spent at least five hours a week driving and ten riding in the rear seat. That was during the scorching hot summer days in Dallas.
None of them had air conditioning. None of them also had rear passenger door windows that rolled down. So, the rear seats were much warmer than Death Valley. The instructors prohibited us from bring water bottles to stave off the severe dehydration, caused by sweating so much, and towels to absorb the excess sweat. Sometimes, I got called to drive first, which I hated, then I had to put up with seat upholstery that was deeply soaked with sweat from the students waiting their turns. Thus, generous amount of scent cans with sickeningly and nausatingly sweet odour in the cars.
They were slow as fuck, dangerous for merging with the fast-moving traffic. The steering system was looser than the philandering man’s eyes.
Never have I driven or ridden any Aries and Reliant again ever since. And would never again…
The 4.1 V8 in the Cadillac is hellspawn. The devil himself pooped it out. It’s a frightful engine indeed that rouses the public to vote for a Plymouth Reliant.
The K car looks to be in nearly mint condition, just needing a good going through to refresh the consumables (fluids, belts, hoses, and tires). with under 20,000 miles, this car would make a cheap, reliable (or should I say reliant) commuter.
K cars were actually very well-designed vehicles and had a reputation for taking abuse and coming back for more. I anticipate evolved cockroaches may be running the roads driving K cars and munching on Twinkies after the apocalypse.
This was one of the EASIEST Showdowns ever…I’m “going my own way” w/ the comfy Fleetwood Mac. There’s no way I’m voting for a Plymouth “Un”Reliant…for almost 4K?! Ha ha! My brother and I have been making fun of those for a long time as one of the worst cars ever made. Voted 1st, then went back to read.
“Coulda had a V8!”
“You think I’ve never ridden in a Cadillac? I’ve ridden in a Cadillac hundreds of times, THOUSANDS!”
Reliant. This Cadillac was homely when it was new, and time hasn’t helped. I wouldn’t ride in it if I were dead. This isn’t a default choice, I actually like this Reliant.
I was going to post a BNL reference in my answer, but Mark put one right in the poll choices.
Anyway, if the Caddy just needed the headlights replaced, I would have chosen it. But fixing the transmission issue to get it to run properly might take the true cost of this out of the range I’d be willing to pay. Also, online sources seem to indicate that a post-1988 or later version of the engine had fixed all of the issues. So I think this is a bigger project than it appears to be.
I’ll take the Reliant.The Cadillac is definitely the more comfortable car but they were absolute trash.G.M. should still be embarrassed for making them.
I would roll the dice on the Cadillac in the hope that the transmission is a fairly minor thing which it very well could be. Then I’d pop a new stereo in it and replace those awful headlights with proper old school sealed beams and have a very nice, comfy car to drive while waiting for the HT4100 to self-destruct.
The combo of the LED headlights and the missing stereo probably means the grandson got ahold of it and started modding it – this may be why the trans is screwed up. I think I’ll pass on it.
Both?
I much prefer the Caddy, but there’s something off about it. The front end looks misaligned like it’s been bumped into something, and the missing stereo and extraneous red wiring under the hood seems like the leftovers of some stereo project. I could probably deal with it if the transmission was working, but that coupled with the stupid headlights means I’ll pass and go for the Reliant.
The LED headlights are actually warning lights to me. Reliant FTW.
Yes, Grandma didn’t put those in. Someone else owned/drove this car and broke the transmission.
While at the dealership trying to figure out how to stretch the budget to get into a Caddy… Ugly vinyl roof, non-negotiable. Tacky wire wheel covers, non-negotiable. OK, how about radio delete?
Damn, these are both clean. Tiebreaker goes to the car without the abominable (and poorly installed) LED headlights, so I’ll take the Reliant. Not sure what I’d do with either.
The premise of these being grandma cars is a bit of a stretch when looking at the math. These cars are 41 and 39 years old respectively. With the probably safe assumption that these are one-owners (OK, two with the Cadillac as indicated by the headlights and missing stereo, but likely a brief “grand son” second owner who’s ditching it because of the shifting problem possibly brought on by sudden more frequent and harder use after a pampered lifetime), how old was “grandma” when she died? It’s likely she was still in her 40s, maybe early 50s when she bought these. Granted, 40s then was older than 40s today, but all that’s really told by these cars was that whoever ordered them was boring.
Rolling the dice on the Cadillac being an easy fix and, even though these were not all that good, I can’t vote for a K car—I remember them too well (including an idiot friend who tried to outrun a cop on a twisty road only to end up teetering on someone’s landscaping wall). They were $500 cars every day back then and still overpriced.