Good morning! Today’s Showdown is brought to you by the letters J and K. Why? Because I can. I don’t imagine I’m going to win over any converts among you – lord knows I’ve tried – but there’s nothing stopping me from subjecting you to them. These both come to us courtesy of the Underappreciated Survivors Facebook group.
We looked at two little egg-shaped economy cars yesterday, and I was afraid that if I made it a Toyota versus anything else, whatever the other car was wouldn’t stand a chance. And it looks like I was right. The little Hyundai Accent didn’t get even half as many votes.
I get it; Toyota looms large over the conversation whenever reliability and durability are brought up. But having owned a few old Toyotas, I can tell you they are not invincible. Neglect and deferred maintenance can do a number on them just like any other car. And this one comes from one of those fly-by-night dealerships along Southeast 82nd Avenue in Portland. I’ve had dealings with those hucksters before, and I’m not in any hurry to do so again. The Accent, on the other hand, has some maintenance records and comes from a private seller, which feels much safer to me.
Now then: The RADwood phenomenon, and 1980s nostalgia in general, is still going strong – to a combination of joy and horror to those of us who lived through that flashy decade. Sure, the music was great, and some of the movies were fun (though personally I prefer John Carpenter to John Hughes), but the fashions were appalling. But it’s the cars we’re here to talk about, and love them or hate them, two platforms were ubiquitous in mall parking lots throughout the ’80s: the General Motors J platform, and the Chrysler K platform. Against all odds, I found two that aren’t obscenely overpriced like so many are these days. Let’s take a look at them now (see what I did there?).
1988 Pontiac Sunbird GT Turbo Convertible – $1,500
Engine/drivetrain: Turbocharged 1.8-liter OHC inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Eau Claire, WI
Odometer reading: 76,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, but needs a few little things
Throughout most of the 1980s, if you wanted to tell GM cars from different divisions apart, you had to look at the trim. Chevies, Pontiacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and even Cadillacs all shared sheetmetal, so the differences were in the details. Each division did what it could to distinguish its models, and Pontiac was more successful than some of the others, with its trademark directional five-spoke wheel design (there’s a nickname for these, but I can’t remember what it is) and blacked-out trim. This Sunbird GT had another trick up its sleeve: a turbocharged engine.
The Sunbird’s 1.8-liter turbo engine came from Opel, was built in Brazil, and was shared only with Buick, for its Skyhawk T-Type. It makes 150 horsepower, quite a lot for a small car in the ’80s. This one feeds the front wheels through a TH125C three-speed automatic, which is a bit of a letdown, but it’s suitable for a convertible cruiser like this. As you might expect from a convertible in the upper Midwest, it doesn’t have many miles on it. This isn’t a winter car for Wisconsin. The seller says it runs fine, but it needs “a few little things.”
Like so many convertibles over the years, this Sunbird started out as a two-door coupe, and was beheaded and stiffened by ASC. You lose quite a lot of back seat room if you opt for the convertible, but hey, if you don’t call “shotgun” fast enough, that’s your problem. This one is in good condition outside, but the seller says it needs a new top. Or, I suppose, you could just leave it in the garage if it’s going to rain. The heater core started leaking recently and has been bypassed, but it’s actually very easy to get to on these old J-bodies, so there’s no reason not to replace it.
The upside of not having been driven in the winter is that it’s rust-free, something you can’t say about very many cars in Wisconsin. It’s not perfect; there is some paint flaking off the plastic front bumper, and a little wrinkle in the bottom of the driver’s side door, but it’s a $1,500 convertible that runs well. Ignore the flaws, and just go drive it.
1985 Plymouth Reliant – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter OHC inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Goshen, NY
Odometer reading: 92,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, but needs a few little things
If there’s a more generic, stereotypical 1980s car than the Plymouth Reliant, I don’t know what it is. The savior of Chrysler Corporation along with its twin the Dodge Aries, the Reliant is a car nobody loved, but lots of people liked enough to buy. Chrysler sold two million of these things over its nine-year run, and a shocking number of them are still around today. Part of that could be due to their popularity with older drivers who didn’t put many miles on them, but survivor Reliants like this are a lot more common than you’d guess. This one is just a lot more reasonably priced than most.
One year after this car was built the Reliant’s standard 2.2-liter engine would receive throttle-body electronic fuel injection, which gave it a big improvement in drivability and a small horsepower bump, but these old carbureted 2.2s run well enough, certainly better than the optional Mitsubishi-built 2.6 liter. This one has received an elecric fuel pump to give the old mechanical pump a little help. It probably wasn’t necessary; my guess is that the mechanical pump was just worn, but whatever. It has a leaking valve cover gasket, but so does every other 2.2 I have ever seen. It’s easy enough to do; just don’t skimp on the RTV sealant, especially in the corners.
This is a base model K car, which means a one-piece bench seat, a column-mounted shifter, and no center console. The seller has compensated with one of those parts-store consoles with the spikes on the bottom to grip the carpet. Hey, it’s better than no cupholders at all. The interior is in good shape apart from a droopy headliner, but sadly, the air conditioning doesn’t work.
I have long believed that round Hella driving lights can improve the looks of any car, and I was pleased to see that this car advances that theory. I guess you could call this the “Rally Edition” Reliant. Actually, you could lean into that and put some Martini stripes on it. Why not? It’s a K car; have some fun with it.
Most of you scoff whenever I feature cars like these, but this time, they’re not stupidly overpriced. They’re not perfect, either, but what old car doesn’t need some tinkering? So what do you think – is it the drop-top Sunbird that needs a top, or the two-door Reliant with driving lights?
Sunbird can be rebuilt many times over.
Being an automatic convertible J-Body means that it doesn’t matter if its turbo works or not.
I’ll take the sun-drenched Sunbird, please and thank you. A cheap convertible I can use to run errands on a sunny summer day sounds like a delight.
This Sunbird is the correct first convertible for the young crowd into the Molestache and 80’s clothing styles. It will ween them off the supposed benefits of a convertible anything and they will at least match the styling until they grow out of it like those terrible 80’s clothes.
That being said, I would take taht Poncho over the K-Car all day any day. I would however be swayed the other way had it been a Clean 85 Turismo(in white with CUDA Badges) or an 85 Plymouth Conquest.
Bleh! Gimme the Hella lipstick on a pig then excuse me while I take a long walk off a short pier
Neither of these cars could justify taking up space inside my garage, so I’ll take the one I can leave outside. Besides, if I’m forced to have a three-speed, I’d rather not be mocked by that big, stupid-looking blob sticking out of the Pontiac’s center console.
It will take time and therapy to heal and forgive you for foisting this choice upon me. That was cruel. I’ll take the Plymouth.
Oof. I went with the Pontiac over the dreary Reliant, but I can’t see a situation where I would pay my own money for either of them.
Give me the joyful turd over the self-loathing turd.
Is that the Sun-Turd or the Self-Reliant?
Sunbird seems joyful – yeah open top Turbo! The Reliant is just an exercise in self-loathing.
Rode across Ohio on a weekend once in an ’87 LeBaron 4dr. Riding along as my roommate (Frat bro) took his girlfriend from Cleveland to Dayton. An hour in I was wishing for my Fox-body LTD.
I could see that. I chose the Sunbird as well. Too many bad memories of a K car that would die for no reason or needed to have a door tied shut with rope because it kept flying open on turns.
The ’84 LTD was far from a fine motoring experience, but was not a loose rattletrap on an 8+ hour roundtrip drive. Certainly more spacious and comfortable.
The Sunbird wins by default
Might be me, but J-car convertibles always gave me “cheerleader’s car” vibes – but they’re 3rd on the list (behind baseline fieros and, of course, the final boss VW Cabrio). I was obviously never part of that demographic, but I can see them as cool in their own right, especially 35 years later when few examples still exist.
I went with K since it at least appears to have cupholders, but I’d prefer the open top. But I wouldn’t invest in a new top, and I’m definitely not giving it a spot in the prime garage spaces.
An open top is just a sawzall and a case of beer away. YMMV
Honestly, the likelihood would be high for a targa top or canvas sunroof.
I want the K Car, and I will give it the Repo Man generic Beer treatment. A blue stripe and the word car painted along the bottom of the doors. The definitive “an car”. I have no use for a convertible without a functional top, but that K car is so generic it has become interesting. I also like the driving lights and blue interior.
This is the correct answer ^^^
that Reliant hurts my eyes.
My grandmother had a Reliant k-car. I borrowed it once, and found out why people kept rear-ending Grandma. Yes, she did not want to actually apply the accelerator pedal, but also when I floored it, nothing changed in the acceleration rate.
And white???? Really?? This person went all in on making this forgettable!
Edit: Those Sunbird wheels always look fun.
Plenty of GM products have disappointed me with woeful quality control, a discordant symphony of creaks and groans and the kind of performance that makes you question the use of the word “performance.” But, assuming they start, they get me there. Every damn time.
But Chrysler products have actually left me walking. Suddenly and with no warning whatsoever, they have clutched their chests and keeled over. In a toss-up between Hyundai and Dodge, I’ll take the Dodge. In a toss-up between Plymouth and GM anything? GM.
Pontiac. All day.
“A GM car will run bad longer than most cars will run at all.”
I’ve said it repeatedly. It’s one of the positives about the Iron Duke which I staunchly defend, regardless of what people talk about when they complain about it. They don’t often complain about it not working.
I would buy both, and have them crushed.
Last time I drove a Reliant I was amazed at it’s handling. Somehow it was engineered to handle like a car four times its size. I’ve never seen a car that small handle like a suicidal drunken whale in a bounce house getting pelted by water balloons while trying to tell its kids to shut up and its wife that we can totally get home because it was just one six pack.
So I’m going Pontiac.
If I’ve got to be in a penalty box, the top might as well be open.
Having already driven a white Reliant like this (or maybe it was some other white K car since they were all equally forgettable) as a rental back in the 80s I’m going to pick the Sunbird. Try again Tucker!
Well, I don’t have a million dollars, so I’m certainly not buying you a K car. Or a nice chesterfield or an ottoman, for that matter. I’m sorry.
I’ll take the Sunbird.
No green dress, then, either?
That’s cruel.
We can still eat Kraft dinners, though. We just can’t have dijon ketchup with them.
If one of them comes with a monkey, I’ll go with whichever one has the monkey. I’ve always wanted a monkey.
What about an Emu or a Lama?
I even have a business case for the Sunbird: to pick hosts from the bus station to my summer house. Easy driving while showing them a scenic region would be a win.
The Reliant is pure, unfiltered sadness. As if life isn’t depressive enough.
Marvin from the hitchhikers guide immediately comes to mind
I’d buy both. But definitely the Sunbird first.
I’ve had both of these cars! My K-Car was an 84 instead of an 85, and in addition to an 88 Sunbird convertible, I also owned a third generation, 1993 Sunbird Convertible with the 3.1 V6 and glass rear window.
I have great memories of both cars.
I grew up too poor to ever call any running car a penalty box, but the K-Car comes as close any I’ve ever known. Yet I’d still like another run in America’s tubby version of a Yugo. Nostalgia.
The K-Car was so incredibly utilitarian and un-fun to drive that the best use would be a factory spec K-Car racing league that friends and I used to joke about all the time.
Mine wouldn’t start well most of the time, and dieseled so badly when hot that it wouldn’t stop until about fifteen seconds or more after you turned it off. The way to stop the engine in a hurry was to floor the brake and put it back in gear, and even that often took a few seconds. But the car got me where I wanted to be almost every time.
Even though the 88 Sunbird wasn’t as good as my 93, I’d also take another in an instant at that price. A Sunbird is a great top-down cruiser for casual drives. A bit soft, comfy, yet reasonably economical.
Travel to and from Wisconsin and New York are the costs that keep me from making any serious attempt to buy either of these.
I was initially thinking Sunbird because with the top down I wouldn’t have to look at the dreadful 80s econobox interior, but a new top is a big ask for such a mediocre vehicle. I would need a working top because the weather where I live can change very quickly. I’ll have to give the K car the OK.
And yes, you are a monster for giving us these choices. How do you sleep at night?
In a big bed with his wife.
“[S]ome of the movies were fun (though personally I prefer John Carpenter to John Hughes)”
Oh, yeah, it’s mighty annoying how so many people love John Hughes films, with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off being an egregious example in that it’s about a psychological bully who manipulates people to get what *he* wants and how it makes a villain out of the school officer who was simply doing the job he was hired to do. Plus there’s the casting, what with Matthew Broderick’s vehicular homicides, yes, plural, in Ireland, with Charlie Sheen’s subsequent behavior, and with the actor who played the aforementioned school officer and all (be sure to turn off the AI when doing online searches about that actor.)
Ha, that Plymouth Reliant is actually pretty fancy-o with its blue *cloth* upholstery. My family had a ’87 Reliant 4-door also in white but with tan *vinyl* upholstery on its bench seats. To paraphrase another 80s movie, that’s not a base model K car, this is a base model K car.
I’ve said for years that the best thing Cameron could possibly have done is go to college out of state and not stay in touch with Ferris. I had a “Ferris” as high school friend, and I haven’t spoken to him in years. No reason to.
And really, vinyl was standard as late as ’87? Jeez.
Yeah, it was one of my ex’s absolute favorite films and in retrospect I see how absolutely on brand that was. And likewise for so many other people I’ve known who loved that film. So along with the Quentin Tarantino oeuvre that film serves as a useful red flag in terms of cinematic tastes, lol.
Yeah, apparently vinyl was standard for the entirety of the Reliant/Aries run (1981-’89.) Dang…
Since I posted my original comment before I’d had my morning coffee I completely forgot that my family’s K-car was actually a Dodge Aries (it doesn’t help that to this day my siblings still refer to it as either a K-car or a Reliant despite me reminding them it was actually an Aries, like our dad’s astrological sign; we used to rib him mercilessly about his choices of cars which also included a 1982 Chrysler Le Baron where whenever we played the board game Masterpiece we would make him play the character of the baron just so we could call him Le Baron.)
Ferris Bueller was not the hero of the film, though.The story is told through his perspective, but really, we’re supposed to be rooting for Cameron to take control of his own life, which he ultimately does in the end.
I love the fan theory that Ferris doesn’t exist and is just a figment of Cameron’s imagination.
I kind of subscribe to that one. He’s like a manifestation of everything Cameron is repressing.
I have nothing to back this up, but I almost feel like the whole film was partially ruined in editing and because of what were likely studio notes. Like it just seems that John Hughes wanted Cameron to play a bigger role but the studio just wanted a wacky good-time comedy and beefed up Ferris’ presence, which is why so many people assume that we’re supposed to think he’s the hero.
Well, that and Cameron calls him his hero, but if Ferris is his imaginary friend of course he’d be the hero. I think it’s viewed differently by the different age groups though. I was in middle school when it came out and definitely saw it differently then than I do now.
Ooh, I like that.
That might be giving John Hughes too much credit, as he really was not that deep…
No, but it’s a fairly obvious element of the movie that Cameron is really the only one with an arc.
Yeah, but in the end Hughes indeed was not that deep at all and the rest of his oeuvre reinforces the expectation that the audience is to see Ferris as the film’s hero for helping Cameron. It’s been argued that studio interference was responsible for the final product but the fact is that Hughes was already something of a powerhouse thanks to his earlier works such as National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club so he pretty much had free rein to do whatever he wanted. He wasn’t one to do ambiguity and unreliable narrators, after all.
Yeah no contest. K cars are very hard to get my vote, and I love Pontiac, especially the odd balls so no contest here today!
I seriously want them both. I’m the oddball that has love for the J and K cars.