Junkyard Find: Speaking of Brand Dilution…

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

It was a shame how the Cadillac name had all the blood drained out of it by Malaise Era faux-classy models, and Chrysler wasn’t far behind; by 1982, you could buy what was essentially a Dodge Diplomat with New Yorker badging. A New Yorker with a Slant Six?

At least this car came with a “Combustion Computer.” Solid state, no less— leave the vacuum tubes to the GAZ Volga 3102! In spite of the Slant Six being an extremely un-luxurious powerplant, it was nearly bulletproof.

Still, this New Yorker stayed on the street for nearly 30 years. That’s longer than most Corollas live.



Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Kane Kane on Jul 21, 2011

    Howdy folks ! I was wondering if anyone could help me. I've got an '82 Chrysler New Yorker with the inline 6, 225 ci engine. The problem that I am having with it is the idle which is very rough and when the engine is cold the darn thing just dies but once she is underway it's fine. I would appreciate any advice you could throw my way. Thanks, Kane in Canada

  • Chicagoland Chicagoland on May 19, 2012

    Buster Brew said "(by 83 the base New Yorker would move to the new E (read stretched K) platform..." True, only for one model year, 1982, was the Chrysler M-body called 'New Yorker 5th Ave'. MM posted a new 'junkyard' article that infers the 1989-93 was the only K based New Yorker, but 1983-88 were beforehand.

  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
  • Tassos Jong-iL Communist America Rises!
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