Junkyard Find: 1984 Plymouth Turismo
The Simca-derived Omnirizon platform led to some sportier-looking variations as the Malaise Era ground to a close. The hatchback-coupe Dodge 024 and Plymouth TC3 became the Charger and the Turismo, respectively, in 1982. Turismos were never plentiful, and these days they’re nearly extinct. Here’s a rare example I found yesterday at a Denver self-serve wrecking yard.
The Turismo certainly stood out from the crowd in the middle 1980s, though the Omnirizon platform was getting a bit dated by that point.
By 1984, buyers could opt to replace the VW-derived 1.7 engine with Chrysler’s more powerful 2.2 liter engine. 96 horsepower was decent in a 2,300-pound car in 1984.
You can still find evidence of the car’s Franco-Chrysler heritage here and there.
The 1970s had been over for a few years when this car was sold, but the brown-on-brown tape stripes of the prior decade were able to hold on well into the 1980s.
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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Wow, looks *identical* to my first car, except for being a Plymouth Turismo instead of a Dodge Charger. Could be the SAME car... interior color, exterior, all the same. And I disagree with others, having actually owned basically this identical vehicle in this color - the interior looked very nice as did the exterior when not found on a junkyard 30 years later.
I was brought home from the hospital in a light blue '84 Turismo