Junkyard Find: 1987 Dodge 600 SE
For most of the 1980s and well into the 1990s, most cars made by Chrysler were members of the many-branched K-Car family tree. In the early years, the K was sold as an all-American economy car for the frugal, but Lee Iacocca had his eye on stealing some sales from European luxury marques. Perhaps a K made to look something like a Mercedes-Benz would do the job?
This approach wasn’t so convincing for the Ford Granada, but Chrysler went ahead and made the Dodge 600 with suspiciously Mercedes-ish badging.
The 600 was available with the turbocharged 2.2-liter engine, as we have seen, but this one has the ordinary naturally aspirated 2.5.
This one has the Whorehouse Red Velour upholstery so beloved by American and Japanese car manufacturers during the late 1980s. 1992 may have been the peak year for this phenomenon.
The final owner of this car was NOT A LIBERAL, just in case you were wondering what sort of Coloradan might drive a 30-year-old K-Car.
You can’t beat ’em!
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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- Daniel J I had read an article several years ago that one of the issues that workers were complaining about with this plant is that 1/3 of the workforce were temporary workers. They didn't have the same benefits as the other 2/3 of the employees. Will this improve this situation or make it worse? Do temporary workers get a vote?I honestly don't care as long as it is not a requirement to work at the plant.
- Kosmo Tragic. Where in the name of all that is holy did anybody get the idea that self-driving cars were a good idea? I get the desire for lane-keeping, and use it myself, occasionally, but I don't even like to look across the car at my passenger while driving, let along relinquish complete control.
- Bof65705611 There’s one of these around the corner from me. It still runs…driven daily, in fact. That fact always surprises me.
- Master Baiter I'm skeptical of any project with government strings attached. I've read that the new CHIPS act which is supposed to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. is so loaded with DEI requirements that companies would rather not even bother trying to set up shop here. Cheaper to keep buying from TSMC.
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And speaking of the "Mercedes-like" naming convention, ChryCo went one step too far in calling the Chrysler version of this car "E-Class".
Looking at this car brings back lots of auction memories where scads of K-car based sedans used to go through the red light "as is" lanes with piston knocking engines, leaky head gaskets, check engine lights and rocker panels you could put your foot through. Those red and blue cloth interiors did seem to hold up fairly well though. For the most part they ran albeit poorly