Junkyard Find: 1991 Eagle Premier LX

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

While it’s cool and all to find genuine, everyone-agrees-it’s-a-classic cars in the junkyard, what I really like to find is the cars that serve as evolutionary dead-ends or corporate-merger footnotes. The Eagle Premier is a fine example of the latter type.

This ’91 ended up in a Denver self-service yard because it bashed into something, hard. That means we can assume it was running properly up until the moment of impact.

Always wear your seat belt! This Premier’s driver didn’t, hence the bent steering wheel.

The AMC 2.5 four-cylinder was standard in the Premier LX, but this car has the optional PRV V6. Not exactly a reliable engine, but sophisticated.

I’ve never ridden in a Premier, but I’ve heard that it was the nicest-riding product Chrysler offered in the early 1990s. Its Renault 21/25/Medallion AMC/Renault genes have lived on in Chrysler’s products until the present day, with some of the Premier’s suspension design showing up in the current Challenger and Charger. It’s always fun to trace the AMC family tree!





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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  • Acuraandy Acuraandy on Jan 13, 2012

    @Vanilla, I had a Plymouth Gran Fury. The same guy I bought it from, a lifelong AMC and Mopar fan, his family had an 88 Premier. Probably the best riding car i've ever ridden in, and that's saying something...

  • SuperACG SuperACG on Jan 13, 2012

    In the original "Final Fight" by Capcom, you could smash up one of these in the first bonus round! I never understood why the license plate read "Japan" though...

  • Fahrvergnugen cannot remember the last time i cared about a new bmw.
  • Analoggrotto More useless articles.
  • Spamvw Did clears to my '02 Jetta front markers in '02. Had to change the lamps to Amber. Looked a lot better on the grey wagon.I'm guessing smoked is illegal as it won't reflect anymore. But don't say anything about my E-codes, and I won't say anything about your smoked markers.
  • Theflyersfan OK, I'm going to stretch the words "positive change" to the breaking point here, but there might be some positive change going on with the beaver grille here. This picture was at Car and Driver. You'll notice that the grille now dives into a larger lower air intake instead of really standing out in a sea of plastic. In darker colors like this blue, it somewhat conceals the absolute obscene amount of real estate this unneeded monstrosity of a failed styling attempt takes up. The Euro front plate might be hiding some sins as well. You be the judge.
  • Theflyersfan I know given the body style they'll sell dozens, but for those of us who grew up wanting a nice Prelude Si with 4WS but our student budgets said no way, it'd be interesting to see if Honda can persuade GenX-ers to open their wallets for one. Civic Type-R powertrain in a coupe body style? Mild hybrid if they have to? The holy grail will still be if Honda gives the ultimate middle finger towards all things EV and hybrid, hides a few engineers in the basement away from spy cameras and leaks, comes up with a limited run of 9,000 rpm engines and gives us the last gasp of the S2000 once again. A send off to remind us of when once they screamed before everything sounds like a whirring appliance.
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