Iacocca's Chrysler Saver in 3 Flavors

Special K

Many people were angry that the U.S. government had to step in to save Chrysler & GM after the financial collapse of 2008, but it had actually happened once before. Back in 1979 the Chrysler Corporation needed a 1.5 billion dollar loan from congress to save the failing company. The following 3 cars are all variations of the Reliant K, which was introduced in 1980 and basically saved their bacon.

This is the saving grace I was talking about? Ugh. Like a brown orthopedic shoe.

You can just hear the sad trombone blaring out when this thing buzzes by. SQUARE as square can be, and really brown. It's like they had a checklist of all things needed for a car and that's as creative as the design process went. Windows? Check. Taillights? Check.

Look I'm dissing it because I love to hate it, but the fact remains that this is a rare 2-door coupe version of the 1984 Reliant that has somehow survived 30 years in good shape.

It came equipped with a 2.2 liter Mitsubishi engine and a lifetime supply of yawns. They did manage to sell over 14,000 of these 2 door coupes in '84 out of a whopping total 152,000+ Reliants that year, so something was working. So anyway,

this is a much more appealing car to drive, though the styling is still a bit dowdy. Still, if the K-Car had a highpoint in it's 1981-1995 existence this would definitely be it.

First of all it is a convertible, and second of all it has actual factory aluminum rims as opposed to the mega-cheap plastic hubcaps on other models. But most importantly . . .

it is a fuel-injected TURBO version! Don't laugh too hard these cars were fast in their day!

 This is a 1986 model in Garnet Red, though the finish is dissolving as with many 80s (and 90s) cars.

 The two hood louvers are specific to the turbocharged engine. Enthusiasts today love these motors as they are easily modifiable and can be made to produce a lot of power. Strangely Chrysler installed the turbo in their original minivans for years. To see a late-80s minivan laying a front-wheel burnout is, well all it really indicates is that you've been on YouTube too long and are searching through videos that don't need to be watched.

In case you were too excited by the drop-top;

Oh god why am I doing this? Kant I find something better to post? Kouldn't I have found better rides than this one?

Here is the worst of something that's not that good to begin with; a straight-up Dodge Aries-K from 1987 in white. Basic transportation is the name of the game.

This is here because I literally shot the convertible and found this on the next block. We're beyond yawns now and moving towards wincing, slight cringes, and feelings of needing to be somewhere else.

 Alf was on TV when this was made, which is probably the coolest thing about this car. Thank you for reading.