V8 LeBarons?

I went through all 14 pages of this forum and could not find a single reference to the late '70s - early '80s rear wheel drive LeBarons. I don't even see a forum for the mid-'90s Chrysler Fifth Avenue, which was the last, luxurious gasp for this body, which started out in 1977 or so as the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare. You know, the police cars and taxis!

Are they on another thread? Did they all rust away? I'm in Southern California and see them around here, at least.

I had a used '80 Town & Country woody wagon that was a great car! 318 4-barrel V8 and torsion bar front suspension. Anybody else?

I dunno, I had a 78 Cordoba, and that was one of the bottom 10 cars on my list. It was only about 4-5 years old with a 318 carb/lean burn engine and it died many times for no reason. I figure it was the computer which was mounted on the air cleaner (?) which probably made it unreliable as it was just an unpotted circuit board. We've come a loooong way since those first computers (but had to start somewhere, right?)
Plus that soft front suspension, OMG it was scary at times.
I did like the LED digital clock, seemed to impress the females of the day.
After this car I got some AUDI's and FWD cars and wow, what a difference, esp in the winter.
But now I am back with a Caravan and Lebaron Convertible - EFI just makes a world of difference in reliabilty & mileage.
I for one am not sad to see most 60's and 70's (early 80's cars too) go away to the shredder. I do have a 68 Galaxie Conv, just so I can show the kids how ancient cars looked. Man it is a BOAT... But nothing compared to the 68 -70 Newport. So long...! And Wide... wAnd the convertible has width full back seat too. Beautiful. To sit in... At $1.20/L for gas ($5/gallon - and we MAKE the stuff here) it only takes short trips nowadays

In the late '70s/early '80s, 49 states got their 318s with two-barrel carbs and about 120 net hp (remember that Corvettes were struggling along with 165 hp from their 350s).

Only police cars and California LeBarons got a four barrel carb and 145 hp, I looked six months to get one of those. Only problem I ever had was a completely coked or clogged-up intake manifold that caused a no-start condition. I've had more issues with the Mitsubishi V6 electronics in my '95 Cirrus. Love the way the cloud cars drive though, road feel is comparable to our BMWs at highway speeds (NOT at the track!). Your convertible is the same basic chassis, the early ones have the exact same dash.

Just wish it had a four-cylinder to make plug changes possible without removing the intake manifold; they should have had access through the dash like a van.

By the way, there was a cool rumor out of Detroit back around 1990.

Remember how the Russians bought Packard's pre-war body dies and other tooling? For years they produced luxury Packard clones for high government officials under the brand name of ZIL.

China has done similar things. For example they are the last country in the world manufacturing NEW steam locomotives. When LeBaron Fifth Avenue production was ending, they negotiated unsuccessfully to buy the tooling to produce the car in China. Mopar has a habit of running out of NOS spare parts rather quickly after a model is discontinued. When I heard about the possible Chinese purchase, I was hopeful we'd have new spares for decades to come!

Wow Chinese LeBarons? That would be so weird! Btw you can post here about the old cars, plenty of people here to answer. And LOL, you think fwd is better in the snow! LOLOLOL

I live in Chicago, man, I have to deal with snow driving in all sorts of different cars (dad's a mechanic) FWD and RWD are the same thing, just a bit different in controlling them. You need one of those posi-traction axles. If you had a really old RWD car, you would plow through the snow better that FWD because the really old ones are really heavy. AWD/4WD is what you need for snow, but RWD and FWD are both livable, as long as you're not one of those retards that spin their wheels trying to get out of a parking spot, they blow their tires and burn out their transmissions. They make a lot of business for transmission shops... did I say retards? I meant valuable customers!

well you could convert a lebaron from FWD to RWD with the same parts used on the daytona.
here is the web site www.exlinecustomauto.com (http://www.exlinecustomauto.com)
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m145/exline76/Daytona7small.jpg

There are plans for dropping a 360 into a Lebaron for the drag racing circuit.

You're not really going to find many people wanting to talk about the cars. The J-body is the most popular and even it's a niche, the V8s are even more so.

LOL, you think fwd is better in the snow! LOLOLOL

I live at the beach in Los Angeles. What is snow? LOL

And LOL, you think fwd is better in the snow! LOLOLOL

For 90% of people it is.