I built these autos in Fenton, Missouri. We built the Chrysler LeBaron, Dodge Diplomat, & Plymouth Caravelle on the same assembly line! I got hired April 1977. U.A.W. Local 136 Thank You!

@@johnmaki3046 They were. One of my cars is a '98 Mercury Grand Marque. It is the emotional equivalent. Only has 70K miles and runs like new. I use it on Sundays and Trips.

That era would've been great had it not been for the quality problems and poor gas mileage in cars of the time. They put out some beautiful cars with great comfort, far superior to newer cars, but other than that and their simplicity for mechanics, it was only skin deep.

But those ARE admirable to look at, which makes me want to jump behind the wheel and I wouldn't mind having one as a collectable and to show off on weekends if it is well put together and restored. I remember those cars.

my family owned one exactly like the brown sedan in this video. Loved that car and the paint quality was amazing. It use to just shine and the metallic flakes were fantastic.

My Dad had a 1979 Lebron

Chris Lemaster The 318 Pursuit engine kept its 4 bbl Rochester Quadrajet through 1989. Mileage went up a bit in '89 due to a minor change in TC lockup. Prior to that, '81-'84 Pursuits (Thermoquad) would return about 18 mpg in the field. '85-'88 models, about 17 mpg. '89 squads would average about 19. These were pretty low-tech cars, even with the Driver airbag and feedback carbs. They were still a fully hydraulic 3-speed transmission with a 2.94 SureGrip rear. Aerodynamics of your everyday barn door. I no longer restore these old cars, mostly because of lack of parts. My '13 Hemi Pursuit, with 225 more hp, a 5-spd auto, and 2.65 rear gives me over 25 mpg in summer.

P Krantz you can still get parts form these in my home town of Peoria IL and another place you can get parts for these id Rick's U Pull A Part in Kersey PA And Christies Auto Salvage in Dubois PA, and also you can parts for these at East Coast Auto Salivate on the east coast.

not exactly. Mopar and AMC cars are unit body and ride more like a unit body european car than an American Car from Ford or General Motors. These cars were used as police cars up till the end of production, 1990. They don't float. not even close to floating. Yes, quiet but not a floating car like a Caddy or Buick or Mercury.

That’s a sound meter.

@@sprayarm No kidding

Abdulla Alsada it’s easy to laugh at that now but when you consider almost all automotive clocks of that era lost around 90 seconds a day it was definitely something to brag about

It may have been a 4bbl. In Canada, 4 bbl Mopars did not have catalytic converters, so changing to a proper dual exhaust is very easy, and really pays for itself

There were quality problems at all the car companies during this time period. I worked in the Zone office in Boston and I saw Volare's with Aspen tail lamps, Diplomats with Lebaron badges on the C pillar, or glove box doors...etc etc

My dad even found an empty beer can in a 1977 Chrysler that caused a rattle.It was found in the left front door.There was a strike at Chrysler at the time and someone threw it in there going down the assembly line

A Chrysler dealership in Rockford Illinois had a horizon that had the Horizon name on the front and the Dodge Omni name on rear.

Thanks and the Diplomat and LeBaron came out as mid year entries in 1977, all Volare and Aspen issues were really resolved by then. By mid 1977, Aspen and Volare have a good track record, no recalls or problems. People have created a myth around the Volare and Aspen as it being a bad car, it was an excellent car with some teething problems in it's first year and a half. The most expensive recall at the time doesn't help, some how people confuse this and think it was the most recalls of any car? But Volare and Aspen didn't have any more recalls than any other car from 1977 thry 1980. LeBaron and Diplomat were trouble free. My Mom bought a new one in 1977 and we had that car 10 years with no issues or problems.

@@OsbornTramain My dad's 1979 Lebron was a BEAUTY, but it had transmission and rear end reliability problems.

Not exactly, The Diplomat was really a small intermediate car, never considered a Big Full Sized car. the last Full Sized Traditional C body car was 1978 for Chrysler with it's Newport and New Yorker. The next size, B body evolved into the R body ended in 1981. The Diplomat was M body and it ended in 1989, as you stated, 7 years before GM's last Full Sized Caprice or Roadmaster or Fleetwood in 1996. Not until the new Magnum Wagon was Chrysler back in the Large RWD market again. One big difference too was that Chrysler used Unit Body since 1960, something Ford and GM never adopted for their full sized cars.

@@OsbornTramain Ironically the 2005 Magnum isn't even a full size wagon, but only in the EPA midsize class at 133.1 cubic feet index, even smaller than the Aspen (138) and barely larger than a K-car (130).

Chrysler Financial woes really started in the early 1970's when the Arab Oil Embargo started. Their new line of 1974 Full Sized C body cars were brought on at the worst times. Sales of these cars hurt the company financially. Then the 1975 Recession, then the launch of the 1976 Aspen/Volare. The Aspen and Volare which eventually proved to be great cars as well as the dirivatives, Diplomat and LeBaron cost a lot to build in R&D and were launched too so with Quality issues. The Fender recall was the most expensive recall in the auto industry. All while Chrysler was spending tons on the Horizon and K cars of the future besides other programs like the Turbine Engine. Chrysler suffered big losses, but didn't go bankrupt. It was a big hole to climb out of . Despite the Diplomat being a great car, sales were off in the 1979 and then 1980 years again for the Economic Recession that began plus Rumors of Chrysler's poor financial health. The car that turned things around was the K car.....that's why the Government Co-signed loan bail out helped, It got Chrysler into 1981 and avoiding bankruptcy so that they could launch the car which then turned Chrysler around. Then the mini van...etc etc.

or hot seed burns

Dash Board, front clip and rear tail treatment....The M Platform isn't really different than the F platform for the Aspen

They didn't have a lot of cash because they were spending so much money redesigning the entire fleet, Aspen Volare, then LeBaron Diplomat and then Horizon Omni.....R body New Yorker and St Regis....all introduced in 3 years time, 1976 thru 1978. That's a lot of money to build new cars.....all while the economy was tanking

@@OsbornTramain Absolutely true. But Chrysler has always found a way to come back. I find Chrysler's story to be really interesting and always have. Looking back, they underestimated the Asian competition, and that may have been the biggest failure of the Big 3.

I don't recall any bugs in these cars, they came out as a mid year entry in 77, they were better than the Aspen and Volare in terms of quality, My Mom had one new in 78. I remember the door pull straps would fall off, but that's the only bug I can recall? What specifically did you mean in terms of bugs?

OsbornTramain quality control basically, they were good cars but I’d take a Caprice over it if I had the choice

These Diplomats were lovely. I really wish I had bought one instead of the dreadful 84 Olds Delta 88 I was foolish enough to buy.

yep, this was saved from a dumpster, to be fair, this wasn't processed like my newer uploads with color restoration, only cleaning....and I agree, despite the poor quality, you get to see something from the past, history. How cars were marketed.

Wait so this isn't the original coolored video?? Man I though it was, but it still looks very well. Better than the commercials you see today. I would definitely prefer this

It's a different style treatment of a vinyl roof around the rear window of the car. Rather than having a chrome trim piece and the vinyl tucked down and one piece of vinyl, the french stitching is a separate section of vinyl sewn into the and then curled under the trim so no trim shows. It's mostly seen on landau style roof or half roofs

Right at the bottom of this orange sales form. 😬

it may seam trivial, but find a GM car with out the rubber strips? They all came equipped that way so it means it was always added to the base price. Basically in pricing GM would always strip theirs down to nothing but 98% of the cars produced would have that strip meaning GM was playing games on prices

Nope, it’s a Diplomat. The LeBaron and Diplomat were built on the same body platform, but the LeBaron’s turn signals were mounted on top of the headlights, and this one, the Diplomat, were mounted below.

Simpler times my friend.

Valid point, so often, I see people saying after having been in a ride in an old American Large car, "It's like floating on air" or "It's like a yacht". but the reality was that GM, Ford and Chrysler and even AMC had very different ideas on how a car should ride. They didn't ride all the same. The Chrysler and AMC products partly due to their unit body designs had firmer ride and better control. But at the time, people were flocking to the Buicks and Mercurys and Oldsmobiles with very soft rides. Ironically, today, people love a firm ride and hate that soft ride feel.

That's because they have been brainwashed into thinking that if their cars ride like a truck, they are somehow better. I never bought it. At speeds below 75 MPH, there is little benefit between a firm suspension and a soft one, in terms of handling, in my opinion and that is based on experience. Cars are tested on race tracks and not on regular roads and highways. It doesn't reflect true driving conditions when they do that. I don't want a car that rides like a truck. I could do everything in my 1971 Fleetwood and 1976 Coupe DeVille that I can do in my 2015 Cadillac ATS. I miss my older ones. I could set the cruise at 75 MPH and just pilot the car along. You can't do that in any of the newer cars. When I go on a long trip, I take my 1995 Sedan DeVille which is in showroom condition.

I think Ford was more focused on the cloud-like ride; GM rode the middle ground, and ChryCo. was the handling company. I liked the MOPARs the best. Couldn't say anything about AMC.

Wayne - Absolutely agree there. I was reading about the new Lincoln Nautilus (replacing the MKX, I believe), and one of the commenters said that they prefer the Lincoln for being a passenger, and the Cadillac for being a driver.

You are correct. In 1976, if all you wanted was ride comfort and quietness, you turned to Ford. If you wanted only performance, you turned to Chrysler, If you wanted high style and the best combination between ride and handling, you went to G.M. A.M.C.? A.M.C. did give a damn good ride. The Ambassador rode like a Cadillac. They spared no amount of money when it came to ride comfort but, the cars were ugly as sin. My sister had an A.M.C. Matador. It rode EXACTLY like a Ford Torino of the same year. If you were to close your eyes and you didn't know which was which, you wouldn't be able to tell which car you were in. Even the seats felt the same. They were both set too close to the floor, in my opinion. G.M. sat the front passengers up a little higher.

You should see the 78 Ford T-Bird. The Gas filler pipe to the tank WENT THROUGH THE TRUNK!

Just curious, was it new or used? how many miles on it when you bought it? Cause I've not run into many complaints, and it had almost zero recalls from the Feds.

OsbornTramain it was used. It was my first car. Looking back, it was hilarious the things that went wrong with it. To give you an idea, a typical day....trying to drive it, you'd have to keep one foot on gas and another on the break, because if you let off the gas, it'd die. You wouldn't make it 5 feet. You just had to keep starting it over and over. The heater didn't work, the defroster didn't work....sometimes the radio did if you'd bang on the dash just right. It would back fire all the time, sounded like a 12 guage going off and smoke when it did. One day I was going down the road trying to keep it running and it was pouring down rain...of course the windows were fogged up, so I had to roll the window down a lil bit. When I did, the window fell all the way down and the windshiled wiper mechanism broke that made them go back and forth so I drove 30 miles in january in freezing cold rain with no wipers, no window and no heat. My wedding day, my wife and her best friend was all sitting in front and we go around a curve and the door just flys open nearly loosing my ex. Looking back that would have been a good thing. Lol. I had a brand new battery and i sold it for 250.00 under the understanding they bring back my new battery. They didn't and I laughed all the way to the bank. It was maroon...a 2 dr. Everytime my ex peed me off, I'd threaten to hunt down that car and park it in her driveway. Lmao

That's a STEAL! Enjoy.