Any front-wheel-drive Chrysler product from the ‘80s until the Neon came around in the mid-nineties is a K-car in my head, and K-cars are dull, boring, and uninspiring heaps of appliance-like motoring. Even most other MotorWeek Retro Reviews of Chrysler K-platform vehicles show homely looking cars crawling their way through the quarter-mile and slamming from bump stop to bump stop as they wallow through the slalom, so I expected to see more of the same from the 1994 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible review. What I saw really surprised me.
Watching the MotorWeek crew huck this antique front-wheel drive, automatic, drop top around on a track, I was surprised to see it complete a 0-to-60 run in under 10 seconds, and borderline flabbergasted when I watched it zip through the slalom almost gracefully. It certainly ain’t anywhere near as composed as, say a Porsche, but you have to remember that the K platform was introduced in 1981, and chopping the roof off did this clunky car no favors. All I’m saying is I didn’t expect it to perform as well as it did, not that it broke any land speed records, and not that the Chrysler LeBaron Convertible should become
While the exterior definitely looks more ‘80s to me than ‘90s, this facelift did away with the flip-up headlight covers that concealed the earlier model’s sealed beam headlights. Before you roast me for disliking pop-up headlights, they weren’t real pop-ups anyway, just recessed behind flip up covers. On the interior, the seats look unreasonably plush and the dash design looks relatively contemporary, too, with dual airbags and a curved dash. Again, while I’m not saying this car looks modern, it looks more modern than I expected. Seeing this makes me question my quick judgement of all K platform cars. Maybe I’ve been too harsh on the cars built on this company-saving platform.
