Junkyard Find: 1991 and 1993 Chrysler LeBaron Convertibles
One of the worst things about the Malaise Era (other than the ascendance of Captain and Tennile) was the lack of cars with convertible tops during the period. The last convertible Cadillac Eldorado rolled off the assembly line in 1976, but the decline of the convertible had started a few years earlier. The top-down drought held until the last of the Malaise years, when machines such as Rabbit Cabriolets and LeBaron convertibles became available. Chrysler kept making the K-based LeBaron convertible until 1995, but you don’t see many of them these days. Here’s a pair of early-90s examples I found side-by-side in a Denver wrecking yard.
For 1991, the LeBaron was nominally built on the Chrysler J platform, but it was really the good old K at heart. By 1993, a restyle made the car look less like something that had stepped out of 1981.
If I’m ever shopping for a cheap convertible with good parts availability, I know what I’ll get!
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.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
In the late 80's early 90's these were nice looking cars and they still hold up today. I still see a few around on the road. You could see the influence of Ford's Aero look especially T-Bird and Cougar though those are better cars. I once owned an 87 T-Bird. Heck I would take a decent LeBaron turbo over a late model Sebring.
We've had a '92 LX convertible since 1996. As someone else has already said, not the most trouble-free ride, especially when it hit the 7 year old mark, but good since then. The 1987-92 cars are among the best looking cars in that era, IMO---the '93-95 front end redesign is not very attractive to my eyes but to each his own. At 136K miles, it still runs and handles great and I'm not afraid to drive it anywhere. We also own a 1990 TC, also a rather good car. None of the sheet metal interchanges between the 2 cars, despite the similar appearance. Almost all of the mechanical bits, other than the ABS brake system, are shared.