Junkyard Gem: 1986 Plymouth Reliant LE Woodie Station Wagon

Chrysler was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in the late 1970s, but a government bailout kept the company on life support long enough for the new K platform to hit the marketplace in 1981 and turn things around. The Reliant was Plymouth’s K-Car, available in coupe, sedan, convertible, and wagon form and built all the way through 1995; here’s a woodie version of the ‘86 wagon, spotted in a self-service wrecking yard in California’s Central Valley.


Decal-based fake wood had become so acceptable on cars, home appliances, and audio equipment by the middle 1980s that few thought to question the even-more-phony-looking-than-usual “wood” on Chrysler’s wagons of the era.

Inside, plenty more of the products of the Enchanted Plastic Forest may be seen.

Reliant buyers in 1986 could choose between a 2.2-liter Chrysler four rated at 97 horsepower and a slightly torquier 2.5 liter version rated at 100 horsepower (the Mitsubishi 2.6 Astron engine— a turbocharged version of which was used in the famous Mitsubishi Starion— was discontinued for the Reliant after the 1985 model year). This car has the 2.5.

I have had many miserable experiences with a 1986 Reliant wagon, so I feel incapable of delivering an objective opinion of this automobile. It was affordable and sold well during its heyday, and that’s what matters.

Just the car for a trip to McDonald’s.

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Autoblog

Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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