The thing of it is that this could have been a true successor to the Road Runner name. The Volare/Aspen wasn't a bad looking car, it was essentially a Dart/Valiant with a major makeover. There were plenty of Mopar performance parts on the shelf that could have turned this into a decent performer, but it's a weird example of malaise era manufacturing. Take a decent looking platform and then ruin its chances of success with 'we-don't-give-a-shit' build quality, even worse customer support, and then when marketing says they need a performance car tart it up with stripes, spoilers and stickers. There was a lot of groupthink going on, in as much as all of the domestic manufacturers were guilty of perpetrating these abominations.
Sad ain't it!
ReplyDeleteThe thing of it is that this could have been a true successor to the Road Runner name. The Volare/Aspen wasn't a bad looking car, it was essentially a Dart/Valiant with a major makeover. There were plenty of Mopar performance parts on the shelf that could have turned this into a decent performer, but it's a weird example of malaise era manufacturing. Take a decent looking platform and then ruin its chances of success with 'we-don't-give-a-shit' build quality, even worse customer support, and then when marketing says they need a performance car tart it up with stripes, spoilers and stickers. There was a lot of groupthink going on, in as much as all of the domestic manufacturers were guilty of perpetrating these abominations.
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