Chrysler has killed wagon version of the Plymouth Valiant And Dodge darts compact cars in the United States after 1966, which meant that the only new small station wagons offered until the mid-1970s by American Dodge and Plymouth dealers were The Colt was made by Mitsubishi And the Cricket was built by Hillman. Meanwhile, American Motors is selling quite well Hornet Sports, so something needs to be done. Something turned out to be Dodge Aspen And its Plymouth Volaré sibling, launched as a 1976 model and included long-roof versions. We have seen a brilliant brown Volaré wagon abandoned several years ago, and now it is the turn of a similar brown Aspen wagon, to be found in a self-service cemetery in northeast Colorado recently.
For a long time, American manufacturers naming their products preferred to use the names of picturesque (or at least rich) regions with warm climates, e.g. Bel Air, Capri, Monaco, Barcelona, Montego, Monte Carlo, Cordoba, Granada, Torino, Riviera and such. Aspen, Colorado, isn’t warm but rich people like to ski there and so it seems an aspirational name for the cheapest US-market Dodge not made by Mitsubishi. Later, other ski-centric areas in the American West, such as Tahoe and Telluride, were used as vehicle names.
The Aspen became even more absurdly rich in the decades following the Dodge Aspen (built for model years 1976 to 1980), so Fiat Chrysler couldn’t resist reviving the name. a luxury Durango with a Chrysler badge during the late 2000s.
Aspen and Volaré Reliable but outdated replacement darts And bravewith the general idea being that they would be slightly larger and more modern looking than their predecessors while still providing simple, inexpensive transportation.
The chassis design is all-new, although it still uses the outdated front torsion bar/rear leaf spring truss. The powertrain is essentially the same as that of the Dart/Valiant.
The Dodge Aspen’s base engine is a 225 cubic inch (3.7 liter) unit. Tilt-6But this car has one of those options LA series small block V8 engine. Both the 318 (5.2 liters) and 360 (5.9 liters) were available on these cars; They both look identical at a glance and I don’t feel like it hantavirus infection from all the rat droppings I had to remove to see the number of molded blocks. If it’s a 360 and it’s original, it’s the 155-horsepower two-barrel version, not the 175-horsepower four-barrel.
The transmission is an optional three-speed automatic instead of the base transmission. Three-speed column shift instructions.
In 1977, American Dodge dealers offered car buyers four sizes of new station wagons: Colt compact (then last model year in wagon form here), the compact Aspen, Middleweight Monaco And Full size Royal Monaco. 1977 is closely associated with 1964 title of Top notch wagon in U.S.A, with 47 different wagon models available that year. The decline in popularity of rolling stock was gradual until 1984, when the introduction of New front-wheel drive Chrysler minivan And Jeep XJ Cherokee marks the beginning of the end for American long bangs.
How much does a 1977 Aspen wagon cost? This one appears to be the top-of-the-line Special Edition, so the MRSP with its 318 V8 and automatic transmission will cost $4,758, or about $25,403 in 2024 dollars. The Aspen The cheapest possible 1977 (with six-cylinder engine and three-speed manual transmission) started at $3,953 ($21,105 after inflation).
Meanwhile, the 1977 Colt wagon started at $3,900 ($20,822 today), so it wasn’t much cheaper than the Aspen.
This car had a number of expensive options in addition to the automatic transmission at $270 (now $1,442), the highest priced one being the air conditioning at $466 ($2,488 at today’s prices).
The rear window on the Aspen/Volaré does not open, but Chrysler still places warning stickers to prevent users from driving or idling with hatch-style rear door Open and breathe carbon monoxide.
Inside are several notebook pages containing maintenance and repair entries dating back to the 1980s.
The Aspen/Volaré platform continued to exist, in slightly modified form, until the 1989 model year (when it supported cars such as Dodge diplomat And Chrysler Fifth Avenue). The last new Dodge car sold in the US was Magnum 2008.
Hey, that’s it Dr. Dolittle Throw the Aspen wagon!
