Final Parking Space: 1988 Plymouth Horizon America

Please welcome our newest columnist (and junkyard hunter extraordinaire), the great Murilee Martin. He has been writing about cars since starting as a catalog copywriter at Year One in 1995. He became a contributor for Jalopnik in 2007 and has since written for Autoweek, Motor Authority, The Truth About Cars, Autoblog, Car and Driver and others. Murilee has loved going to junkyards since he got his first hooptie car, a $50 Toyota Corona sedan, and he enjoys speculating on the lives led by junkyard vehicles and their owners. His personal fleet at present includes a 1941 Plymouth hill-climb race car, a chopped-and-shaved 1969 Toyota Corona lowrider, a 1996 Subaru Sambar kei van, a 1997 Lexus LS400 Coach Edition, and a 1981 Honda Super Cub. -EW

With the ever-increasing sales success of the Volkswagen Beetle and other small imported cars in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, Ford and General Motors had the deep pockets to develop their own homegrown competitors from scratch: the Pinto and the Vega. Chrysler couldn’t afford to take that route, instead choosing to import and rebadge two cars from its European operations (the Simca 1204 aka Simca 1100 and the Plymouth Cricket aka Hillman Avenger) and one from a Japanese manufacturer (the Dodge Colt aka Mitsubishi Colt Galant). The Colt sold well here, but Chrysler still needed to produce an American-built subcompact designed for our roads. That car ended up being the Dodge Omni and its Plymouth Horizon twin, and I’ve found a well-preserved example of the latter in the same Colorado car graveyard that recently gave us the 1963 Chrysler Newport as the debut of the Final Parking Space series.

Unlike the Pinto and Vega, the Omnirizon (as these cars are commonly known by their aficionados) began life as a European design, with development taking place at Chrysler Europe’s operations in the United Kingdom and France. As was the case with the later front-wheel-drive Ford Escort, the European-market versions differed substantially from their American counterparts while maintaining a strong family resemblance.

So, just as owners of Chrysler/Talbot/Simca Horizons are justified in thinking of their cars as patriotic red-white–and-blue British or French machines, American Omnirizon owners have just as much right to consider their cars genuine red-white-and-blue American machines. Omnirizon production began in Illinois (at Chrysler’s Belvidere Assembly) in December of 1977, with the first cars sold as 1978 models.

Omnirizon sales started out strong, helped along by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and resulting oil shortage, and this simple and affordable car remained in production all the way through the 1990 model year. The Omnirizon was considered something of an obsolete 1970s relic by the late 1980s, but it was so cheap to build that it was able to compete on price with the most affordable imports.

The 1988 Omnrizon had an MSRP of just $5995, which comes to about $15,910 in 2023 dollars. The America trim level began life as the designation for the very cheapest Omnirizons, but by 1988 all of them were Americas. Not many new U.S.-market 1988 cars could undercut that sticker price, though some managed the feat.

The wretched Yugo GV had a hilarious price tag of $4199 ($11,144 today) that year, though the $5295 ($14,052 now) Hyundai Excel was the greater threat to Omnirizon sales. Just squeezing under the Omnirizon’s price (and available in the same dealerships) was the $5899 ($15,655 after inflation) Dodge/Plymouth Colt;  the Toyota Tercel EZ, Ford Festiva and Volkswagen Fox also came with MSRPs that just barely undercut that of the 1988 Omnirizon.

The Omirizon was available only as a five-door hatchback, but its platform begat many other Dodge and Plymouth models sold in North America. These include the 1982-1987 Dodge Charger and the Plymouth Scamp/Dodge Rampage pickups.

This one is an Omnirizon in the literal sense, because it has parts from many Omnis and Horizons. There are both Omni and Horizon badges to be found and the emissions sticker stuck on the underside of the hood comes from a 1989 Omni; the build tag says it’s a 1988 Horizon and therefore that’s what we’re calling it. I’ve found quite a few Omnirizons in Denver-area junkyards in recent years, sometimes in groups of a half-dozen at a time, so I think there must be a local collector unloading a hoard of parts cars.

However, this one has a red tag that suggests it was towed for illegal parking. A search of its VIN shows that it was purchased (presumably by Colorado Auto & Parts) at a nearby auction for $250.

Chrysler bolted a bewildering variety of engines in the American-market Omnirizon over the years, with suppliers including Simca, Volkswagen, and Peugeot. Starting with the 1987 model year, however, every example received the Chrysler 2.2-liter straight-four under its hood. This one is a fuel-injected version rated at 96 horsepower and 122 pound-feet.

For 1988, transmission choices were limited to a five-speed manual and three-speed automatic. This car has the automatic, which added a whopping $1179 ($3,129 after inflation) to the cost.

It doesn’t have the $694 ($1842 now) air conditioner, but it was purchased with the optional $254 ($674 today) AM/FM/cassette radio.

I have local friends who are restoring a 1990 Omni for their 16-year-old (the ’90 came with a driver’s-side airbag, amazingly), and I called them the moment I first laid eyes on this car because the 1988-1990 models are nearly impossible to find in the boneyards nowadays. They grabbed a treasure trove of useful parts that same day and have since incorporated them into their project. It’s good to know that some of this piece of American automotive history will live on in one of its street-driven brethren.

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