Gotta Give Them Points For Trying: 1983 Chrysler E-Class vs 1992 Mercury Topaz

Good morning! Today we’re looking at a couple of “fancy” versions of ordinary cars, nearly a decade apart in age, but very close in ideology, and that ideology is that you can have nice things, as long as you don’t expect them to be exciting as well. Grab a cup of coffee; you’ll need it to stay awake looking at these two.

Yesterday’s high-mileage battle ended with a win for the Mazda 3, though quite a few of you expressed a desire for a “Both” option. Many of you were concerned with the possibility of rust on both of them, but cars on the West Coast just don’t have that problem.

Don’t believe me? Check it out: That’s a photo of the left rear cab mount/cab corner/rocker panel of my own ’89 Chevy truck, a thirty-five-year-old ex-government fleet truck that spent its service life in eastern Washington state before retiring to Portland, without a lick of rust. It just isn’t an issue.

Oh, and speaking of which, my vote is for the Tundra. I like the flames, and the overall scruffiness of it. It’s one of the few trucks I’ve found that would make a suitable replacement for my Chevy, should anything ever happen to it.

Now then: American cars of the 1980s just weren’t very exciting, and I say that as someone who is terribly fond of them. It’s just hard to drum up enthusiasm for some ninety-horsepower sedan with an automatic. But, if equipped correctly, they can be quite nice cars – not flashy, not putting on airs like the Lincoln Versailles or the Cadillac Cimarron, just nice. Comfortable seats, good air conditioning, and a smooth, quiet ride can make up for a sixteen-second 0-60 time, with the right attitude. Not everything has to be hardcore all the time. Sometimes a little Christopher Cross is just the ticket. So instead of thinking of these cars as “lame” or “slow,” think of them as the automotive equivalent of yacht rock. Here they are.

1983 Chrysler E-Class – $3,000

Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Everett, WA

Odometer reading: 126,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

You have to hand it to Chrysler; they got a lot of mileage out of the K platform. Starting with one basic front-wheel-drive formula, the struggling automaker managed to put family sedans, station wagons, luxury coupes and sedans, and even sports coupes into showrooms, not to mention something that came to be known as a minivan. And right in the middle of the range was the Chrysler E-Class, a short-lived variant of the E platform, a K-car with a longer wheelbase.

Unusually for an E-Class, this car is powered by Chrysler’s own 2.2 liter four-cylinder engine instead of the optional Mitsubishi-supplied 2.6 liter that ended up in many cars in the early years. Even more unusually for an upscale model, it does not appear to be equipped with air conditioning. I can’t imagine ordering a car like this and not checking that box on the form, but somebody was trying to save a few bucks, I suppose. It runs and drives beautifully, the seller says, and has a new timing belt, alternator, and voltage regulator.

It may lack air conditioning, but it does have another well-known Chrysler option of the era: the Electronic Message Center. Yes, the talking thing. The ’83 Dodge 600 we had when I was young had this option, and it was amusing for the first month or two, but got a bit annoying after that. My mom got in the habit of fastening her seat belt before starting the car, so it wouldn’t tell her to do so. My ’84 Chrysler Laser had it too, but that car had a lot of weird electrical gremlins, so the Message Center would spit out random dire warnings now and again. I think there’s a reason why this gimmick never caught on.

It’s in remarkably good shape, with shiny paint, including the four body-matching hubcaps, a blatant ripoff of Mercedes-Benz. Comparing cars to Mercedes was all the rage for a while; Ford famously designed an entire advertising campaign around comparing its Granada to a Mercedes W116 S-Class. I doubt either ruse actually persuaded any buyers.

1992 Mercury Topaz GS – $1,800

Engine/drivetrain: 2.3-liter overhead valve inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Colorado Springs, CO

Odometer reading: 55,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well, but needs exercise

Ford was the last of the Big Three to embrace front-wheel-drive; the imported Fiesta subcompact had been available since 1976, but it wasn’t until 1981 that a home-grown FWD Ford appeared in the form of the Escort, which replaced the RWD Pinto. In 1984, Ford enlarged the Escort’s basic design to create the Tempo and Mercury Topaz, a replacement for the Fox-based Fairmont. And as had become its custom, Mercury produced its own version of the same basic car with different trim: the Topaz, in this case.

I’ll never quite understand Ford’s thinking when it came to the engine in the Tempo and Topaz. It’s a 2.3-liter four, but not the one you’re thinking of. It would have made sense for Ford to use the Lima overhead-cam engine, or even an enlarged version of the Escort’s CVH four, but instead it developed a whole different engine, based on the ancient Falcon-style inline-six. I guess reusing the old tooling made it worth it? Anyway, this one runs fine, but it hasn’t been driven much, so it probably has some cobwebs that need to be blasted out. It also has a leaky valve cover, but a new gasket is included.

Inside, it’s as clean as you would expect for having so few miles on it. The Tempo and Topaz never got airbags; they staggered along through their last four or five years of production meeting the passive-restraint mandate using motorized shoulder belts. The build quality of these is a little hit-or-miss; the seller says this one has a little trouble with the driver’s side power window, and some of the door lock/unlock buttons don’t work.

Outside, it’s reasonably clean and shiny, but it does have a little bit of hail damage. On a car this age, and for this price, there are worse problems to have. Being a Mercury, it also has that bar of lights across the grille opening, and I’m willing to bet that it has one bulb burned out. They all seem to, and it always ends up looking like a missing tooth.

It should come as no surprise to hear that I have actually owned cars very similar to both of these. I had a 1985 Plymouth Caravelle for a winter beater one year, and a 1992 Ford Tempo coupe was actually the first car I ever made payments on. I honestly have no preference between them; they were both just fine, plenty comfortable, and more or less reliable. Exciting? No, of course not. But they were nice. Don’t take my word for it, though; go take one of these for a nice leisurely spin.

(Image credits: Facebook Marketplace sellers)