We’re here in the Autopian World Headquarters this week doing what we always do when we get together: see who can eat the most Charlestown Chews in five minutes without choking and talk about extremely average vehicles no one thinks about anymore. The conversation turned to the Chrysler LH cars and I remarked that I thought the Eagle Vision TSi variant was, in fact, a great-looking midsizer. The Concorde? Holy Cheese Balls, the designers must have really hated this car.
First, to clarify, the post about longitudinal front-wheel drive cars being less rare than you think initially included a massive oversight: the LH cars. SWG pointed out that the famous cab-forward Chrysler cars did in fact feature a big V6 in the front mounted in line with the wheels. Are they the most popular longitudinally-mounted FWD cars ever made? Quite possibly.
It was this line of inquiry that led me to comment that I generally enjoyed the way those cars looked, especially in first-generation Vision TSi trim. Let’s look at it, it looks great:
That was in 1994. Here it is in 1996. Were there even any stylistic upgrades or just photographic ones? I’m not sure, but it looks like a damn fine automobile.
All the “LH” platformed cars are derived from the Lamborghini Portofino Concept, which itself was inspired by the Chrysler Navajo Concept. This was because Chrysler bought Lamborghini that year, which left us with the odd sequence of a Chrysler concept inspiring a Lamborghini concept that in turn produced a bunch of Chrysler products. 
This is an alluring concept and you really get the idea of the “cab forward” design that pushes the passenger cabin as far forward as possible, with the wheels pushed way out to the edges of the car.
The Dodge Intrepid is the most common version of this car:
For some reason, this particular model found itself stuck in a child’s sandbox, but it looks great nevertheless.
Eagle was killed before it could get a second generation of the Eagle Vision, but Dodge did give us a heavy redesign for its 2nd gen Intrepid.
Some of this is taste, but I don’t consider the 2nd gen cars to be quite as attractive as the 1st gen models. It’s a little too late ’90s/early aughts ovoid, but it’s not a bad-looking car.
Why Is The Concorde Like This?
I was looking at Visions and Intrepids, which led me to search for the Chrysler Concorde. I don’t normally like to use Wikipedia images, but this one was kind of perfect.
Something about this angle really shows how phoned-in this design was. In theory, the Concorde sits at the top of the LH range, but it somehow looks the cheapest. It’s probably not fair to compare a press shot to a real shot of an aged vehicle, but the grille work here is extremely lazy. The subtle cooling vents in the other iterations are one of the design touches that make these vehicles look special, so the strange upright nostrils just give the impression that the Concorde has a rigidly combed Prussian mustache.
This car also features everyone’s least favorite version of the Chrysler logo.
It gets worse. Way worse. Here’s the second-generation car:
That is straight-up Dopey Gillis. Dopey Houser, MD. If it were to star in a Burt Reynolds/Sally Field movie they’d call it Dopey And The Bandit. I was surprised to hear that Jason sort of liked this version, but he also has a thing for fish-like cars.
I think even the Chrysler engineers knew that this was bad, so they tried to fix it with a facelift that somehow made it worse:
Did someone piss off the designer of this car at some point? This was during the “Merger of Equals” times and I’m guessing Daimler just couldn’t be bothered to muster even one dry nugget of crap about the fading Concorde.
Why are there so many different shapes in the front of this car? There’s the long, cigar-like oval of the sidemarker lamp. The strange shoeprint shape of the headlights. Almost circular foglights. And then a totally unnecessary tall squircle-y grille. Look at this awful line for the nose that totally breaks up the look:
And here’s where it gets totally bonkers. I was looking for press photos of this car when I was reminded that Chrysler made yet another Chrysler-branded version of the LH platform, the 300M:
Same car! Just slightly upmarket. Also a Chrysler. It doesn’t look great but it doesn’t look quite so awful. I honestly can’t think of another car that just whiffed it so badly with each iteration.
I’ve always thought that Chrysler went through a period of car face theft. The Eagle Vision was uncomfortably close to 4th gen Honda Prelude, the first gen Concord had more than a passing resemblance to the Lincoln Mark VIII’s nose, and I once mistook a second gen Concord’s snoot for a Jaguar XK. The only one that seemed really original was the Intrepid, though it might be referencing something I’m not familiar with.
Intrepid was taking Viper cues. It was the start of Dodge really trying to have a corporate face. It was more relevant in the 2nd Gen Intrepid.
Yeah, well, that’s just like, your opinion, man.
The facelifts look fine to me. They are simply reflective of the changing tastes of the time.
I think they look better every generation. That 1st gen is hideous.
For what it’s worth, the Dodge Avenger is a related “got inexplicably worse” vehicle.
The first gen – the ’90s coupe – was quite handsome, an athletic-looking grand tourer. And then next gen, well, that’s the one you’re thinking of right now.
I had a gen 1 avenger. All show and no go, but it had a roomy back seat. Overhangitis on the front end made frequent repairs to that viper crosshair with spray foam and spray paint a necessity. Handled incredibly well in the rain.
At the time when the LH cars came out, they were very fresh looking at the time, something that Chrysler really needed. I think the Dodge Intrepid was the best looking of the bunch.
I have to be honest–I always thought the whole LH series were handsome, well-styled cars.
Now, that didn’t translate to good engineering–my dad had a Chrysler Concorde that lost a cylinder and its A/C system before it had 75,000 miles. But they were attractive!
I’ve rented a few Chrysler/Dodge products over the years. Mostly because it was the only thing available. I seriously don’t know how those brands still exist. There was nothing good about the materials, build quality, drivetrains or driving experience that was good.
I rented a Chrysler Pacifica for a family vacation and absolutely fell in love with it. Of course, that’s the last car being built with a Chrysler badge…
And I rented a 2014 T&C to move the important stuff that didn’t belong in the moving van from NYC to Florida. It broke down in Virginia. That was fun!
Except for the first generation Neon. They were fun rentals.
“That is straight-up Dopey Gillis.”
How do you even know about The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis?
The only reason I’ve seen that show was that my father thought it was “necessary to my cultural development” stay up to the wee hours of the morning with him watching Nick At Nite. Apparently Dobie Gillis was “important for properly understanding Gilligan’s Island.” He also made me listen to Frank Zappa until I was utterly sick of it.
Same experience, presumably?
I kind of want to see Dopey and the Bandit now.
Imagine a dwarf minus three top buttons on his shirt, a 1977 quota of visible chest hair, and too tight jeans sitting next to an (ahem) heavy chested tube top wearing Fawcett lookalike in a Trans Am.
That’s a lot of eye bleach! ????
I remember that episode of Game of Thrones. They were in Mereen, right? It wasn’t a trans am, though, but an actual screaming chic.. dragon.
If you think they’re ugly, you can take solace in the fact that almost all of them have been crushed.
I get kind of excited when I see one driving around. They have largely been gone from my area for the past 10+ years – rust isn’t kind to vehicles in my area. Add in the apparent reliability issues and they are mostly gone. I see a lot more 25+ year old vehicles from other brands around here than Chryslers of any sort.
Hold on, Hold ON. You can’t complain about the Concorde and 300m without mentioning the LHS. The design of the first LHS way better thought out than the Concorde. The “Facelifted Concorde” was actually the 2nd gen LHS that got merged back in with the Concorde for ’02. Agreed, not a “pretty” car, but at that point, the 300m became the top trim and main focus.
I just Googled the first generation LHS. I’d forgotten how impressive it looked.
My grandpa had to rearrange the garage when he went from his ’88 New Yorker to his ’93 New Yorker because he couldn’t close the door. Those suckers were LONG.
Maybe it’s because I was born around the same time as the Sega Genesis but I love these early aughts designs like Disco Stu loves white rhinestone-encrusted leisure suits. Especially the 2001 Intrepid and Stratus coupe.
My dad had both a 1993 Concorde (with a pentastar in the grille like God and Lee Iacocca intended) and a 2000 Concorde. At the time, I thought the 1993 did a good job of making a big Chrysler look somewhat modern-Euro without completely turning off people like my dad who were coming out of a baroque 1980s New Yorker. The 2000 on the other hand was just, ugh — and that’s not considering its 2.7L V6.
Why don’t you like using WP photos? Not saying you ought to, just curious.
I upload thousands of photos there precisely because I want people to use them.
A buddy who worked at a Mopar dealership bought a low mileage granny traded LHS in spite of the many warnings and objections from the dealership’s mechanics. He found out the hard way that the mechanics really knew what they were talking about. I think every system in the car failed in some way over the course of his ownership, leaving him stranded at regular intervals.
I’m a weirdo who really kind of likes all of them.
I think the bigger problem was that effort was put into the Eagle brand. Why have an Eagle version of this car at all?
I think it was a dealer network thing–there were a bunch of legacy Jeep/AMC dealers that needed non-Jeeps to sell post-merger. After a while, the Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth network blended successfully with the Jeep/Eagle network and made the brand redundant.
Technically, there was a 2nd generation Eagle Vision, it just hit the market badged as the Chrysler 300M due to the discontinuation of the Eagle brand
I expect some of the cheapish look of the first gen Concorde was due to some desire to establish a clear hierarchy, setting it apart as more clearly a step down from the range topping New Yorker (later renamed LHS). If Chrysler was going to have two full size sedans, they had to make sure customers knew which was supposed to be which (though the New Yorker/LHS did also have a stretched wheelbase for more rear seat room)
I was just about to type that, regarding the Vision –> 300M
The LHS and New Yorker coexisted from 1994-96, but good luck telling them apart.
I guess the LHS was initially just a New Yorker with bucket seats? Suppose that was enough to warrant a different model name
Chrysler’s answer to the Oldsmobile LSS
My best friend in high school love driving his dad’s New Yorker.. it seats 6, so plenty of room to bring friends to the movies and special dates with the girl friend. Thank goodness UV lights were not prevalant back then.
Bucket seats, less chrome, floor shifter, standard 16″ wheels, standard “touring suspension.” But yeah, basically the same differences as the LSS from the Eighty Eight.
While it’s 3rd on my list out of the originals, I don’t think the first Concorde looks bad. I do like two-tone paint but even the monotone job like the header pic looks good to me. The spread in looks between base and loaded Concordes isn’t as large as the Intrepid, the base Dodge with smaller wheels and no fog definitely looked cheaper than a base Concorde. But the Dodge was higher volume and the closest design to the concepts that came before (even those like the Eagle Optima) so it looks more unique.
There were two logos used on the first gen Concorde too – earlier ones used the Pentastar, and then for ’95 switched to that wreath logo.
The 2nd gen of both Concorde and Intrepid have aged poorly in hindsight but for Chrysler, the long bulbous look was true of a lot of their concepts of the late 90s. The Intrepid didn’t look as good as the ESX concepts that foreshadowed it but still better than the Concorde. The 300M still looks good to me and the best out of the second round of LH cars. It was also to be the 2nd-gen Eagle Vision before as noted below. The Chrysler’s facelift in 2002 was phoned in, but that’s just because it used the body of the discontinued 2nd-gen LHS.
They did have to go kinda bug-eyed on that gen, because weak headlights were a frequent complaint of the first wave of cab forward era 90s Chryslers designs. 3rd gen vans too, Chrysler got an extensive facelift of the ’98 Town & Country that did bring it more in line with other Chrysler designs but also added bigger headlights with projectors.
I like the catfish 2nd gen Concorde. I’d rather see fish mouth grills everywhere over the Darth Vader grills that are so common today.
Same. I remember as a teenager in the late 90’s seeing one of those in person. I loved it. It’s weird but not ugly.
Modern BMWs are weird AND ugly for comparison
Considering the squared off, upholstered-roof junk that was cluttering Chrysler showrooms just months previously – the new Concorde was a breath of fresh air.
Nobody noticed the waterfall grille.
As far as it’s successors – it was right in line with the stuff on display across the street at the Ford, Lincoln/Mercury dealer.
Nobody thought it was weird.
What was weird was your neighbor’s old Dodge Dynasty.
Dynasties are abominable, inexplicable things. I’d love to read Uncle Goth about it.
Ah, the Die Nasty.
I don’t find the jump from first generation to second generation to be nearly as bad as you claim (for either the Chrysler or the Dodge). But yes, once the Chrysler had entered its second generation, it certainly did get worse with the refresh.
This car is forever tainted by the “How did she get the name Concorde?” commercial.
“I was surprised to hear that Jason sort of liked this version, but he also has a thing for fish-like cars.”
No, what he has is a romantic abnormality, one so unbelievable that it must be hidden from the public at all cost.
Kissing you is like kissing some divine ashtray.
Maybe it’s just me, but the first Concorde looks a lot like a Mercury Sable, and the next generation reminds me of the next gen Sable.
I get a lot of Lexus ES, especially the headlight shape.
It’s been with us so long that we take it for granted now, but the 300C was literally jaw-dropping when it was revealed. I still remember exactly where I was when I saw my first one on the road, a statement I can’t make for any other non-exotic car. A brief look at its predecessors explains why.
The 300C was also much shorter of overhang so that it could be sold in Europe.
Not that many were.
300C was gonna be the next Vision, then Eagle got plucked so they just made it a Chrysler.
Thought that was the 300M?
I’m pretty certain that was the 300M.
The 300C didn’t debut until Eagle had been in the grave for several years.
Here’s some fuzzy pictures/renditions purportedly from the time.
https://www.300mclub.org/concept-cars-and-interesting-facts/
Yup, I forgot that one was the M, which picks up from the last 300, which was the L from 1965. I guess the C has been around so long it just stuck in my head.
Oh my god it’s a 300M club website this is wild. My friend had one years ago and I’ll be honest, I loved it. The interior was nice enough and it had the most insanely adjustable seats! Comfy, looked distinctive enough
There’s also been a rumor that a Plymouth version of the original round of LH cars was considered, the Accolade.
Supporting it are design models with Accolade badging in Plymouth font – but that has Dodge design cues, so it seems more likely that “Dodge Accolade” could have been a working name in development. At that time “Intrepid” had been on a concept that previewed the Stealth.
Plymouth had been without a big car for years and was seeing its lineup pruned back to no longer be 1:1 with Dodge, so I think if there was any idea of an LH Plymouth was abandoned early on.
It’s been heavily assumed for years that the Accolade became the Concorde, as the New Yorker/LHS is the same car and thus the Concorde competes directly with it (and so in a way competes with itself).
The Intrepid and the New Yorker/LHS both got unique roof treatments, unique headlights and front bumpers, and unique taillights with unique cutouts. The Concorde re-uses the front end and rear taillight cutouts of the Eagle Vision, has an unmodified roof, and uses the same window trim unique to the Vision that neither the Intrepid or New Yorker/LHS use.
But the damning evidence is the interior. While the Intrepid and Vision share the same dash top and vents, they both have gauges, radio controls, and warning lights unique to themselves. The Concorde however uses the exact same gauges, radio controls, and warning lights as the Vision. The same as it would have had it been a Plymouth.
That would make a lot of sense. Chrysler and Dodge were still sharing in the preceding New Yorker/Dynasty, but the Imperial/Fifth Avenue (albeit different wheelbase) being otherwise very similar did have some precedent in overlapping big sedans for the Chrysler brand, and similar to GM with H- and C-body large sedans.
I could see the initial planning having the Chrysler-brand LH only be the New Yorker/LHS body, to better differentiate them all. Though big Plymouths wound down at the time of early LH development they still offered upmarket trims like the LX Acclaims and Voyagers – but they soon were stripping those out and adding more Chrysler versions, just like they would do again <10 years later with the complete discontinuation of Plymouth.
Same basic platform too