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.
There are cars which we say look like they’re moving when standing still. This is the other type, which looks like it’s broken when it’s moving, due to its godawful proportions.
“This was during the “Merger of Equals” times”
I was on the Rubicon in 97 or 98 and there was a bunch of Daimler and Chrysler people on the trail. We spoke with a bunch of them and it was the Chrysler guys way of exposing the Germans to the Jeep life.
One Chrysler guy said the merger of equals was like when Germany and Poland merged in 1938. He wasn’t wrong.
My favorite LH car was the 1st gen LHS. It was the top of the line vehicle and it looked the part.
2nd best looking would be the 300M and then the 1st gen Intrepid.
PS. My would always rent a full size sedan when coming to visit us. I recall he brought one of these late fugly Concordes and next time around he arrived in a brand new 300. It looked like a 10 year newer car despite being only 1 year newer than the Concorde
The really weird thing was how the Camaro facelift at the time had roughly the same headlight shape as the second-gen. Convergent evolution getting weird.
I actually like the second-gen though. Sure, it’s fish-esque, but it’s got personality.
Also there was the second-gen LHS, which you definitely wouldn’t like.
I have to disagree wholeheartedly and without reservation.
Sure, the first series were great looking cars, and the cab forward look was not only bold and innovative, but delivered a massive amount of interior room. However, I find the second series with its retro inspired Ferrari-ish egg-crate grill to also be quite stunning and characterful. The 300M was a great looking unique design that still stands out today on the rare occasion I see one. When I compare any of these elegant sensuous designs to the angry origami robots today I yearn for simpler, less angry times.
They were decent enough cars, albeit not long-lifers by any means. I valeted my share of them in the late 90’s. Big and comfy, good visibility, decent power but they had the turning radius of an aircraft carrier. Horrendous to park.
I remember thinking when 1st generation LH body New Yorker/LHS (LH Stretched, Chrysler put so much thought into this name obviously), finally! Chrysler put the New Yorker name back on a true top tier body of its own, giving it a chance to regain former reputation as a viable luxury car model again. Alas, the New Yorker only lasted a couple of years before being phased out entirely and the LHS would carry the torch.
So after Chrysler went to all the trouble of establishing a unique body style for the top tier model for the 1st generation LH body with the buying public, they totally blow this effort by eliminating the unique body style and expect the buying public to be fooled by an LHS where the only major difference between the exterior of a Concorde and a LHS is the front bumper/grill and rear bumper/tail lights design difference.
So disappointing.
My favorite trick with the LH cars was guessing why they had broken down for the last time. Every single time it was the transmission failing. At one point a coworker came in with a sad look on his face and a rental, noting his Intrepid was in the shop and he was worried that it might not come out alive.
“Transmission died?”
“How — how did you know?”
Every single one. I will say: they were smooth and comfy cars from the little time I spent in them, but they may be the illegitimate father of the dual-clutch Fiesta transmission, passing on hereditary weakness like the Habsburgs passed on jawlines.
I had a 1995 Chrysler Intrepid 3.3l V6 (Canada’s Intrepids were branded as Chrysler’s). We bought it with 42,000kms on it in 2000. We drove it for 12 years and 330,000 kms. We sold it to a family who drove it for 2 years another 15000 kms. When I sold it, it still drove like new, no rattles or creaks. It didn’t burn any oil, had the original transmission that shifted perfectly. The reason, didn’t drive it like an idiot/rental car and MAINTAINED it. Also, lots of room for the family (wife and 3 young kids), handled and rode well, and got 35 mpg on the highway.
The Concorde had the best commercial tho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaIJGJNbzo
Came here for this. Leaving satisfied.
Was that real? Wow, how did that get past the suits?
Yes, it really was real. I remember seeing it on TV!
Amazing
Plot twist: Not the city in Georgia, but outside amongst the lions.
Rented a 1st gen Concorde that looked exactly like the one in the photo many years ago when they were still a thing. No complaints, it was a good car for doing a 500mi trip with five people and luggage (cousin’s wedding, so formal wear and dresses).
I always thought the LH cars were derived from the Eagle Premier (AMC/Renault design). It too, had a longitudinal engine.
My understanding was Eagle Premier -> Eagle Vision (and variants) -> Chrysler 300
Interesting factoid. Prompted me to do some reading. Apparently you can take the lineage back even further, as the Premier was based on the early-80s Renault 25.
Yep. It’s weird to think about it.
I read the book “The Last American CEO” about Joe Cappy the last CEO of AMC. Aside from being quite a bit self-congratulatory, he explained that Iacocca cut Chrysler’s R&D to nearly nothing except for products in the pipeline. This got the K cars out the door, but left Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth decimated with nothing to follow up.
AMC had a new 2.5 fuel injected 4 cyl, the 4.0 with fuel injection, the Eagle Premier, the Jeep Cherokee, the Jeep Wrangler, the Jeep Grand Cherokee finalized (not on the assembly line), an AWD automobile platform, the Eagle Premier with its “cab forward design”, and a new J10/J20 design through its initial engineering which eventually became the 1994 Ram design (which kinda looks more J series than previous Ram from the front hood lines).
Chrysler literally bought a huge car pipeline, a new assembly plant with state of the art robot tooling (Brampton), a willing workforce, solid engineering teams who understood how to integrate with other vendors/OEMs, and a dealer network.
AMC just started to cash flow and was to become profitable for 1987, only to become the engineering and R&D for Chrysler.
If Iacocca didn’t buy AMC at the moment he did, Chrysler/DaimlerChrysler/Fiat Chyrsler/Stellantis would be in the grave by now.
Too bad Chrysler bought AMC. I would’ve loved to see Chrysler/Stellantis go POOF! Shitty even by Detroit standards.
That is really interesting. And good work by Iacocca, I reckon. Kill everything that can’t bring you cash flow in order to save the company now. If you need to find a solution to no r and d in the future, that’s a future problem. And a good problem to have because it means you managed to save the company.
I agree the Vision was the most attractive of the first-gen LH cars. However, I think the New Yorker/LHS was the most interesting. Frankly, I’m not sure why Chrysler even needed the Concorde when they could have just had the more distinctive New Yorker/LHS.
Yeah, it’s wild that you could’ve walked into a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in 1994 and had your choice of three Chrysler-branded LH cars.
The token LH to try and sell to people trading in Dodge Dynasties?
For a relatively short while in the 90’s my father had a job at a place that issued company cars. The first one was a blue Chrysler New Yorker, the very last of the K-cars. (eech…) The second company car he got was a brand new ‘cab forward’ Chrysler Concorde.
That Concorde was one of his favorite cars. It was a base model with cloth interior and the 2.7 V6, but it was spacious, quiet, comfortable, fast, and got great fuel economy. It was also stone reliable during the time we had it.
I also thought it was the handsomest LH of the bunch, though they were all broadly extremely similar.
I can’t honestly think of a bigger jump in product from one generation to the next than that one. The K car was early 80’s. The cab-forward LH cars were from the future. “Suddenly it is the year 2000!”
Honestly, I can’t think of a bigger *total product line* revamp than what Chrysler went through circa 1995. The LH cars, the Neon, Sebring/Cirrus/Stratus, the 2nd gen minivans, the Dodge Ram… what a moonshot that collectively must have been for the company.
Shut your mouth about the 300M! It’s a great design. It’s somehow a perfect blend of having the presence of a full size while still looking trim like a mid sizer. It’s stately while also being confident. And it fixes the problems that the Stratus had with how to resolve the hood angle compared to the perfect ellipse of the roof shape and the blunt rear.
Some years ago I saw someone that had done a modification of a first generation Concorde by replacing the front and fenders with those of a concurrent New Yorker. Obviously different colours and it was missing the body cladding because it was a crash damage cheap fix, but somehow it worked. Having a body coloured grille (well, body coloured as in matching the pale blue of the donor hood, bumper, and fenders and not the actual champagne gold of the fix car) went a lot towards making that slapped together Concorde feel more upscale than a stock one.
It always made me question why the Concorde existed when the New Yorker/LHS of that generation existed, and the only visually difference was the roof shape. The Concorde shouldn’t have existed and it always bothered me that they repurposed a Plymouth as a Chrysler that competed with itself as another more expensive Chrysler.
The 300M fixed most of the issues that made the concorde awkward. Its not exciting but it’s a reserved design that I miss nowadays
The 300M didn’t fix the problems of the Concorde because it was never supposed to replace the Concord. The 300M was meant meant to be the new shortened Eagle Vision to take on the tweener Honda Accord and Nissan Maxima/Infiniti i30. It’s why it looks so unlike the other Chryslers — it was using the design language of the Eagle Jazz concept from 1995, including the amber rear turn signals, grille that’s meant to evoke the Eagle shield, and scalloped headlights,
Friends of mine called it the “Dodge Insipid”. Safe to say, they were not fans of the chariot at the time.
I ran Intrepids in Gran Turismo 2, along with a Legacy Wagon as my go to vehicles for those classes. I always wanted one in real life, but, when I hit a point where I could buy one, they had all broken down or disintegrated. Glad I “dodged” that bullet.
Chrysler’s are almost universally ugly from that era. This is no exception.
Once rented a 300M many years ago on a business trip and it was decent looking and decidedly not awful. Then owned a first gen Dodge Intrepid ES… that was fine until it wasn’t. Looked better than it drove and effectively started to self destruct as the end of the warranty approached so I bailed. A shame. I really wanted to like that car.
I drove an LHS for a bit when I was in college as a hand-me-down from my parents – the one thing I’ll say for that car was the interior was larger than my dorm room.
Those were also the cars where access to the battery was via the front passenger side wheel well, in case you were thinking they only phoned in the looks.
Why do so many Chrysler products put it there? I just don’t get it. First step in replacing the battery shouldn’t be “get out the jack”.
Technically you didn’t need the jack… the battery would come out if you cranked the wheel in the correct direction. Of course, that assumed that (a) you could crank the wheel on a car with no electrical which was the only way you needed to get to the battery, and (b) the battery tray wasn’t rusted to sh** the way they all did way earlier than they should.
oh, right! The LHS! I kind of like the LHS.
It was actually a pretty comfortable car, and as a college student it was far more baller than I rated. Absolutely a boat, though. A friend used to sit in the back and call out “Helm to 108!” and other nautical nonsense whenever we took a turn.
I never understood the 300/ Concord/ LHS strategy. They were all the same cars.
My mom had Sebring with the AMG- looking monoblock wheels, then a 300M brand new in 2000. I thought then and still do think the 300 was a very nice looking car. The Hemi C concept, in my opinion was gorgeous.
The Concord was what my friends’ grandparents drove.
I absolutely loved my aunt’s ’96 Intrepid ES. The second-gen was a visual downgrade and a major engine downgrade (hello sludgy 2.7). But yeah that Concorde is disgusting.
Folks had a ’96 Intrepid for a while (non-ES but had the 3.5L). Honestly driving that as a teenager was kinda fun. Could fit a ton of friends in it, and it would smoke the front tire a bit if you buried it from a stop.
They sold it at 65k miles before the transmission went out though, so that was smart of them.
LH stood for last hope back in the day. Made tons of money off those piles of shit under warranty… Evaps, water pumps, timing belt tensioners, trannys etc… in other words normal Chrysler stuff
As a Chrysler, Concorde was near the top but I think that the LHS was the actual top of the line for this body (up to around 2001 I think). First gen had a nice grill treatment. A few years in, it was refined further and a more formal roofline and trunk treatment was added. It was distinctive from the rest of the models, and a pretty hansdome car but that wouldn’t last. The second gen removed a lot of it and made LHS fairly generic.
As for the model in question, they never really offended me, but I can’t say that I thought much about them either.
You nailed it. LHS was the top and just shared that top spot with the 300M after the 1999 refreshes, until the LHS itself got replaced by the Concorde Limited. FWIW the Concorde Limited was literally an LHS still, and retained the LHS’s larger grille until it became the Concorde’s grille overall.
The 300m was effectively just an LHS with its ass chopped off to make the Euro 5-meter length bracket, which is also why Europe got the 2.7 V6 in the M, to come in under 3000cc for (if I recall) a tax bracket.
There’s something modern day Mercedes-y about the 2nd gen Concorde. Something about the flabby shapes combined with mindless split line detailing makes me wonder it the bad design virus jumped ship from Chrysler to Mercedes as a result of the merger.
Hah, I do really see that in the new egg-shaped EQ series sedans. Great catch
You forgot the last facelift for Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ_Volga_Siber#/media/File:Volga_Siber_front_Moscow_autoshow_2008_26_08.jpg
That was actually the 2nd gen cloud cars, the Sebring in Chrysler’s case.
Wow that’s worse than any of the Chrysler ones
At the time, I remember when the 300M came out and just wondered why they released a 2nd version of a car that already had multiple versions and just snubbed the tail off. It was like Chrysler thought that buyers wanted a Concord with 2″ less trunk.
Also, don’t forget the New Yorker and its weird but kinda cool rounded rear window!