Our aim is to look at the history of this car from an usual point of view and to defend its right to have a honorable place in the motoring history, so here is

The true story of the 180/2 Litres range

During its life, the Chrysler 160/180/2 Litre range has not won many appraisals in the motoring press apart from early tests, which generally did not say much negative about the car. But today, it is not so difficult to find people who describe, what a terrible beast the 180 was. Just to quote several examples:

Chrysler 180 … styled in UK, but heavily influenced by Chrysler – Detroit (and with a very unmemorable shape)… (Graham Robson, Cars of the Rootes Group, UK 1990)

Chrysler 180/2 Litre … in reality it was an apalling creature. It was dreadful to drive, boring to look at and riddled with corrosion problems … not surprisingly the 180 was a flop in showrooms, and residual values were so bad that used car dealers refused to take them in part exchange. Chrysler lost money on every one sold … A dull and undistinguished offering, with no redeeming value whatsoever“. (Craig Cheetham, The World´s Worst Cars, Barnes and Noble 2005)

(For any 180/2 Litre addict person, these are funny arguments, because he/she considers his/her 180/2 Litre to be THE ULTIMATE MACHINE). Anyway, if we look closer at the above mentioned quotations and we try to be objective, it is really difficult to understand where e.g the information about terrible roadholding comes from. Althought the suspension of the first 1970/1971 series was too tough, the later models were much softer to drive (thanks to different springs, shock absorbers and fatter tyres) and definitely not worse then the competitors. Cornering was not one of the strong points of the car, but it was no worse than the average saloon of the day and definitely it was no Morris Marina driving. Of course, it is difficult to compare the roadholding of a 1970s car with anything contemporary, but we can surely say that it was not bad for a medium sized saloon of the period. It is also difficult to find anything bad about the four disc brakes, which were standard (apart from the poverty-spec 160 model) and the same for the precise rack and pinion steering which won points in the early tests. Yes, there were corrosion problems, but these were really disastrous only with the later Spanish made 1609/1610/2 Litre, where the finishing was much worse than with the first series made in Poissy, France. Most of the early cars´ rust problems were NO more serious than rusting of most of their competitors of the day. And what about that „unmemorable shape“? Well, it is a grown up Hillman Avenger and, yes, it looks quite American. It is probably because of the soft Coke-bottle design, but look at other cars of the age (C-series Opel Rekord, Ford Granada Mk.I, Ford Cortina Mk.III, Vauxhall Viva, etc.) - these do not look less American at all and no one seems to complain. And who said, that anything designed in America is bad? (it was before George W. Bush, you know…)