No Reserve: 1985 Chrysler New Yorker for sale on BaT Auctions - ending April 16 (Lot #70,792) | Bring a Trailer Well, with the recent Plymouth Reliant and Chrysler Laser might as well show a New Yorker from same time frame.
More Chrysler K-platform goodness! Woohoo! It's all a-o-K to me! Don't ask, but I've got a quirky soft spot for these cars. This one is an E-body variant of the K-platform. My grandfather used to have one of these, but his was a darker blue colour with a grey leather interior, as I remember. This is the car I got in trouble in by opening the rear passenger side door as we were rolling down the highway at 70 mph. "A door is ajar!" Dang talking car! I was only 3 or 4 at the time and I also vividly remember hearing the voice command for an open door (while not rolling down the highway) and being completely confused as to why the car was calling the door a "jar"...like literally a glass jar. lol Anyway, I'll be interested to see what this one goes for too. Looks like it's currently sitting at $2,000 with 5 days to go. Lots of time left.
I think some of the LeBarons were equipped with the voice commands. My sister had one of these or a LeBaron sedan that talked smack to you if you didn't put your belt on or left your trunk open. I want to say it was a LeBaron, but I don't remember....
I'm pretty sure the LeBaron sedans had it too. I know the convertibles did. But yeah, it was more an exercise in implementing unnecessary technology (hindsight is 20/20 though) that the consumer quickly grew tired of, but it was an innovation and a novelty at the time. For as much as people look at the Electronic Voice Alert system with a sense of annoyance, absurdity and even perplexity, I do applaud Chrysler for innovating and capturing people's attention at a time in the automotive industry when it sort of needed it. The automotive landscape was pretty dismal in those days, so as goofy as it is today, I think it was cool for Chrysler to push the boundaries back then. They were still digging themselves out of near-bankruptcy when it came out, so they had to swing hard. Overall, I think it's a neat and quirky part of automotive history more than anything. However, people tend to forget (or didn't know) that Nissan had voice command in a few of their models in the mid-80s as well. I know the Maxima had it and I think the 300-series and 200-series sports cars had it too.
Right? - those loaded to the gills '84-85ish Maxima GXE(?) models had it. Also, I wonder - on the remaining survivors of these special K's - how many of them have an operable voice system? Are they still around haranguing their owners to check their washer fluid? Or have many of them stopped working and the subsequent owners don't even know that their car has the feature?
My godfather always drove New Yorkers and his last one was a 1985 like this - triple brown with the Turbo and velour interior. I will say it was very quick!
Honestly, I can't remember how reliable the system was/is, or if there are any easy fixes for it. There are enough working examples on YouTube, so I can't imagine it was too bad.
I think these systems all come down to the sensors being kept in decent shape and the computer not being damaged by low voltage batteries or weird stereo wiring that kids like to do. I know a lot of other marques still have vintage computer controls that are surviving just fine after all these years.
