• This 3700-mile 1982 Chrysler LeBaron may not be the car of your dreams—or, if your dreams come from Malaise Era Detroit, it might be exactly that.
• Powered by a 92-hp 2.6-liter inline-four engine and armed with a cassette player, this Chrysler brings you top-down motoring as it once was.
• The LeBaron is up for auction at no reserve on Bring a Trailer, with bidding set to end on Saturday, April 2.
UPDATE: The LeBaron convertible sold for $11,500.
One of the many glories of Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos), and one of the reasons I peruse its listings daily, is its Herodotean featuring of time-capsule vehicles. The most compelling of these cars, for me, are ones that conjure the domestic automotive ignominy perpetrated on the public during my Malaise Era Detroit childhood. Often, these splendidly vile artifacts are located in the Midwest, where endless winters, rain-soaked bridge seasons, and ruinous salt-strewn infrastructure have catalyzed a cryogenic laboratory for the preservation of oddball Big Three physical culture.
This 3700-mile 1982 Chrysler LeBaron convertible is a perfect exemplar. Of course it's slathered in an era-defining Mahogany Metallic and highlighted with a contrasting safety orange pinstripe. But it is the ribbed caramel and mocha leather and pleather interior that truly captivates, not least because it attempts to hide (see what we did there?) the plebeian yet innovative front-wheel-drive K-car platform with deluxury from America's Hermès, the Mark Cross company, founded, like its French co-rival, to accessorize the horse-and-buggy trade.
But it isn't simply nostalgia that fuels my interest in this car, or any of these archival archetypes. It's archaeology. The '82 LeBaron was responsible for reintroducing the factory convertible to the American marketplace, a form abandoned punitively as a domestic manufacturers panicked and resisted (as usual) in the face of increasing safety regulation. And it features a 92-hp/131-pound-foot 2.6-liter transversely mounted, Mitsubishi-sourced I-4 Hemi engine. It was a giant of displacement among four-pots and used counterrotating dual balance shafts to smooth operation—a technology that was subsequently licensed to Porsche for its big 2.5- and 3.0-liter '80s fours.
The white top powers down. The A/C blows cold. The cassette player will boom any ancient mixtapes you can unearth. Is this car historical, or simply hysterical? Either way, it's captivating, and—with bidding only at $2500, albeit with nearly a week to go—a cheap way into top-down motoring, historic preservation, and Radwood darling status.
Brett Berk (he/him) is a former preschool teacher and early childhood center director who spent a decade as a youth and family researcher and now covers the topics of kids and the auto industry for publications including CNN, the New York Times, Popular Mechanics and more. He has published a parenting book, The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting, and since 2008 has driven and reviewed thousands of cars for Car and Driver and Road & Track, where he is contributing editor. He has also written for Architectural Digest, Billboard, ELLE Decor, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure and Vanity Fair.
