A nice Reliant Automobile

NMNA, but very clean for a 30+ year old K car, and a long roof.

http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/cto/4181571295.html

Wow! Build the ultimate sleeper.

Time to take off the rose colored glasses. Those were some of the worst cars ever made.

bravenrace wrote: Time to take off the rose colored glasses. Those were some of the worst cars ever made.

Challenge results do not agree with the statement above.
Also widely known to be purchased by those with million dollars along with a llama or an emu.

Neighbors had one and finally sold it because it would not die. They just got tired of it.

Nearly bought a wagon with that same interior and a manual. It had a bad clutch and I didn't know how to dive that deep into them at the time. I've since had people tell me that manual wagons don't exist. I sat in one once. One of the ones that got away.

Disappointed, expected 3 wheeler.

bravenrace wrote: Those were some of the worst cars ever made.

Not by a long shot.

914Driver wrote: Wow! Build the ultimate sleeper.

Chryco/Ford badge engineering?

Snag it, and throw in copious amounts of that SRT-4 drive train that was floating about...

If I had a million dollars....

Yes it was the three wheel version that had the worst car trophy

bravenrace wrote: Time to take off the rose colored glasses. Those were some of the worst cars ever made.

What?

Aside from being a punching bag for stand-up comedians in the early 80's, I've alway's heard they they were "reliant" if you will. I had a 2 door, 2 tone with a landau top that ran like a top. Over two years, all it needed was a starter. . . just wasn't happy about having to drop the front crossmember to do it.

Need moar fast? Plenty of goodies at the junk yard. Spirit R/T's, Daytona Turbo Z CS's and some crossover with the L frame.

I even heard somebody once stuffed a Jalpa motor in a K-frame. (edit: forgot hotlink)

bearmtnmartin wrote: Yes it was the three wheel version that had the worst car trophy

Not that Reliant. Chrysler's Reliant.

I was at an import drag thingy up in NH some years ago. FTD was a silver ratted out, gutted, half caged K car of some sort. Total sleeper that ran a top speed just shy of 160MPH. And that was with a light drizzle and a slippery track. Never saw the engine, but I was told it had a 2.5 with a big turbo. Every time I would go over to look at the car, there was nobody around. I can only assume the guy was tired of people asking him dumb questions, so he kept the hood closed and stayed away from the car.

Isn't the 2.6 a Mitsubishi motor? My first car was an '84 Reliant sedan with the Chrysler motor (2.2?). It drove like an 80's car sure, but I loved that thing. I put a ton of miles on it driving here there and everywhere until someone turned left in front of me in an intersection on a 45mph street. That was the car's 3rd or 4th major accident and it was done.

175000 miles and 3 teenagers learning how to drive on it and wrecking it. It gave its all.

Our experience with those things jive with the worst car ever moniker.

My father had an '84 E Class as a company car. It was one of those talking cars. What a hunk of crap. Electrical problems as if it were built by Lucas. Blew a head gasket, and had other various issues. It only made it about 50,000 miles before they yanked it and gave him...a Ford Tempo...

I used and abused a water vdub powered 4sp Omni 024, two '87 2.2 5sp's and afore mentioned Reliant in my reckless youth and none never left me stranded.

However, I do now recollect my father having serious issues with his New Yorker turbo. If I recall (and correct me if I'm wrong), the turbo lubes from the engine oil and if the right seal goes, it will suck oil out the tailpipe pretty quick.

tr8todd wrote: I was at an import drag thingy up in NH some years ago. FTD was a silver ratted out, gutted, half caged K car of some sort. Total sleeper that ran a top speed just shy of 160MPH. And that was with a light drizzle and a slippery track. Never saw the engine, but I was told it had a 2.5 with a big turbo. Every time I would go over to look at the car, there was nobody around. I can only assume the guy was tired of people asking him dumb questions, so he kept the hood closed and stayed away from the car.

Gary Donovan and Relentless

No worse than any other early 80s domestic, but given all of it's platform mates, making it go faster shouldn't be too hard. Plus, you don't have to eat Kraft Dinner.

I was a mechanic in the early to mid 80's, so I worked on a bunch of these along with all the other brands. I did more than a dozen cam replacements on these cars with less than 30k on them. By 40k the doors were literally falling off because the hinges failed. Not to mention that the front ends were badly out of alignment in ways that required a frame machine to correct. These were extremely common failures in an extremely low quality car, and only a small sample of everything that went wrong with them. My own sister bought an '81 Aries that I personally maintained. She sold it to a junk yard with 45k miles on it. They were intended and designed to be cheap throw away cars, and they didn't even fulfill that task well.
But more importantly, they drove like dreck. At the same time Honda and Toyota were already producing cars that would easily go 150-200k without major repairs. How anyone would choose to drive one of these over even other terrible cars from that era escapes me. They were truly awful cars. YMMMV

They were cheap. Really really cheap. It's amazing how important that has always been to new car buyers.

bravenrace wrote: I was a mechanic in the early to mid 80's, so I worked on a bunch of these along with all the other brands. I did more than a dozen cam replacements on these cars with less than 30k on them. By 40k the doors were literally falling off because the hinges failed. Not to mention that the front ends were badly out of alignment in ways that required a frame machine to correct. These were extremely common failures in an extremely low quality car, and only a small sample of everything that went wrong with them. My own sister bought an '81 Aries that I personally maintained. She sold it to a junk yard with 45k miles on it. They were intended and designed to be cheap throw away cars, and they didn't even fulfill that task well. But more importantly, they drove like dreck. At the same time Honda and Toyota were already producing cars that would easily go 150-200k without major repairs. How anyone would choose to drive one of these over even other terrible cars from that era escapes me. They were truly awful cars. YMMMV

I always hear this sort of thing from mechanics... of ANY make: "I worked on a lot of them and they were horrible." Well, you worked on broken ones. You obviously didn't work on the tens of thousands of them that gave the owners no problems. Your anecdotal evidence of the broken ones you worked on is countered by the anecdotal evidence of the owners who couldn't kill theirs.

Crappy cars put bread on your table. Say again your issues?