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I never could live it down. All my associates and family used to sing the song every time I pulled up. I went to bed at night with nightmares for ten months. I ground my teeth down and got an ulcer.
Like I have said many times here, 'to each his/her own', but...
OMG these cars were such crap!
And for them to have the unmitigated gall to put 'Road Runner' on such junk just speaks to the bad judgement that has run the American car companies into the ground.
Got an excellent trade on it though which cost the salesman his job (seriously) and saw it leaving on the dealer's flatbed to auction a few days later.
Was there a dealership policy that they would not allow a Volare as a trade in?
I knew someone who had the Aspen coupe in college, many years after it first graced the roadways. Hers was the personal luxury coupe version, complete with the half vinyl roof, upgraded cloth upholstery (as opposed to vinyl), and I think it had "Special Edition" written on it in script. It was one of her grandmother's cars, and only had 40k miles when she got it, but by the quality of the materials used in its construction, I would have estimated it to have 400k miles on it. It rattled, leaked, seemed to have anti-stop brakes, had to be warmed up for 10 minutes before it would move, and numerous other issues. The grandmother had other cars, yet this one was "saved" for my friend because it was her favorite color. I laughed and said that it was a story, because her grandmother was too cheap to have to pay the dealership to take it in trade on a new car, and would not admit that Dodge had tricked her with marketing in 1977 or 1978 that this was a great car.
And, when it came time to get a new car, after the Aspen experiment bled her dry, to the tune f half the price of a new car (and her father relented in his stance that a new car would only get dinged at school), nobody would take it. She tried to sell it, but nobody would buy it. So, she tried to donate it to a program where they fix cars and give them to needy families for transportation, but the coordinator told her that the recipients needed at least the prospect of reliability for the program to work. I think she called one of those "we remove junk cars for free" people and they finally took it because she was tired of keeping it registered and insured while trying to dispose of it.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
Nearly anyone I knew back then when these cars came out hated them. They were notorious for poor build quality, and were absolutely gutless. Of course, to be fair, EVERYTHING made in the late 70s early '80s pretty much was.
With the 360 V8, they were actually some of the quickest domestics offered in the late 70s. Of course, economy was a big deal at the time and most of em ended up with Slant6s or 2bbl 318s....but even with those motors, they were still on par (or a little better than) everything else in their class from the Big Three.
It wasn't a common option, but both the Aspen and Volare (as well as most of Mopar's RWD offerings) could be ordered with the Police Package E58 motor, which was good for 220HP during this time....that was a BIG number back when small displacement, 95HP V8s were all the rage. That was even more than the standard Corvette motor put down at the time.
The "best" of the Chrysler F-Body was the 1978 Dodge Aspen Super Coupe. It came with the E58 (220HP) V8, an A727 tranny, 3.23 Sure-Grip rear end, Police Package brakes and suspension, GR60-15 tires and absolutely hideous graphics, louvers and spoilers plastered all over it.
1978 Dodge Aspen Super Coupe
According to "published magazine data" referenced on allpar.com, a 1978 Volare Kit Car (which had the same equipment as the Aspen Super Coupe...but with graphics that were supposed to make it look like Richard Petty's #43) did 0-60 in 7.3 seconds and got through the 1/4 in 15.9@88MPH. Those are good numbers even for modern cars! A non-E58 Super Coupe (160HP) did 8.1 seconds and 16.7@86MPH, which is still very respectable.
Getting a car with an E58 motor required a special order from the dealership and it wasn't advertised to the general public whatsoever....much like you could sneak a ZL1 427 into a Camaro through GM's COPO system back in the late 60s. The only difference was that instead of skirting corporate policy, they were skirting federal emissions regulations....and probably would have got in big trouble if the wrong people found out LOL!
So I guess we could say in 1978 if you wanted something "new" and "fast", you had to have either an Aspen Super Coupe or a Trans AM with the Y72 220 hp 400 cube engine. Since the Trans AM mentioned was supposidly the fastest US production car in '78....although I don't know how one would stack up against a Lil Red Express.
Was there a dealership policy that they would not allow a Volare as a trade in?
No, it seemed to be dealership policy to let the asst manager set the price for a trade-in, just a three or four man operation. Essentially I got about twice trade-in value which shocked even my untrained self. That brought the Lynx down to almost a giveaway price. Just one of those things, who knows, maybe the salesman was mad at the owner.
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