LeBaron GTC Convertible: the car and the price sticker!

Hi, this is Motel's Dave, and I'm here to walk you through Waltz-Sbanke's

1991 Chrysler-Labarin GTC window sticker. And this was a sporty little car if you got it with the turbo engine, as he did

as every GTC buyer did, in fact, and it cost $50,000. $595 back in the day, which today would be about $36,000

and that's just for the LeBaron convertible itself. That's not for the GTC

The GTC option added the 2.5-liter turbo engine. This was a great little engine because the 2.5 liter, you know, it was a stroked version of the 2.2

So it generated good low-end torque, but it kind of ran out once you got past about 4,000 RPM

if you had this standard TBI version. That's a single fuel injector

With the turbo, it had four fuel injectors, but more importantly, the turbo would start spinning up

at about the time that the engine's natural torque stopped being as much of a foul

So what you ended up with was a very smooth package. It came with a five-speed manual transmission

I think it was from Getrog, but I might be wrong about that. Chrysler also made manual transmissions

The TTC also had the sport bucket seats as opposed to regular bucket seats

It had high-performance four-wheel disc brakes. Four-wheel disc brakes were still not universal at that point

A lot of cars still had rear drums. More performance-oriented suspension. 16-inch cast-aluminum wheels with wide

tires and a very low profile for the time, a 55 profile. That all cost another 1161, which today would be

about $2,700, but well worth it, because this car with the 2.5-liter TBI engine would not be nearly

as much fun, and with the automatic transmission would really not be as much fun. This was, by the way

one of Chrysler's most popular cars at the time it was made. It was beautifully styled. It is still

an attractive car, it hasn't aged in its styling. Dodge didn't have the same car, which also helped

What did you get with it? That's where we go to the standard equipment area. This particular car in

the vehicle description it talks about the 12 power seat That a GTC feature And you get the recliner lumbar Back wings were basically the parts that stick out on either side of your back to hold you in better and that was handy for a car that had a better handling package

So these were all front-wheel drive cars. They had a single driver-side airbag, rear-seat shoulder harnesses

that was, I believe, federally regulated at that point and required, as was a driver-side airbag

Or, depending if I'm getting the year right, then you could have also had a automatic seat

belt, which was a bit of a pain. They had 5 mile per hour front and rear

bumpers. 2.5 liter turbocharged engine. I am pronouncing it that way because

that's how it's spelled. S.O.HC is single overhead cam. It's an overhead

cam design. Generally overhead cam designs are seen as being more efficient

than the old push rods. Usually that's true. Dual cam is generally seen as more efficient

than a single cam, but more expensive. SMPI, sequential, multiple port injections. So that's

electronic fuel injection. Sequential means that the fuel injectors don't all fire at once

Every time one cylinder fires, all the injectors fire. So that's the sequential. They fire when

they're needed. Multiple port means that there is one injector at each cylinder's port rather than

the TBI injection, which is throttle body injection, where you basically just take your carburetor

throw it out, and shove in a fuel injector there. Illuminized steel exhaust system that really worked

This is one of the first cars where when you drove it around for years and years

you wouldn't have to replace the tailpipe and muffler every five to six years

Rear window defroster, that's kind of obvious. In those days, they had already switched to all-electric, just like a car that you buy today

GTC package came with the power windows and power heated outside mirrors and the power door locks

They were automatic, so once you pass to certain speed, they would lock

And you could shut these off by performing some magic in the own that was described in the owner

manual. They didn't have the digital systems that they have today for setting these preferences

So it would be something like turn the key twice, turn the power locks up down, up down

spin around two times, put your right leg up, put your right leg down, put your left leg up

now you're doing the hokey-pokey. Electronic speed control is cruise control. Tilt wheels

still not a universal option The old joke is that somebody asked Mercedes why they didn have tilt wheel when cheaper cars did and the Mercedes person said because we have the steering wheel in the right position already

It's the AMFM stereo, electronic radio, and clock, high-performance wipers. I think that that meant that they had little airfoils on them so that when you're going at high speed

they would press harder onto the glass. Air conditioning, tinted glass, then still off an optional

I'm pretty sure that's a GTC thing, too. Here is the power enthusiast driver's seat

We covered that. 60-40 split-fold-down rear seat was nice because you could still have two people in the back seat with their own seat belts

while having a pass-through for skis or whatever else. Premium sound insulation because it's Chrysler

There's the big tires for the era. They were quite big for the era, especially consider it this is a four-cylinder car again

The light bar message center and chime warning system. Well, the chimes are obvious, but the light bar was they had a little picture

the car and lights would come up where there was some sort of trouble, like a door that was a jar

Illumidated entry so that when you open up the door, the dome light goes on

Full og instrumentation means that you have a real gas gauge, real temperature gauge

and so forth. And finally, your little mirrors on the sun visors on the right and the left

When you look down on this, you can see the port of entry was Fenton, Missouri

That's because it was made in the St. Louis plant, which was in Fenton, Missouri

Now let's go to options. You have your overhead console. That told you the temperature outside and the direction that you were heading

That was $611, probably worth it because we didn't have cell phones with navigation back then

Automatic transmission, about $900. That's about the price that it is on pretty much any car from that era

But, oh God, why would you do that on a beautiful Turbo Chrysler

I mean, really, why would you do that? Because Chrysler was lousy at tuning their three-speed automobraming

to match the turbo engines. And even if they hadn't been, it's such a smooth engine

why restrict herself with that three speed? It'll kill your gas mileage. And here we see that the gas mileage was 19 city 24 highway

which wasn't terrible, and it was probably much better than a V6 version would have been

which you can find out by going to look at one of their V6 cars. But still the automatic it sapped the gas mileage It sapped your power and it made it much no noisy at highway speed because it had no overdrive The trip computer that is your gas mileage calculation mostly

$215, and your Infinity Sound System for $1,300 in modern money, that gave you a cassette player, six speakers, retracting antenna

and a little amplifier on every speaker so that you could really get the base

That was one of Chrysler's very first high-fidelity sound systems, and it was quite good at what it did

So the total for this car is $18,000 or so, which day would be about $42,000 before destination and $100 that they give back to you for getting the GTC package

Don't ask me why they did it like that. So the destination charge would have been about $1,200 today when Chrysler charges about $1,900 destination

So that's a bargain. And the absolute total price before negotiations with the dealer would have been about $42,600 in terms

today's money. And you can say, you know, it was a lot cheaper than people must have had better times

back then, but you have to also consider that people were being paid less than half as much as they

are now. So these things are all relative, but it was still a very enjoyable car. It was a beautiful

car to look at. It was a comfortable car. What's missing from a car of today? Mostly safety

No anti-lock brakes, you'll notice. No traction control. The safety standards were generally much

slower, especially for side impact and roll over. But if you're concerned about safety

these would have been one or two-star cars by today's standards. The gas mileage isn't great

compared to one of today's cars, and that's because it has that three-speed automatic. This

car would have had a lot less sound insulation than a typical modern car because they didn't

use acoustic glass yet. And you can lock in a child's seat much more easily, but that I could do a whole

video on, so I'm going to cut this short. It was a really enjoyable car. It was an expensive car. For the time

it was a premium car, but then it was a Chrysler. So thank you, Walt, for sending this to me

sent it many years ago, and thank you, Walt, for sending me the pictures of the car that you owned

which is on this price sticker. This is Dave, signing out