Thus begins the strangest tale in my entire vehicle ownership experience. Which is saying something. This was a car that never should have come into my life, but that was at the time everything I had ever wanted in a car. That was when she decided to replace the 6 year old Luxury LeMans — a gas hog that she had never really loved. I innocently suggested that she check out a Plymouth Horizon or Dodge Omni. I had tried selling my mother on a Chrysler product before, in I at least got her to drive into the lot of the local Chry-Ply dealer before she saw what the Satellite sedans looked like and drove right back out again without stopping the car.
But this time the little L body made a case for itself. She was approaching fifty years old and was not ready to settle for an econobox. We had gotten a touch of Honda experience by driving occasional loaners when the Pontiac had been in for service at our local dealership that handled both lines.
The little Omni just seemed right, and once she got over the games Glenbrook Dodge was playing three separate times when the special order car was to be delivered but, oddly, was reported as not on the truck , she drove a couple of blocks to Tomkinson Chrysler-Plymouth and ended up with a two tone navy and silver blue Horizon sedan. And it was actually plush, with comfy velour upholstery, air, power steering and brakes, automatic, and the best stereo either of us had ever had in a car.
Early one summer evening two years later I happened to be out somewhere with Mom and my Aunt Norma, who was curious about a Horizon for one of her kids. Suddenly, I no longer cared. Because there, in the front row of the used cars, was the most gorgeous New Yorker Brougham 4 door hardtop ever built. My car-influence Howard had bought a 77 Newport 4 door hardtop brand new, and I was quite really extremely fond of that car.
But this New Yorker took everything good about the Newport and turned it to eleven. You know that oft parodied movie scene where the man and the woman see each other across the green meadow full of daisies, then run in slow motion until they end in a passionate embrace? My reaction upon seeing the New Yorker was a lot like that.
