The personal luxury segment ruled the Motor City sales charts in the early ’80s. Here’s Dodge’s entry in the highly competitive category: the 1980-1983 Mirada.
Personal-luxury coupes were a critical element in the new-car market of the ’70s and ’80s, both in total sales volume and as brand builders. Sporty two-doors loaded with convenience and luxury features, these popular models helped to lure buyers of every segment into the showrooms. Dodge’s all-new entry in the highly competitive category for 1980 was the Mirada, a sleek coupe produced for only four model years.
Lean and compact, especially when compared to its predecessors, the Mirada was 800 pounds lighter and seven inches shorter than the Magnum, Dodge’s previous entry. Built at the Chrysler plant in Windsor, Ontario on the Mopar J platform, an evolution of the cross-torsion Aspen/Volare M-body, the Mirada shared its basic hardware with Chrysler’s newly downsized Cordoba and Imperial.
But like any good personal-luxury car of the period, the Mirada sported the customary long hood, short deck, and rear-wheel drive. Buyers could choose a 225 cubic-inch Slant Six, a 318 cubic-inch V8, or a 360 cubic-inch V8, but the larger V8 was dropped after the first year. Only one transmission was available, a three-speed TorqueFlite automatic.
Three stylish interiors were offered: cloth and vinyl, vinyl, and leather and vinyl, with a choice of split bench seat with folding center armrest, or a pair of bucket seats with a full-length console. Cars with the split-bench seat were equipped with a column shift lever, while a console-mounted shifter was offered with the bucket-seat package. Audio options included a choice of cassette or 8-track tape players and a premium speaker package with 30-watt rear amplifier. There was even an available in-dash CB radio, good buddy.
Available only in a two-door hardtop body style, the Mirada was offered with a variety of roof treatments to provide different looks. Choices included a painted metal roof with fixed opera windows, a vinyl landau half-top, or the Cabriolet Roof shown in the lead photo at the top of this page. With its full-length padded fabric cover and blocked-off opera windows, the Cabriolet looked almost like a real convertible from a few feet away.
Handsome as it was, the Mirada was not a big winner in the marketplace. Olds and Buick briefly became million-unit divisions on the strength of their personal luxury models, Cutlass Supreme and Regal, but the Mirada barely made a dent in the charts. Total production for all years was just under 53,000 cars, with the inaugural 1980 model accounting for half the volume. Times and tastes were changing, Chrysler was struggling to reinvent itself as a car maker, and after 1983 the Mirada was discontinued. Its replacements in the Dodge lineup for 1984 were front-wheel drive sedans.
I feel that automakers shot themselves in the foot with personal luxury cars, beginning sometime around the debut of the Caprice and LTD. They cut off the need for the buyer to move up into a higher margin car to get the extras, and throttled marques like Mercury, Oldsmobile, even Cadillac and Lincoln to an extent. This should have been exclusively a Cordoba. The Caprice and Grand Prix should have been Olds and Buick territory. Blame the dealers for wanting a piece of every segment.
Although the Mirada is attractive in retrospect, Chrysler Corp were about as sexy as a Studebaker in the Eighties. I’m beginning to think they would have been better off going down after Daimler-Benz dumped them.
I never really considered the Olds Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal a Personal luxury car. My recollection of the first personal luxury coupes in the post war era from GM comes with the 49 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Buick Riviera and Olds 98 Holiday and then 1950 Pontiac Chieftain Catalina and Chevrolet Bel Air. After the hardtop became commonplace the next personal cars from GM was the 1953 Eldorado, Buick Skylark, and Olds Fiesta convertible coupes followed in 1954 by the Olds Starfire.
Caprice, Ford LTD were not personal luxury cars, but were clearly going above and beyond their original intensions of a affordable full size car. As far as the Caprice is concerned it is way out of bounds from the rules set down by Sloan. In order to out pace one another the game had to go on though. Personal luxury cars they were not, remember the very first of the cars were four door hardtops only. Pontiac would get back into the personal luxury coupe market again with the 1962 Grand Prix in GM “B” body form until the 1969 “G” body Grand Prix came out, then in 1970 with it’s shared body Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
The story of the “G” body is interesting in that it started of as a John DeLorean concept but Pontiac didn’t have enough money to develop the car on it’s own, so DeLorean went to his former Pontiac boss Pete Estes who was now General Manager of Chevrolet to ask for help. Estes agreed to share the cost and to give Pontiac the old customary GM one year exclusivity, hence the G/P came in 69 and the Monte Carlo came out in 1970.
Very nice article well written no mention of the TBird… I live in Canada and the U.S. and was so surprised by the quality the U.S. car makers gave…. believe me I worked for Ford IH I know vehicles
John London UK
I always thought the Mirada was much nicer looking than the Cordoba of the same generation. The Imperial of that year was a looker too, IMHO. I’m not sure if they did a 300 on the J body, but I seem to recall a 300 style grille on one of the versions. I’m not sure if it was the plebian Volare/Aspen underpinnings, the troublesome Lean Burn system, or people’s tastes changing that killed it. A few years before the T-bird was one of the biggest sellers in that category and this was a more appealing choice.
Yeah, T-bird, Riviera, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, etc. are all proper “personal luxury coupes”. IMO, the T-bird started PLC. Never a two door built off a full size platform.
The Chrysler division did build a “300” version of the Cordoba. It used the Mirada plastic front fasia with a “target/bullseye” cross bar in the middle and few red/white/blue badges. They never called a 300 though. They just referred to it as “Sport” edition.
I still own a Mirada that I bought new in 1982. it’s everything, good and bad, that this article mentions. All it sees is car shows these days. It’s the only one there.
Wow, brings back good memories. A 1982 Mirada was my first car that I bought in 1984, which was factory ordered new by my brother. It was smoke grey, had vinyl buckets seats and T-tops. Yes, T-tops. The only one I’ve ever seen. I had it for two years before I found out why my brother got rid of it. Had transmission issues that no mechanic could fix. I definitely couldn’t afford to change it. I would kill to have it back today.