Plymouth USA Sales : 1970's (2nd Half)

1977 Plymouth Volare

I recall having a couple of Plymouth Plaza taxis as dinky cars. That was all I knew of the brand. Plymouth was created in the late 1920's to give the company a low price vehicle to compete with Chevrolet and Ford. If that was the case, by the late 1970's it wasn't doing that well. It was based around the Valiant and its successor the Volaré. The early 70's sales were averaging over the 700,000 mark.

Model	1979	1978	1977	1976	1975
Volaré/Valiant	167,091	210,125	306,548	386,182	234,601
Horizon	84,668	116,412
TC3	62,072	2,581
Champ	27,031	1,471
Arrow	21,829	26,825	47,345	30,430
Sapporo	12,322	3,073
Voyager	10,125	13,895	13,767	12,974	12,928
Fury	2,681	60,378	92,056	97,063	104,110
Gran Fury	746	980	31,692	48,951	62,909
Total US Sales	388,565	435,740	491,408	575,600	414,548

Volaré/Valiant: The last Valiant model went from '74 to '76 and was replaced by the slightly smaller Volaré. After a sales spurt, they fell away rather quickly to under 170,000 by 1979.

Horizon: This was a car developed by Chrysler Europe with modifications for North America, so a compact hatch model. Sales were unspectacular, but solid.

TC3: It was decided to use the Horizon car and modify it into a 3 door sporty hatch. In 1979, it sold in reasonable numbers but still early days.

Champ: An unusual name for a car, it was a Mitsubishi Colt Galant made in Japan and sold under the Plymouth name. It's what the Americans call a captive import. It was still just a new model for Plymouth in 1979 but had been sold as a Dodge for some years earlier.

Arrow: Another captive import from Mitsubishi, it was the coupé version of the Lancer known as the Celeste. It sold quite well.

Sapporo: The third import, this time a Mitsubishi Galant Lambda two door, four seater coupé. It was a niche model so not intended as a volume model.

Voyager: This was a larger van introduced in 1974 which didn't sell in the numbers that the same vehicle did as the Dodge equivalent.

Fury: The 7th generation large car had been a successful model in the past but in 1975 took over the role that the slightly smaller Satellite model held up until that time.

Gran Fury: This model took over from the Fury model in 1975. Sales quickly petered out during this period.

Summary: By 1979, sales were half the 1973 total so things hadn't gone that well in a few short years. For an entry level car sales surely sales needed to be better than what the decade ended on.

The 1980's continues the series and can be seen by clicking here.

1978 Plymouth Horizon