23 July 2019

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

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