Plymouth Prowler: Walking Contradiction

Plymouth Prowler sought to revive the brand's slipping image at a time when Chrysler Corporation was in transition. Plymouth, the company's value marque, had been a best seller during the depression years, but was weak and redundant by the '90's.

My dad drove Plymouths all through the 1950's, 60's, and 70's.

I had a '57 Plymouth sedan myself, but never could figure out why an automotive brand image was modeled after a sailing ship and folks with beards who dressed up in black and white on Thanksgiving.

Viper was a success at Dodge, so a halo roadster seemed like the prescription to revive the stale Plymouth brand.

Plymouth Prowler - At the Beach

Retro-styled as a 1950's 1934 Ford-based Hot Rod, the slick open wheeled Prowler concept was a show stopper.

Car guy Bob Lutz, then President of Chrysler, gave the go-ahead, but the project was limited in budget and restricted to an "affordable" target price consistent with the Plymouth tradition.

Morphing a one-off concept into a mass-produced piece of transportation often means the thrill is gone. But Chrysler was able to make the transition with few changes.

Notable were front plastic bumpers and headlights, to comply with Federal 5-mph bumper rules. These eyesores spawned after-market bumper removal kits.

Chrysler engineering accepted the Plymouth Prowler project, with assistance from ALCOA corp, as a challenge in production techniques.

Previously, sheet metal stamping required time and cash consuming trial and error. A low production run halo car was just too expensive to consider.

But supercomputer modeling at ALCOA allowed designers to cut costs to make the aluminum-intensive Prowler a mere loss leader.

The resulting vehicle was a resounding success, but like many Chryslers, failed to live up to it's promise.

Identity Crisis

Just what was the stylish Plymouth, anyhow?

Was the Prowler a hot rod?

Not really.

To constrain sticker price, standard parts-bin scrounging was employed on the radical design.

Chrysler used an existing 3.5-liter V-6 engine, which produced an anemic 214 hp in the early production offering.

An upgrade to 253 hp in later iterations failed to provide acceleration to match the image. Aftermarket turbos are frequently added.

With its automatic transmission, Prowler's performance was plain inconsistent with the attention grabbing appearance.

This was before the blingy-huge-wheel craze had really caught on.

Prowler's giant 20-inch rear wheels with 295/40HR20 super-wide tires promised smoking performance that just wasn't there: a poseur.

So maybe the prowling could be considered a sports car?

Despite very good handling due to completely independent suspension, the non-ABS all wheel disc brakes needed a very unsporting 140 feet to stop from 60 mph.

But hey, the disc-brake caliper show-off fad was getting started, and the discs did look really cool out there in the breeze.

So maybe the sharp looking roadster was a luxury tourer?

It did have leather, A/C, and a killer stereo.

Unfortunately the car was about as cramped as a 1957 MGA, and had a trunk so small that nearly 20 percent of all Prowlers sold were purchased with the $5,075 matching trailer.

Standard run-flat tires and stiff suspension made the ride too rough for touring.

Uncomfortable seats, poor top-up visibility, tire/wind noise at highway speeds, wind buffeting in the open cabin, and a fabric roof that required getting out to raise if it rained, all combined to discourage any actual traveling.

Forget the luxury touring tag.

So what was Prowler?

The ultimate attention getter among mass-market cars.

Where Ferraris are common and Corvettes are ignored, a clean Plymouth Prowler will still draw a crowd of admirers.

So was the Prowler a bargain?

Nope.

Deliberately under-produced by Chrysler, the all-show-no-go Prowlers often sported dealer and speculator markups which priced them above a new C5 Corvette.

Only 11,702 Prowlers were built from 1997-2002.

No 1998 model was offered, but the 1999, with the 253 hp engine upgrade, came out in early 1998.

DaimlerChrysler axed the Plymouth brand in January 2000, but kept Prowler alive as a Chrysler until the Mercedes-sourced Crossfire was ready.

Beyond a Pretender: Engineering Experiment

So what is the real significance of the Prowler experiment?

Critics contend Prowler is a fair weather lifestyle statement, neither serious transportation nor effective sporting toy.

But I think Prowler is notable beyond its just-a-pretty-face shortcomings.

Gains in fuel efficiency, required to keep America's auto industry alive, require a 25% weight reduction from today's fat cars.

This is more about the economy than the environment.

The Prowler's rear-wheel drive aluminum chassis gave a light curb weight around 2840 pounds.

Nine hundred pounds of aluminum were deployed;