Junkyard Treasure: 1998 Plymouth Voyager Expresso

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For the 1994 Chicago Auto Show, Chrysler brought a Neon-based concept car that resembled something households would certainly drive around the Mars Base in the year 2094. This was the Plymouth Expresso, and you would certainly never ever have actually thought that the Plymouth Department itself would be terminated simply 7 years later on while looking at its wayward form. As often happens with concept cars, the Expresso’s layout itself was a stumbling block (though some claim it influenced the later Chrysler PT Cruiser), yet its name endured … on a choice plan.

As the 1990s started, Chrysler really felt Plymouth continued to be appropriate regardless of couple of American auto customers recognizing that the brand name was intended to live listed below Dodge in the firm’s eminence pecking order. The PT Cruiser initially was intended as a Plymouth, and the Prowler truly did start birthing the badging of the Chrysler department named after a brand of twine popular with 1920s farmers.

The very first use the Expresso name on a Plymouth can be found in the 1996 version year, when Plymouth Neon and Breeze customers might obtain the Expresso Plan for $375 (regarding $762 in 2024 bucks). The customer for Edmunds was pungent regarding “a brand-new transparently-named Expresso plan targeted at supposed Generation X customers that apparently invest all their time slacking off at the Coffee Ranch drinking java.” By 1998, every single Plymouth model except the Prowler might be Expresso-ized.

Expressos obtained these rad badges (see: Mercury Tracer Trio), body-colored trim and a midway suitable AM/FM/cassette radio. As a participant of Generation X that had actually simply struck age 30 at the time, I had no desire to trade in my 1965 Impala or 1985 CRX for a Plymouth Expresso, yet my response might have been irregular (it had not been).