MotorWeek's Retro Review Of The 1994 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible Will Make You Long For The Days Of Affordable Drop Tops

Any front-wheel-drive Chrysler product from the ‘80s until the Neon came around in the mid-nineties is a K-car in my head, and K-cars are dull, boring, and uninspiring heaps of appliance-like motoring. Even most other MotorWeek Retro Reviews of Chrysler K-platform vehicles show homely looking cars crawling their way through the quarter-mile and slamming from bump stop to bump stop as they wallow through the slalom, so I expected to see more of the same from the 1994 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible review. What I saw really surprised me.

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Watching the MotorWeek crew huck this antique front-wheel drive, automatic, drop top around on a track, I was surprised to see it complete a 0-to-60 run in under 10 seconds, and borderline flabbergasted when I watched it zip through the slalom almost gracefully. It certainly ain’t anywhere near as composed as, say a Porsche, but you have to remember that the K platform was introduced in 1981, and chopping the roof off did this clunky car no favors. All I’m saying is I didn’t expect it to perform as well as it did, not that it broke any land speed records, and not that the Chrysler LeBaron Convertible should become

1994 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible | Retro Review

While the exterior definitely looks more ‘80s to me than ‘90s, this facelift did away with the flip-up headlight covers that concealed the earlier model’s sealed beam headlights. Before you roast me for disliking pop-up headlights, they weren’t real pop-ups anyway, just recessed behind flip up covers. On the interior, the seats look unreasonably plush and the dash design looks relatively contemporary, too, with dual airbags and a curved dash. Again, while I’m not saying this car looks modern, it looks more modern than I expected. Seeing this makes me question my quick judgement of all K platform cars. Maybe I’ve been too harsh on the cars built on this company-saving platform.