Welcome to another Shitbox Showdown! Our mid-week selections come to us once again courtesy of the Underappreciated Survivors group on Facebook, and never have two cars been better examples. Neither one of them has any sort of enthusiast following, neither one of them has hit 60,000 miles yet, and neither one costs more than three grand out the door.
Yesterday, we looked at two other survivors, but from the sounds of it, most of you definitely appreciated them. Accords and Camrys have both been part of the American car landscape for so long that everybody has a story about one or the other. And they’re pretty similar and interchangeable cars, when you get right down to it, which is reflected in the vote: basically a dead heat.
The choice for most of you seems to have come down to the Toyota’s better condition versus the Honda’s conventional seatbelts. Me, I’d take the Honda, but in truth I’d probably keep shopping before buying either.
And that brings me to today’s choices. I’ve long thought that the best choice for an inexpensive used car is a non-enthusiast vehicle with low miles, the so-called “Grandma-mobile.” No, you can’t get them with a stick; don’t even ask. Yes, that howl from the tires around corners is normal; it means slow down. No, you shouldn’t eat that petrified hard candy you found in the glovebox; good grief, do they even still make that stuff anymore?
If you are only going to have one car, I could see why maybe you wouldn’t want it to be something like these. But if you plan to have a fun car in sketchy condition, and need a reliable daily driver, you could do a lot worse. Let’s check them out.
1992 Chevrolet Lumina – $2,600
Engine/drivetrain: 3.1 liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Bristol, PA
Odometer reading: 58,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives great
Believe it or not, the Chevy Lumina was, once upon a time, sleek and futuristic. It replaced the brutally rectilinear A-body Celebrity in Chevy’s lineup, a couple years after the rest of the W-body cars came out, and not everyone was a fan. I remember one old-timer when I worked at the service station who clung to a rusty ’83 Malibu rather than replace it because he couldn’t stand “those new blobby Chevys.”
Really, the Lumina was pretty conservative. It still had a bench seat and a column-mounted shifter, it carried over the same 60-degree V6 and overdrive automatic from the Celebrity, and just look at all that fake woodgrain. Yes, you could get a sportier Lumina, but the vast majority of them looked like this one. This is a one-owner car for sale by a dealership; I get the feeling it came from someone’s estate. The only info we get is that it runs and drives great, and that it includes the original owner’s manual and window sticker, which is kind of cool.
I do applaud the dealership for resisting the urge to steam-clean the engine. Grimy engines tell a story, and this one is telling me that it has the typical 3.1 valve cover leaks, and probably some more as well. That intake plenum is supposed to be shiny machined aluminum, not covered in gray-brown gunk. “Only driving to church on Sundays” has its drawbacks; fix the oil leaks, and then go give it a nice Italian tuneup.
The rest of it looks good. The inside is a little grubby, but it should clean up all right. With the low miles, you’d be wise to check the date codes on the tires; they could be ten years old and desperately in need of replacement.
1993 Dodge Spirit ES – $2,700
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5 liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Tonica, IL
Odometer reading: 59,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives great
The Dodge Spirit and Plymouth Acclaim were replacements for square cars, too: the original Aries and Reliant K-cars. Designated the AA-body, the Spirit and Acclaim were still pretty boxy, but a lot more handsome than the K-cars. Mechanically, the AA was largely an improved K-car, but that’s not a bad thing. Keep making the same car for a decade or so, and you’re bound to iron out the kinks.
The Spirit is powered by a 2.5 liter version of the K-engine, with balance shafts to smooth it out and throttle-body fuel injection for reliability and drivability. It uses the same tried-and-true Torqueflite three-speed automatic that Chrysler used for decades. It runs great, according to the seller, and needs nothing – but again, check the dates on the tires.
Sadly, we don’t get any interior or underhood photos with this one, except for this shot of the dash. It’s as dull and old-fashioned as the Lumina inside, probably with a split-bench seat as well. The Spirit was also available in a high-performance version, and it put the Lumina Z34 to shame, but just try finding one of those for sale. This plain-Jane Spirit is scarce enough.
If it’s as clean inside as it looks on the outside, I’d say this car is in fine shape. I always liked the looks of the Spirit and Acclaim, even if they look like the generic cars used in advertising. They look simple and honest, without a hint of pretense about their mission or status, and that is to be admired.
Don’t get me wrong; no one is claiming that these cars are even remotely exciting. But I still maintain that a big part of the excitement of a car comes not from what it is, but from where it goes. Boring cars become interesting when they play a part in good stories. With that in mind, I want you to not only choose a car, but comment on where you would road-trip it to. Both of these cars are begging for exercise. Which one, and where to?
(Image credits: Facebook Marketplace sellers)
Lumina for me… mainly for performance and driving dynamics reasons. That GM 3.1L V6 with the 4 speed auto will be much more pleasant to live with than the K-car engine with the 3 speed slushbox… especially if you do a lot of highway driving.
And if you look at the fuel economy figures, both essentially get the same fuel economy.
Spirit gets my vote, the 2.5 is pretty bullet proof, my friend had it in his Jeep. While it was unbearably slow, it got the job done. I learned to drive on a Sundance and everything was good but eventually the transmission started slipping. My brother in law had a Lumina like that in beige that he bought from the mechanic. That thing literally fell to bits in his hands. When he got my sisters Nissan Stanza, he drove that thing forever and it never skipped a beat.
On the other hand, with the Spirit, you now have a very AGED explosive device aimed at your face and chest.
I mean, at this point, you can remove it because I’m sure you’d die anyways if you were hit by a modern car.
The 2.5 in a Jeep is not the 2.5 in a Spirit – the Jeep 4cyl is an AMC design and the Spirit engine is a stroked version of the Chrysler 2.2 with balance shafts.
The Spirit, if for no other reason than to rescue it from that fucking desolate looking hellscape behind it in the bottom picture. To some the car may seem sad and depressing until they see the environment where the poor thing lives, then it all makes sense…
I give Chrysler major credit for putting airbags in most of its cars in 1990, and all of them by ’92. GM couldn’t be assed until it was a mandate.
First car was a 1990 Spirit, so the Spirit gets my vote. Get ready for the valve cover oil leaks on that 2.5L engine. Mine didn’t have the luggage rack on the trunk, but it did have a floor-mounted shifter and a tach so you could really pretend you were accelerating fast.
I was going to vote for the Spirit because I prefer the styling, and those cheapo Kmart wheel covers on the Lumina are terrible. But the usefulness of 2 more cylinders and another gear when driving in the mountains pulled me to the Chevy.
I’ve got some experience with both these platforms. I took driver’s ed in a then-new ’93 Lumina, one of several loaned to the high school by a local dealership.
My family had a few of the Chrysler AA cars, including my grandfather’s Acclaim and my father’s ’92 LeBaron sedan. Both of those featured the ubiquitous Mitsu 3.0 V6, though.
I’d still vote for the Dodge, just because of my soft spot for Chryco of the ’80s/’90s, and because IIRC the handling of the AA’s was slightly less spongey than the Luminas.
Either one would be a virtual shoo-in for the Regular Prize at any TriangleRAD event, to be sure.
I feel like a well-designed spoiler could significantly improve the aerodynamic drag of the Spirit – that bluff rear window would work great with something that emulated a tailgate on a pickup truck.
I fell asleep reading about both of them, but the Dodge barely gets my vote. It’s like flipping a coin, and Mopar came up heads.
I am loath to consider any GM with the 2.8, 3.1, or 3.4, but I think the 3.1 had fewer issues with the intake gasket failures resulting in coolant in the motor, but I could be wrong there too?
the Spirit seems like a better option, but a 4 cylinder with a 3 Speed auto in that era seems like a poor choice even if it might be more reliable.
It’ll get you there, just don’t be in a hurry.
The Lumina is a better looking, more comfortable car. Best to change the intake manifold gasket whilst you’re doing the valve cover gaskets. You’d be stupid not to do plugs and wires while you’re in there. You could probably cruise for years in ice cold air conditioned comfort after that service though.
I like the rectilinear Dodge but I have a story about a Lumina that looked just like that one, with the same engine:
In one of the high schools where I used to live they had an annual car show, and during the show they had a challenge where they took some car they bought to train students, emptied the coolant, and ran it until it didn’t run anymore. Students would place bets and whoever got closest to the right time got a prize. One year, they bought a baby blue Lumina and did the same thing.
The Lumina didn’t die. They went a couple hours, everyone went home, eventually they gave up and admitted the Lumina won.
So if I’m going to buy a boring car that is going to be a reliable daily driver anyway, give me the Lumina.
Is that Lumina pre-driverside-Airbags?
Or is it just curiously small?
Nope, no airbag. See how the seatbelts are attached to the doors rather than the B-pillars? GM skirted the rules for a few years doing this, claiming they were “paasive restraints” since technically you could leave them fastened and get in and out of the car. No one used them that way, of course.
2 almost exact cars one without oil leaks. I went Dodge. For where I would drive it? To as few places as possible, as I would not want to fall asleep at the wheel.
As slow as you would be going, the traffic flying by you would likely scare you awake constantly.
Even on the way to church on Sunday?
I have seen some very entitled people get very irate with a person driving the speed limit on even side streets lately, passing in bike lanes, no passing zones and honking and flashing lights. People are funny
Tossed a coin and it came up Chevy. Road tripping it from Wisconsin to Whistler BC for some proper skiing should get the fluids flowing again.
We referred to the Lumina as belly buttons….. everyone has one
Is it me or does that coolant tank on the Lumina look like it holds about 35 gallons?
Also I guess I’ll go with the Lumina, the Spirit is so boring to look at I feel like it would turn me into a narcoleptic on the first drive. The Lumina is still boring but more in a disappears-into-the-background, totally innocuous, 90s rental car way.
Dodge Spirit was the first rental car I ever got on my own. It was fine; I’ll take it here.
For the Friday showdown I think you should take the Honda and Toyota from yesterday and the Chevy and Dodge from today. You pick up one from Cosco tire in Portland Maine. So every one starts with new tires. You have 5 days to drive to Laguna Seca where your 3 dream track cars are and you have the track for the whole day. What car are you driving there?
This is a great idea. I’ll take the Honda.
The Lumina looks like it was owned by an elderly person, but not the kind who took extra-good care of it. The dirty seat and deferred valve-cover job are bad signs.
If everything was equal I’d take it, but as presented here the Spirit is the better buy.
Definitely a couple of grandma goes to church type cars. And in PA and IL? Must not have been outside or on the road much in winter. Almost eerie how intact they are.
Ad far as the ideal buyer, how about newly divorced dad kicked out of the house, needs tranport to work and weekends with the kids. Will drive around town with head below the windows hoping not to be recognized. Kids will definitely make fun of the car. Good luck in the dating pool pulling up in one of these… Sorry, went kind of dark there.
My dad drove a Cadillac Cimarron post-divorce, so you’re not far off…
I bought a “mom’s last car” purple PT Crusier post-divorce… can confirm
That is extremely specific
The Chevy’s interior looks comfortable. The steering wheel is actually pretty nice. And a V6 with the right bank angle? Chevy it is.
That Lumina drivers seat is disturbingly dirty for a low mileage car.
My stepmother had a Spirit as a company car once; it was perfectly fine, but depressing. So it‘s the Lumina for me.
I love the way the Lumina has those two upper engine mounts (braces? what are they anyway) that look like desperate arms holding on to the engine, trying to keep it from falling into the abyss. Don’t you let go, little 3.1! Don’t you dare let go!
You actually unbolt these at the motor to change the rear bank plugs. There is a cast socket to use a pry bar to rotate the engine forward and one of the arms has an unthreaded hole mid length to put the mounting bolt in to hold the engine in service position. Insane! Then remove (and throw away) the sheet metal firewall guarding for better access.
Ask me how I know
That sounds like a massive pain in the rear.
Those are called “dog bones”.
Yes!