If you lived in the 1980s, chances are you rode in or (unfortunately) drove a Chrysler K-car at some point. The “good” thing about the K-car was that they were cheap and sold like free beer for a time, saving Chrysler from sliding under the waves in the early 1980s. The bad news about them was that they were shitboxes. Complete and utter shitboxes. Ugly, slow, cheaply made, and about as cool as taking your mom to the prom the little K-Cars didn’t have much merit for hot rodders…except for one thing. They were available with the 2.2L turbo engine that while modestly unreliable, could be wicked up and made to crank out some power. Guys have run K-Cars into the 10s and minivans into the 11s with that little engine.
This car is an awesome example of a total sleeper with a perfect engine upgrade. Rather than waste time with the box of rocks 2.2, the builder of this car swapped in a Neon SRT-4 engine and transmission that’s been mildly tweaked and should make a claimed 300hp at the wheels. Those kinds of numbers make this wagon into an unlikely pocket rocket that could heap shame onto any number of unsuspecting victims on the road. It’s funny. This car is just as ugly and sad looking as the day it was built in 1987 but knowing it has some snot turns that fact into a huge plus. Oh what a difference a motor makes!
The car is a long way from perfect and there is some small stuff that the owner is honest about needing to be done, but it is bitchin’ in a big way. The fuel mileage would be great, the crap ass velour seats would be like driving a couch around, and who can really put a price on making pony car owners dry in a K-car wagon. We can’t! The car is listed for $5,000 but we bet you could own it for less!
Thanks for the tip Ron Thomas!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE MORE PHOTOS AND THEN HIT THE LINK TO SEE THE COMPLETE CRAIGSLIST AD FOR THIS K-CAR SLEEPER WAGON!
Link: An awesome sleeper 1987 Chrysler K-Car With SRT-4 Power
Hail to the Griswalds!!
Someone is going to make a lot of money with this thing.
How K-cars managed to save Chrysler is one of life’s biggest mysteries. These things were the biggest piles of shit to every roll off an assembly line. They damn near made a Ford man out of me.
But I reckon they would make cool sleepers. This one has given me some ideas.
I’d need a Sebring though. I hate wagons.
Chrysler stayed out of then-bankruptcy by sticking it to the unwary consumer.
I remember my father being charged over $1,000 total and gradually by some scheming Chyrsler mechanics (at the dealership of purchase) to fully repair the factory installed one-barrel carb.
Instead of replacing the junk carb,the factory-trained and certified “technicians”
consistently replaced small,tiny parts adding up to a grand total of a grand .
I’ll never buy anything Chrysler again.
I remember my father pacing up and down the driveway when the K-Car wagon we owned wouldn’t go into gear and he couldn’t shut the engine off.
My father lost time from work because of these POS fraud products.
Lee Iaccocca should have gone to jail.
Government contracts…. These things and the “Ram” cargo vans were everywhere in government fleets till around 8yrs ago. I wonder if they were responsible for all the vehicles going GSA lease because buying these things I’m sure put a crippling dent in the maintenance budgets of most units!!
Oh yeah…. Things like this are one more reason Chrysler should sell Jeep to GM or Ford then just quietly disappear.
Well at least it has 3 pedals.
Bravissimo! Anyone who doesn’t approve of this sleeper has obviously never slept. I love the utility of this, you can haul the gorceries, haul the kids, haul drywall and haul ass, all in faux woodgrain “style”. If this was local I’d probably snap it up.
Cool sleeper if I had the money I’d buy it,then pick up a used baby seat to throw in it to add to the sleeper image.
Our local Police Department was given 25 K-cars to use in Patrol. Needless to say it did not work out well for the officers and the perps “stuffed” into the backseat!!!
The one thing the Author fails to mention is in the last picture there’s a few more unsuspecting buttons. The Red Gas Pump is a “High Octane Mode” where the ECU pumps up the boost and timing to hit a legitimate 300+ at the wheels. That turbo is also capable if high 300s if you really get after it with mods, but in the end you still have a Griswalds Wagon Deluxe when it could have been stuffed in a lightweight first gen Neon. 5.5 second 0-60mph times will woop on 95% of cars out there…
Wonder if you could figure out a way to stuff a 426 Hemi in it?
Stuff it in the back seat maybe.