Ours was a Mirada, though, Stretchy-poo.
That car, sexy as it is, has the wrong wheels on it. Those are Dodge Mirada/Diplomat wheels; the Cordoba would have come with the style of wheels Dippy has on his R-car. There was only one aluminum wheel option shown as available in the '81 brochures... strangely, it's not
pictured in the Cordoba brochure but it is in the LeBaron literature.
Also, those wheels are the cast variety, meaning they're '82-'83 wheels, although I believe the phase-in happened during the '81 model year. I say this because the '81 LeBaron brochure clearly shows the
cast wheels, but the text says they are
forged. There are subtle visual differences between the forged wheels and the later cast units. This is true of both the Dodge and lower-end Chrysler wheels.
There were four styles of RWD aluminum wheel made by Chrysler in the early '80s:
- Those pictured, which are the Dodge Mirada/Diplomat 10-spoke versions.
- The low-end Chrysler (Cordoba/LeBaron wheels, like Dippy's and mine), with five large spokes and five smaller spokes in between. Literature refers to them as "5-spoke".
- The high-end Chrysler wheels (Imperial/Fifth Avenue, known as the "snowflake" wheel). I've seen them on later Gran Fury models but I don't think they were original and can find no literature for Plymouth showing an alloy-wheel option, or even the "deluxe" wire-wheel hubcap option.
- A multi-spoke version (20 or more) of which I've only seen two pictures in magazines, both over a decade ago and neither one shown on a car. I have never seen them on a car, I have never seen them in a brochure, and I have never seen them at a swap meet, junkyard, on eBay, anything. I have no idea on what cars they were available. They're rare as hell, which is too bad... they're pretty-cool wheels.
Never a simple response from me... always a fargin' lesson.
Back on topic... that car's gorgeous. I owned an '81 with the LS package and that unique fascia and grille, though mine was a ragged heap with a Tilt Six. It did wear its original alloys though at the time I didn't know to look for forged or cast. Regardless, I hold a soft spot for the LS-package 'Dobas.
