Here Are the Five Weirdest Mopar Cars Ever Made

Mopar is a pretty weird word in and of itself. You may not even have heard the term before because it doesn’t actually pertain to a specific type of car so much as an organization that exists within another more well-known company. 

Mopar refers to the parts, service and customer care division of Chrysler Automobiles, and it’s odd sounding name comes from the term ‘Motor Parts’. The ‘Mo’ and ‘Par’ being the operative syllables here of course.

The origins of this word date back to the early days of mass market automobiles in the 1920s, when Chrysler were releasing a brand of antifreeze and needed a shorter name than Chrysler Motor Parts to print on the bottle.

Over time the word has become much more common and tends to be used as an inclusive classification for all vehicles built by Chrysler. Essentially all vehicles built using Chrysler motor parts will be referred to as a Mopar.

And if you were searching for a Mopar car to purchase this would encompass more than just Chrysler. There’s also the vast majority of Dodge, Plymouth and Imperial cars which use the same parts. Still, best places for search are usual - huge sites like Edmunds, Cars, Find the Best Car Price, KBB, etc. 

So although it’s a weird sounding name, Mopar cars are not a particularly weird thing in general. That doesn’t mean however, that there hasn’t been some specifically very weird mopar cars made in the past. 

Here’s five of the weirdest ones:

1.    Plymouth Reliant

Chrysler’s K-Car line was noble in its intention. It arrived on the scene in the 1970’s when the restrictions placed on cars for the purpose of safety and environmental control were limiting performance and appearance.

K-Car was an attempt by Chrysler to maximise the potential that they actually had at the time by including features such as front-wheel drive and a traversal engine, while failing to do anything particularly spectacular in terms of how the cars looked.

And that’s how we ended up with models such as the Plymouth Reliant (among other models that all looked basically identical) which was almost offensively bland to look at. Both inside and out it might as well have been designed by blind people.

Its small-cylinder engine gave little in the way of horsepower and this was somewhat to be expected, but there is really little excuse for the aggressively unimaginative design. It wasn’t exactly reviled at the time though, and perhaps that’s because people had become too disillusioned with car prices to care much about how they looked.

And although that’s an easier thing to overcome nowadays in the age of online auto marketplaces and buying guides, it’s an understandable problem. Still though, no one is pining for the days of the Plymouth Reliant that’s for sure. 

2.    Plymouth Breeze

The Plymouth Reliant was not an attractive car, but that’s mainly because of how uninspired its design was. The Plymouth Breeze is a little different, because this one looks like there was an active attempt to be ugly.

And it’s somewhat unclear how something like the Plymouth Breeze actually happened. We were well-past the complicated days of Chrysler's dubious K-cars and into a more open and innovative period in the ‘90s.

This was a pretty positive time for Chrysler overall but for some reason there were a couple of glaring black marks on their record and a couple of genuinely awful cars from both an appearance and performance perspective.

Breeze’s mainly had a four-cylinder engine which allowed for a measly amount of horsepower which didn’t really seem out of place given it’s ugly and intrusive cab-forward design. It gave the impression of a lumbering, hideous creature slowed down by the weight of its nose.

A dreadful car in every sense of the word but luckily one that has been mostly forgotten among the primarily positive history of Chrysler products.

3.    Jeep Commander

Jeeps in general do seem to have a little bit of a shaky reputation. I mean on the one hand they are definitely functional. A large powerful vehicle absolutely has numerous uses and they can look fantastic.

But the shaky rep is not exactly unwarranted. When a jeep isn’t done right, it can be absolutely disastrous and that is absolutely the case with the Jeep Commander model, the existence of which is arguably more baffling than the Plymouth Breeze.

The intention of the vehicle was to be comparable to something like a Grand Cherokee or a Hummer H2 in terms of size and space but ended up not even coming close in terms of being as functional.

The appeal of those cars was the amount of seating space, usually offering the third row which was relatively uncommon at the time. The Jeep Commander had this, but no grown adult could really sit there comfortably.

And on top of that, it’s design was nowhere near as sleek as the Cherokee or the Hummer, making it basically just a big ugly mess of a vehicle.

4.    Dodge Nitro

In terms of their larger vehicles, Mopar models tend to be quite lacking in general. Apart from their Jeeps, the Dodge Nitro is one of the few models they have which is an attempt to compete with other SUVs out there.

The failure of this model though is perhaps a large part of the reason why Mopars tend not to venture into this territory because this thing is an absolute disaster of a car and will do little in the way of enticing buyers who want a good sized family vehicle.

You might see a Nitro and think it will get the job done for you if you want an SUV style car. While it’s not pretty, a lot of SUVs and similar models aren’t, it does look like a spacious and powerful choice.

But it’s looks are deceiving. And so is it’s name. There is nothing about this lumbering piece of junk which justifies a name like nitro. The 3.7 liter V6 engine was showing its age even at the time this car was being produced and it could never be relied on for speed.

The inside was nowhere near as spacious as it appeared and the interior design was hideous to look at. Again, it might look like something that works, but it can’t be trusted. If you’re looking online for something new and you see this in your search, keep clicking.

5.    Chrysler Cordoba

I’d like to say that the fact this abomination was produced way back in the late ‘70s, it’s somewhat forgivable because of the time period, but even back then this was an outrageously horrible car. 

Just from looking at it you can see that it’s got a big, bulky exterior but is decidedly unspacious inside. And that might be kind of okay if all of that bulk was designed to allow for a powerful engine, but that most definitely was not the case.

And the engines were either 360- or 400-ci V8s which absolutely devoured gas and this was at a time when the gas prices in the United States were sky-rocketing, rendering this model far, far too expensive to justify it’s dreadful appearance. 

The Cordoba mercifully didn’t last long, and it probably contributed in a big way to Chrysler having to take so many cost-cutting measures as the ‘80s approached. 

For the most part, Mopar is a reliable source of high-quality motors, but like all companies there have been no shortage of bad decisions and shoddy products over the years.