Here's Why the Dodge Aspen is One of the Biggest Lemons of All Time
Isabel Armiento
· 4 min read
When it was released in the 70s, the
Dodge
Aspen was an immediate hit. Destined to become a classic, the model boosted Dodge out of its $260 million deficit and earned MotorTrend’s 1976 car of the year award. The Aspen was heralded by reviewers as an “innovative vehicle” in 1975, and quickly became the most popular car from the mid-’70s. Considering that Dodge, which was run by Chrysler at the time, had seemingly struck gold, why was the Aspen out of commission only four short years after its launch? How could a car that was in such high demand plummet so quickly and unceremoniously?
Hot Cars
and MotorTrend
delve deeper into the perplexing question of why the Dodge Aspen became one of the biggest lemons of all time. 
The Dodge Aspen’s rosy beginnings
During the oil crisis of 1974 and the recession in that same year, Chrysler suffered some serious losses. The automaker was fresh off of several catastrophic misses when it launched the Dodge Aspen at the end of 1975.
The Dodge Aspen entered the scene to much applause. Reviewers were raving, consumers were biting, and everyone was saying that the Aspen was more comfortable than older models. The Aspen traded out conventional front suspension bars for longitudinal torsion bars, which allowed for a smoother ride, plus it debuted with the all-new F-body, a suspension technique that was all the rage in the mid-70s.
The Aspen was a stylish muscle car with a straight-line design, and its interior and exterior appearance wowed car-buyers across America. It had a 3.7-liter slant-six and 5.3-liter V8 engine, with the option to upgrade to the higher-powered 5.6-liter V8 engine. The model boasted a torque of 280 pound-feet.
According to Hot Cars, the Aspen is still considered “the holy grail in the automotive world” by modern-day muscle fans.
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Trouble strikes for the Dodge Aspen
MORE: A Look Back at the 1987 Dodge Charger
Despite the model’s auspicious beginnings, the Dodge Aspen was doomed from the outset. Before the launch, American Automobile executive Lee Iacocca determined that the Aspen’s F-body needed more work before it would be ready to be sold, and that it wouldn’t be ready for at least six more months.
Chrysler was tanking, however, and was in a hurry to start selling. So, the Aspen was launched prematurely, despite problems with the build and design. Customers began complaining about the inferior quality of the car—engines were breaking, seat belts malfunctioning, suspensions and brakes wearing out, and fuel tanks leaking. A whole host of issues were damaging the model’s reputation, and with it, the automaker’s credibility more generally.
Chrysler had to deal with the fallout, fixing the faulty parts and issuing recalls. Meanwhile, the automaker’s competitors were launching new models of their own, many of which were in direct competition with the now-dubious Dodge Aspen.
Altogether, a whopping 1.3 million Dodge Aspens were recalled due to issues with performance. While the flashy new model may have made Chrysler some cash in the short term, the automaker soon found itself embroiled in financial ruin once again. In 1975, Chrysler hit rock bottom, failing to pay out dividends on a public stock, something it had never done since going public in 1933.
The competition
While the Aspen was doing damage control, other new releases, especially Japanese makes, began getting attention for their reliability and high-quality construction. Other American automakers were pulling ahead as well: GM began a line of downsized cars in 1977, which proved more in line with what consumers wanted than Chrysler’s larger makes.
Soon enough, new CEO Lee Iacocca—yes, the same person who warned against prematurely launching the Dodge Aspen—secured a loan and began developing a line of front-wheel drive cars. The Aspen was axed to make room for Iacocca’s K-cars, which were an instant hit.
In short, Chrysler launched a car that wasn’t market-ready, and made big promises that it couldn’t deliver on, including high fuel economy and performance. Moreover, while the F-body was a great idea in theory, the automaker simply didn’t deliver on it.
Reliability trumps novelty every time, a lesson Chrysler had to learn the hard way—which is how the Dodge Aspen was MotorTrend’s car of the year in 1976 but had disappeared from the market by 1980.
