My French Chrysler LeBaron 2.5 Turbo 1989

[Charger]

Hi,

I come from Paris, France and i'm new on this forum. There are some Chrysler forums in France but i would like to share with american enthusiasts and improve my english (and technical english) at the same time.

I love american cars since my childhood. And my first car - after having my driver's license - was a Chrysler LeBaron 1980 Medallion (all options excluding leather seats) V8 318. After having sold it, I found a very good condition Chrysler LeBaron 1989 with 2.5 Turbo engine. It was for me the perfect compromise between american exoticism and gas mileage (France gas price is worst than USA). It's 1989 but there is again a lot of chrome (so funky) and the first dashboard i got is again very "square". I like all the little details of this unique car.

In France, it was sold new by an importer called "Sonauto" (Chrysler imported his cars with his own name in 1996 in France). It had a luxurious brand image almost like a german coupe/convertible from Mercedes or BMW. The LeBaron price was lower but it had the same equipment (sometimes more) than german cars. And besides you had a car like no other and with "la classe américaine".

No more word, some pics of my "classe américaine"

You will notice i got the ugly back from the european versions. I'm looking for a complete rear light panel from original US version.

[dodgeshadowchik]

Hi there! The car looks great! It also looks very clean! Thank for sharing. I always find it neat to see the export versions. As for the tails, you could probably find someone over here to trade you.

[BIGBRUDDA]

Bienvenue! That is a fantastique!, LeBaron coupe sir.
You have joined the best and brightest of the turbo Chrysler web sites.

[cordes]

Thank you for posting the pictures, and welcome to the site!

[shelbymonster]

bienvenue sur le forum ! il a plusieurs personnes qui parle francais sur le site aussi , beau lebaron ... tres tres propre !

[spyder]

Hi,

I come from Paris, France and i'm new on this forum. There are some Chrysler forums in France but i would like to share with american enthusiasts and improve my english (and technical english) at the same time.

Merde , your English is better than mine......

Nice car !!

[Force Fed Mopar]

Welcome, nice car! And PM sent about the taillights

[BadAssPerformance]

Welcome to turbo-mopar! Nice LeBaron!

[Charger]

Thank you for your welcome ! It's pleasant to be surrounded by other 80s Chrysler enthusiasts.
Merci pour l'accueil ami québécois
And thank you Force Fed Mopar for the taillights!

At first time, I want to give my LeBaron his original american look. In 1989, to meet the French standards, they replace taillight panel by european model (wider space for license plate, orange turn signal lights) and delete all side lights (dont ask me why but it was accepted some years after). So my european LeBaron got a Mazda car back... Why they do that?! But the worst was avoided, we didnt have French diesel engine on it. Do you know we got Diesel engines available for Jeep Cherokee 1988-1993 (4 cyl 2.1l Turbo Diesel 90hp by Renault), Pontiac Transport 1995-1996 (1.9 Diesel 92hp by Peugeot) and every Dodge Caravan (Chrysler Voyager in Europe) since 1992. Since some years, we got better Diesel engines with good performance and more torque. But in the 1980s/90s, Diesel sounded like low gas mileage and important torque but snail performance and heavy truck noise engine.

For the anecdote, on my dashboard pic, you can see a little green element at the right of the steering wheel. It's a little digital clock stamped CHRYSLER for the european versions cause they replace the original autoradio with clock integrated by a european model without it. I think they replace it cause of the interval you got between FM frequency in USA (every 0.5 Mhz that's right?). In France, we had some frequencies like 101.9 FM.

[R/T]

Very nice car, I have an '87 5 speed LeBaron Turbo Coupe project car.

Welcome to TM!!

[RoadWarrior222]

I think our FM radio stations are spaced every 0.2Mhz on the odd decimals. Whereas some French stations are on the even decimals, so I don't know whether you have 0.1Mhz channel spacing or some other interval like 0.3 Mhz.

I actually admired French diesel engines... though I have only driven those from Peugeot.... we wish we could have some of them here in older vehicles so we could have a fuel efficient Cherokee or Caravan for running errands in, even if it was not very fast and sounded like a truck.

[Charger]

We have 0.1Mhz channel spacing in France.

Today, French and German manufacturers produce good diesel engines with better performance than in the past. I think Volkswagen sell TDI models in North America now so you can judge. What Peugeot model have you driven?

Very nice car, I have an '87 5 speed LeBaron Turbo Coupe project car.

Welcome to TM!!

Thanks ! Good choice for a project car

[22shelby]

welcome, you dont see to many Peugeots around here, but yes the VW TDI is deff a staple around here in the fuel milage diesel engines... we are seeing more and more small diesels in the market these days, and now with the "blu-tech" (sp?) coming into the scene should make for some good old fasioned engine battles between manufacturers... oh and we now have the Fiat Abarth cool little go-kart!!!

[Vigo]

Putting the license plate bracket there makes those taillights look better than the equivalent on american-market cars.

[Reaper1]

Interesting that it has the Premium Package appearance items on the outside, minus the curb lights, but it doesn't have a digital dash.

Nice looking car, though!

[raccoon]

you sir are crazy; the Red black thin to thick line tails lamps are sweet.

the ones that came later, meh im not a fan.

[Johnny]

Nice coupe. I have had 3 different LeBaron coupes, nice cars!

we had some frequencies like 101.9 FM.

My favorite station in Portland Oregon is 101.9 FM.
You can listen here....

http://kink.fm/pages/main

You found the best site to help keep your car in top shape!

[RoadWarrior222]

What Peugeot model have you driven?

Mostly the 1.9 Turbo 306 and 406