Colin Wood
Colin Wood Associate Editor
7/9/24 12:39 p.m.

I've always been led to believe that the Chrysler TC by Maserati is one of the few cars with no redeeming qualities–though I'm open to being proved wrong.

If it matters, this one looks pretty clean.

Link: https://carsandbids.com/auctions/KZaMVZbN/1989-chrysler-tc-by-maserati

turboshadow
turboshadow New Reader
7/9/24 1:23 p.m.

Shows how much Doug knows,  that's the 8-valve motor. 

In reply to Colin Wood :
Nothing really wrong with it.  Just came out a couple years later than it was supposed to.

flat4_5spd
flat4_5spd Reader
7/9/24 2:23 p.m.

To quote the Ghost World movie; "It's so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again."

DrBoost
DrBoost MegaDork
7/9/24 2:26 p.m.
turboshadow said:

Shows how much Doug knows,  that's the 8-valve motor. 

Doug is an automotive idiot. He knows little about cars, just talks to owners and regurgitates what the owner says in the interview. 

calteg
calteg SuperDork
7/10/24 8:47 a.m.

It still amazes me that they had the stones to put Maserati badges all over that turd.

I appraised one years ago and the owner, apparently completely ignorant of Maserati depreciation, had a meltdown in the showroom when I offered them 30 year old Chrysler money for it

scs
scs New Reader
7/10/24 7:04 p.m.

It was actually a pretty fun car when it first came out, especially the (very rare) manual trans version, which also had the 16-valve Maserati-assembled head. I drove that model at (one of the several) media introductions of the car, I think in Palm Springs, and it wasn't bad. Also had one for a week as a press car. At the end, there was nothing really invigorating about it, but with the Chrysler auto and the 3.0-liter Mitsu engine, at least it should have been a lot easier to maintain. I thought it was at least kind of pretty, but the Chrysler Lebaron of that era was pretty, too. I remember one of the designers got drunk one night and I asked him why the TC looked so much like a shortened Lebaron. He said that Iacocca loved the look of the Lebaron, but was super critical of other designs they had come up with, and they said hell, let's just do a Lebaron with a porthole roof. A fun factoid about the car: When I was still at Car and Driver, I flew out to California do go through Bobby Ore's stunt driving school. Bobby's best friend came out to help us, and he drove a sort of ragged yellow TC. That friend was Hal Needham, pal of Burt Reynolds, producer and pretty much creator of Smokey and the Bandit, and one of the bravest, most talented Hollywood stunt drivers ever. Hal was also a hell of a nice guy. But I never would have guessed he was a TC owner.

You'll need to log in to post.

Our Preferred Partners
hPMHQIyZCrzqo1MTMEhuVQWrzgl6ChkrWvMaLYeEXfrX2GXKpcr5SJ8uOLg2jMEC