A few days ago, Hoovies Garage introduced us to the next "hooptie" project, which he says is the cheapest Plymouth Prowler he could find on sale in America. The Prowler is different enough that many car fanatics have considered buying one. But is it the kind of mistake that you "will never financially recover from," as the Tiger King put it?
To find out, he jumped into the car and went to consult the man with the beard of knowledge, the Car Wizard himself. Strangely, this is the first Plymouth Prowler he's ever seen, and it turns into a journey of discovery for them both.
The Prowler is laughed at for having a V6 engine out of the Dodge Intrepid, but that actually turns into an advantage when you have to change a pulley tensioner. Where buying a broken Prowler bites you in the backside is the parts that are unique to it. A faulty window-winding mechanism ends up costing over $1,500.
With the car jacked up, we also get to see the unique bonded body and aluminum chassis rails, as well as the suspension arms and a crazy external radiator for the "transaxle" gearbox. Back then, Chrysler was a very profitable carmaker, and it approved this project basically just to learn a thing or two about new materials.
The token trunk of the Prowler is a weird shape and only 5 inches deep. However, Chrysler did release a $500 "Prowler Trailer" that you'd tow behind the car. Yes, those crazy things you sometimes see in pictures are genuine accessories.
Early versions of the Prowler had only about 215 horsepower, which is not a lot when you consider that it cost about $39,000 back in the 1990s, equivalent to around $60,000 in today's money. But cars were lame in that era, as most sedans and minivans fell below the 200 hp mark.
The Prowler was sold for five model years, the last two under the Chrysler name, as the Plymouth brand got killed off. It was first shown as a concept in 1993, and it's believed that it was also inspired by a Chip Foose sketch for a modern roadster.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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