Chrysler stopped selling the Mitsubishi Galant Lambda (with Dodge Challenger or Plymouth Sapporo badges) in the United States after the 1983 model year, and its replacement for 1984 was a genuine Michigan product: the Daytona. Based on a front-wheel-drive platform derived from Lee Iacocca’s Chrysler-saving K-Cars, the early Daytona looked sporty and — with the
When Lee Iacocca took the helm at the Chrysler Corporation in 1978, the company appeared to be doomed. The company’s only modern front-wheel-drive cars either came from Japan or had been developed from Chrysler Europe’s Simca operation, inflation was raging, and Middle Eastern conflict a year later sent fuel prices skyrocketing for the second time
Lee Iacocca’s friendship with Alejandro de Tomaso went way back, and it led to the Ford-powered De Tomaso Pantera being born in 1971 (when Iacocca was running Ford). After Iacocca moved over to head Chrysler in 1978, he began working with de Tomaso (who owned Maserati by that point) to develop a sports coupe based
