With The General offering a costlier-than-an-S-Class Cadillac built in Turin and Hamtramck (the two assembly lines connected via custom-built 747 freighters) as well as Italianate Buicks and Oldsmobiles in the late 1980s, Lee Iacocca decided to leverage Chrysler’s investment in Maserati to create a K-Car-based Italian sports car: the TC by Maserati. Like the Allanté, Troféo, and Reatta, the TC hasn’t held its value so well over the decades, and I find the occasional example during my junkyard travels. Here’s a crashed ’91 in a yard near Denver, Colorado.
Chrysler made a big deal out of the TC’s Italian origins, but it was as closely related to the LeBaron as was the Allanté to the Eldorado. Actually, much of the suspension came from the related Dodge Daytona.
Still, the TC was built in Italy, and those LeBaron-ish bodies were handmade by Italian craftsmen.
The TC was sold for the 1989 through 1991 model years, and all the ’89s had a 2.2-liter turbocharged Chrysler four-cylinder (making either 160 or 200 horses, depending on whether you got the base engine or the Cosworth-headed DOHC version). For 1990 and 1991, the TC could be purchased with a 3.0-liter Mitsubishi 6G72 V6 engine, rated at 141 horsepower. That’s what’s in this car.
Unlike owners of the Allanté, Troféo, and Reatta, buyers of Chrysler’s TC by Maserati could get a manual transmission in their cars… but only if they selected the four-cylinder engine. All of the Mitsu-ized TCs got a four-speed A604 slushbox.
This car appears to have been a well-cared-for low-miler.
Then it got into a crash, and it’s a lot cheaper to buy a nice TC than it is to fix a wrecked one.
These stickers are never good news on a crashed car.
I keep hearing that these removable hardtops are worth big money, but this is the third one I’ve found in a cheap self-service yard. I hope some local TC aficionado grabs it before it reaches The Crusher.
A blending of Italian craftsmanship and American engineering!
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