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Junkyard Gem of the Week: 1979 Plymouth Horizon (with the Woodgrain Package!)

While Ford and GM proved to have sufficiently deep pockets to design their own US-market subcompacts for the fuel-starved 1970s, Chrysler had to look to its overseas outposts to create such a car. Turning to Simca, which had become part of Chrysler Europe after Chrysler's absorption of the Rootes Group, a promising hatchback concept was developed into both a European-market version and a significantly different American-market version. Today's Junkyard Gem is an example of the latter type, found in a Denver-area self-service boneyard last summer. The first of these cars came off the Belvidere Assembly line in Illinois as 1978 models (sadly, Stellantis just shuttered Belvidere in February). The Dodge-badged version was the Omni, while the Plymouth version was the Horizon; the generic term for this car is thus Omnirizon. The Omnirizon was a great success for Chrysler, and many other vehicles were based on its platform. To name a few members of the extended Omnirizon family: the 1982-1987 Dodge Charger, the Dodge Rampage/Plymouth Scamp minitrucks, and even the Plymouth Turismo of Cocaine Factory fame. Astoundingly, production continued all the way through 1990, which meant that these thoroughly 1970s cars stuck around long enough to get airbags as standard equipment. Just as was the case with the Mitsubishi-built Dodge and Plymouth Colts, there never were any significant differences—pricing or otherwise—between the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. The Omnirizon got a fascinating assortment of engines during its first half-decade or so. For 1978 through 1980, it received the same 1.7-liter Volkswagen straight-four that went into US-market Rabbits, Sciroccos, Jettas and Audi 4000s. This one was rated at 77 horsepower and 90 pound-feet. Chrysler began bolting in its homegrown 2.2-liter four-banger starting with the 1981 Omnirizons, with the hilariously quick Omni GLH and GLHS getting turbocharged versions a few years later. From the 1983 through 1986 model years, penny-pinching Americans could buy their base-model Omnirizons with 1.6-liter Peugeot-built Simca engines delivering 62 French horses to the front wheels. This Horizon is absolutely loaded by the standards of late-1970s economy cars. The MSRP was just $4,278 (about $18,843 in 2023 dollars), but this automatic transmission would have added another $319 to the cost ($1,405 today). The base transmission for 1979 was a four-on-the-floor manual.

Fiat Chrysler's next-generation Uconnect is faster, built on Android

If you're a regular reader of Autoblog, you know that for a long time we've liked Fiat Chrysler's Uconnect infotainment system for its bright, clear, responsive touchscreen interface. Now, according to the company, it will be better than ever with Uconnect 5, the latest iteration of the system. It has upgraded hardware and a revamped graphic user interface (the stuff on the screen). Looking at sample screens shown above, there are characteristics shared with the old system, such as the time, status and shortcuts at the top and the menu icons at the bottom. In the middle, the major change is the addition of home screens that can be customized with favorite menus and readouts that are always available. Each of these home screens can have up to four functions and you can have five pages to flip through. The graphics themselves feature more legible fonts and updated icons. Each car brand will get its own set of icons, colors and textures to help create unique experiences. And while each Fiat Chrysler product will be able to have Uconnect, including Alfa Romeo that has until now lacked Uconnect, each brand has the ability to make small tweaks including the screen orientation. The system will support displays in landscape, portrait or square, so different brands may choose different shapes. Powering Uconnect 5 is a processor Fiat Chrysler says is six times more powerful than what's in current systems. It features 6 gigabytes of RAM and 64 gigabytes of internal storage. The processor also supports screens as large as 12.3 inches with as many as 15 million pixels, or nearly twice that of a 4K resolution TV. The system can display information on up to four screens, too. Uconnect 5's firmware is built on Google's Android operating system, joining a few other automakers in using Android as a base for their infotainment systems. Uconnect 5 brings with it a number of new features. It brings full Alexa integration, so you can use it just like you do at home, provided you have a data plan for the car. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto continue to be standard, but now they can be used wirelessly. You can also now connect two phones via Bluetooth wirelessly so you can access content from both. Navigation gets real time information and updates from TomTom. Users can create five profiles with unique climate, radio and instrument settings, plus one for a valet.

KBB 2013 Brand Image Awards has some obvious and oddball winners

The sixth edition of the Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards have crowned a wide range of winners - in a couple of cases the recipient of the laurels might say more about KBB users than they do about the actual winner. Compiled from the responses of more than 12,000 shoppers on KBB.com over the past year, there are 13 categories broken into non-luxury, luxury and truck segments "representing the combined wisdom of the American car-buying public."
The award categories have been revamped this year, with some dropping off, some new ones appearing and at least one other given a new term. What isn't surprising is that Honda won Most Trusted Brand for the second year running, Best Value Brand for the third year in a row and took Best Overall Brand, which wasn't on last year's list of awards.
On our own shores, in the non-luxury categories Chrysler got Most Refined Brand and Buick took Best Value Luxury Brand. Neither one of those marques won anything in last year's Brand Image Awards, while Cadillac, which won Best Interior Design Brand and Best Comfort Brand last year - those awards disappeared this year - went home without a single accolade.