Car Stuff: Special K's

Back in the 1980s, the compact Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant were instrumental in Chrysler Corporation's recovery from financial catastrophe, along with the company's then-revolutionary minivans. The cars were relatively inexpensive and economical, and they were ubiquitous on the roads.

Three decades later there aren't many of them still around. Back in the spring when I visited the garage in Arlington, there was a gas station a short distance away with a Reliant parked on the side of its lot with a For Sale sign in the windshield, so of course I took a couple of pictures. The Aries and Reliant, which were known by their internal product designation, the K-cars, were sold from 1981 to 1989; this is the slightly revised version from 1985 onward, but I can't get more specific than that.

On Sunday we were headed down the Southeast Expressway when I spotted a squarish yellow car in the right lane ahead of us. I pulled out my phone and got ready to snap a picture or two before I knew what the car was. By the time we came close enough to take pics I knew it was either a Reliant or an Aries, but it wasn't until I opened this picture to crop it that I found out for certain that it was an Aries, and one from the 1981-84 years. (As you can see I didn't get it framed quite the way I wanted to, but I got most of it.)