Chrysler Books

Having read the somewhat mediocre reviews on this site I've decided to order the paperback edition, but was so thoroughly impressed by the contents and presentation that I traded it in for the large format hardcover edition.

Having purchased most of the books on american cars published by Motorbooks (Mustang, Corvette, Chevy SS, Camaro to name a few) I can confidently state that this book stands with the best of them. The organization is very nice, with chapters arranged by Mopar body types (B-bodies, E-bodies, etc.) and manages to provide a nice coverage of each topic without overwhelming the reader with unnecessary technicalities. The photography is simply superb, in the best Motorbooks tradition.

The book covers all of the landmark Mopar muscle cars, the Viper and some of the most recent efforts. However, do not expect to find information on newest SRT-8s, Chargers/Magnums etc as the book was published before their production started.

Highly recommended not only Mopar fans, but anyone with interest in classic muscle cars.

what can I say? WOW.... this is a very nice book with hundred of color pictures and lots of great info.... a must of all true MOPAR guys.

I loved Randy Leffingwell's Mustang and Corvette anniversary books and praised them in my site reviews. I was attracted to Mopar Muscle since I wasn't as familiar with the Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth sport coupe and sedan lines from the 1950s to the '70s as I was with Chevys, Fords, and Pontiacs.

Robert Genat takes off where Randy Leffingwell left off. Genat has a lot on his shoulders writing this book. Mopar Muscle looks at not one, but many vehicles offered by Chrysler for a half-century. Genat has a lot to pack into a hardcover book and he does the job ably.

Genat starts with the Chrysler C-300 and its founding role for muscle cars. From there, Genat looks at Dodge and Plymouth offerings in the late 1950s and early 1960s and takes a big bulk of the book writing about the famous Mopar machines from the middle 1960s to the early 1970s in great detail.

Genat has some weaknesses. Genat focuses on the classic Mopar lines from the 1950s to the early '70s and, from there, skips over to the Viper in the early '90s. Genat overlooks almost two decades of weakened, but important machines. He does not mention the 1970s and '80s Chargers, the Chrysler/Shelby projects, or the 1990s Stealth and Talon. Genat also fails to mention much about Chrysler's racing efforts. The book ends short before recent SRT efforts and the new Charger. The photography is excellent, but the variety is severely lacking. You could be reading about a Barracuda and have page after page of only Chargers.

Genat has a fine book. It's not perfect, but when are books ever? Mopar Muscle may not live up to the light the way Leffingwell's books did, but he does a good job nevertheless.

A general look at Chrysler performance cars from the past and present with splendid photographs (courtesy of David Newhardt). The book looks at all the muscle/pony cars that Chrysler developed and built over the past 50 years and discusses each models development and year-to-year changes. As well, the author, to his credit, did not lament over the past and all that was lost (as some authors do) but instead also discussed new and exciting models Chrysler had been releasing over the past couple of years (300C, Crossfire, etc). And did I mention the photos were fantastic? However, the book does have some failings and it's mostly due to the writing and the layout. Although the author should be credited on giving a comprehensive view of Chrysler's performance cars (new and old), his actual text leaves much to be desired. I found the writing on each model to be quite dull at times as the major focus of the author was only on the model itself (discussing yearly changes and additions to the option list) and not on the actual industry and trends that inspired their development. I found that very little was spoken of Chrysler's competitors who had major impacts on the models Chrysler created and released. Paragraphs detailing year-to-year changes just didn't make for exciting reading (I'm sure there are technical books which would give more comprehensive detail on the yearly differences between models if that were ones desire). This was especially apparent when the earlier models were being discussed. By the time the author arrived to the present however, he had begun providing more details as to the how's and whys of each new models development. This was, again, to his credit. The other issue I had was that I found most of the pictures did not match up to the text (regardless of how dull it was). For example, the author was discussing the Chrysler 300G to L but only provided pictures of the 300F (about a dozen pictures of the same model taken at different angles). Another was where the author showed a number of pictures of the '69 `Cuda 440 but only dedicates one sentence to the car (which basically said the car was offered in '69). Although I do understand the difficulty in aligning photographs and in fact even obtaining some photos, I still believe more effort was needed here. There is nothing more frustrating then to be looking at photographs that are almost 10 years behind the text as well as reading about models with no available pictures (maybe I've never seen a 300L before). Overall, the book does a decent job of covering all the major models and providing a reasonable amount of detail. The pictures were excellent and there was some decent textual coverage of the models. It just got a little tedious after a while.

".....The book INCLUDES A HISTORY OF MODELS FROM 1979 ON, including the Dodge St. Regis, Chrysler Newport, Dodge Diplomat, K-cars Dodge Aries K and Plymouth Reliant K, Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Intrepid....."
[from the book of the back cover]

This book is much better than vol. 1 (Dodge, Ply. and Chrysler Police Cars 1957 - 1978). That still doesn't say much, as the writing is elementary, repetitious and it's quite apparent that the author thinks that Chrysler never made a bad police car. I'd like some objectivity here. The info is there, you just have to hunt for it and make use of peculiar table formations (although again, at least there seems to be a modicum of uniformity in the tables versus the first volume). I had high hopes for this book, and I'm still waiting for an excellent book on police vehicles. I've yet to see one!

Vehicle information discribed in the book is accurate. Anybody that owns or wants to purchase these types of police cars would have the lowdown on the good and the bad in owning one these vehicles. Overall the book is interesting to read, though I would of liked to have seen some color photos along with the black and white photos.

I found this book good, up to a point. I suppose the limitations are by design. There are more complete manuals available, but they are much thicker and much more expensive. The best way I can illustrate the book's limits is with an example. I wanted to investigate a broken outer door handle. The book gave me all the detail I needed to remove panels, links, etc. in the right order to get to the handle. But it did not have any information on how a properly working handle's connections should look nor what could be fixed vs. replaced. Also, it would be very simple to add information about bolt sizes to the text. It would be nice to know in advance, before tearing into a car, whether you have the right size tools for the job. Still, the illustrations are pretty good and the general flow of how to perform tasks is accurate and complete, as far as it goes.

Not quite as good as a Chrysler Shop manual. But does the job well..

Details on the development and production of the PT Cruiser, with notes on the show cars that led up to it, engineering choices and tradeoffs, and lots of very good color pictures. Answered a few of my questions (e.g. why Toluca, is it on the Neon platform, how did they get it approved!). Surprisingly good book given the time the Cruiser has been out and the potential for scamming on this popular car.

Details on the development and production of the PT Cruiser, with notes on the show cars that led up to it, engineering choices and tradeoffs, and lots of very good color pictures. Answered a few of my questions (e.g. why Toluca, is it on the Neon platform, how did they get it approved!). Surprisingly good book given the time the Cruiser has been out and the potential for scamming on this popular car.

The year is not new enough. When I had that year Vehicle it was ok. I have a '98 Quad Cab, and Trannie went out, I wanted to research it. Cant find a book. My wife has a '98 quad cab and the trannie went. The front wheel bearings are supposed to be greasable in my V-10, Need to find out how to do that. Need the book. Asked for one from the Library, but nothing has come back yet. thanks Mike

Hey, I need a repair manual for a full size Dodge Puck-up truck Year 1999 for 24 value diesel engine. Have you got or will have in the future?

I purchased the Dodge Caravan 2003 thru 2006 so that I could
change my Brake Pads. The information was complete and easy to follow.
I saved money by doing the work myself.

Since Haynes now publishes the Chilton manuals, the contents are exactly the same which is misleading. I wasted money by buying both manuals.

As a collector of 1980's Shelby vehicles this book interested me for a number of reasons. I expected to find a wealth of stats and some photos, including some that pertained to the Shelby Daytonas. I was very pleased to find the book goes far beyond that.

When they say definitive history, they mean it. This book tells the story of the G body cars from many angles including original corporate positioning/thinking, how the various models fit into the broader marketplace, what the automotive press was covering at the time, and quotes from former employees/designers. You can actually read this book cover to cover and learn a good deal about not just Daytonas, but about the people and mindset of both Chrysler and Detroit in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

The book includes a great amount of detail on the year-by-year changes to the Daytona and Laser. I also liked the tables with production counts of not just models but individual colors and option packages. While most of this is available on the Internet (including the author's website), the ability to have it in book form makes it easier to use as a reference and frankly lends credibility to the stats.

The only fault I can find with the book, and the reason for four stars instead of five, is the lack of authentic images. Most of the photos in the book are exactly what you see on the cover.. cars at swap meets or other shows.. with their hoods up and usually some after-market baubles added. I would have liked to have seen a greater number of images from the original marketing materials, press handouts, magazine spreads, and so on. There are a few (i.e. pages 14, 20, 36, 51, 60) but they are low-resolution scans and mostly black & white. I understand that the author was likely constrained to using mainly his own photos due to licensing or copyright issues.. however in future printings perhaps Chrysler would be so kind as to offer up images from their archive to be used without royalties in the book.

I think the author deserves a large amount of credit for capturing this information on an oft-overlooked segment of automotive history. With fuel prices as high as they are today, younger collectors may look at the gas-guzzling V8's of the 1970's and decide instead to move into the relatively fuel-efficient, yet high-performance turbo-4's of the 1980's. This book helps place these cars in context and demonstrates how they were the forerunners to the modern high-performance/high-mpg cars in showrooms today.

In summary, this is a solid effort and a book worth purchasing if you have an interest in late 1980's performance cars or 1980's/1990's Detroit in general.

Greg McCausey has to be complimented on being the first person in many years to recognize the value of one of the famous extended Chrysler K-cars, and for being able to sell his idea for a book on them to a serious publisher. With the ignorant blogging and mass-market magazine rabble constantly slamming the ol' EEKs with cheap shots, Greg's recognition of the Daytona and lack of sarcasm are refreshingly fresh.

At the time, the Daytona was quite a vehicle -- even the base model got a relatively torquey (compared with similarly sized Japanese and American cars) 2.2 liter engine; the seats were plush and comfortable, the ride smooth, the cornering capable; and the turbocharged engines impressive, from the original Turbo I (sans intercooler) right up to the 224-hp Turbo III and variable-nozzle, no-waiting-for-power Turbo IV. To his credit, McCausey not only covers all these options, but discusses them realistically, including both strengths and weaknesses. In many car books, only the top engine option gets real coverage, and any deficiencies are smoothed over; but not here.

The book is fairly long, at 179 pages, with an incredible number of details, most (but by no means all) of which came from various web sites including allpar, the Shelby Dodge site, and the writer's own moparautos.com. Much of that is taken up by tables of options, clearly moved into a word processor straight from the Web; this book has a number of hallmarks of the self publisher, and appears to have been reproduced via laser printer. The color photography is reproduced well, but the black and white photography suffers from "laser printer syndrome" and some of the scans have clear JPEG artifacts; on the other hand, other photos are quite clear and well reproduced. Many, if not most, of the photos were taken at auto shows, so the average photo is moderately cluttered and has the hood up; and quite a few cars have "not quite stock" items, such as different wheels, paint variations, etc. Some of the cars didn't have the interior cleaned before shots were snapped, and aftermarket stereos were not uncommon. If the reader looks at the photography as covering decades-old daily drivers, these shortcomings are not an issue, but those seeking a restoration guide might want to exercise caution.

(other details are at the full version of this review over on allpar.com)

The book integrated existing sources (and possibly new information) to make an easy to read history of cars that were critically acclaimed and fairly innovative when they first hit the road, and have been forgotten by most people (its owners excepted). Yes, there are a few mistakes and some of the photos are what you'd expect from a gifted amateur at a car show, and yes, you can find a lot of this information on the Web. However, the Daytona/Laser book is the best paper-based reference we're ever likely to see on any Chrysler cars of this era; it's well written, in an engaging style, and McCausey pulled in numerous sources to have a fairly well arranged, well documented compilation. It's worth a buy, and it's also a terrific gift for your Daytona-owning friends.

The Haynes Manual series is a must have for any auto DIYers. Every section is very detailed and very helpful. even if you have no prior knowledge of auto mechanics, you are able to complete basic repairs without the need for "specialized" tools. it takes you through almost any car repair job step-by-step from start to finish.

The Haynes Repair Manual for the 1993-1997 Chrysler LH cars is useful overall, but lacking in some regards. I bought this manual as a complete beginner to the mechanics of automobiles. I only know the primary basics, and only in minimal detail. I thought this book would be a great way to get to know my 1997 Dodge Intrepid in a more intimate way. To an extent, I now can. The manual does lack in a few areas though, mainly in description and illustration. While there is basic instruction for all the repair and maintenance jobs covered, detail is scant. The pictures and illustrations are sometimes marginally helpful, but are usually of poor quality. Sometimes the pictures seem to not even correspond to what the task at hand is.

The manual can also become frustrating when you cannot find a certain repair or other task you'd like to read about. For example, nowhere in this manual can I find information about the reverse light that is located in the center of the rear lights cluster on my Dodge Intrepid. Another instance of frustration occurred for me when I was reading about the wheel and tire sizes for my vehicle. The manual briefly discusses tire size, quote "All vehicles covered by this manual are equipped with metric-sized fiberglass or steel belted radial tires (see illustration)". Upon examining the illustration, where it gives a tire size of P185/80R13, confusion is easily encountered. After talking with other Intrepid owners, and e-mailing Haynes Publishing Group, I was able to determine that the illustrated tire size was just an example and was not intended to indicate the actual tire size of the vehicles covered in the manual. In case you're wondering, the actual stock tire size for the Dodge Intrepid is either P225/60R16 or P205/70R15, depending on the trim (base or ES). The manual doesn't say this though, and I have yet to see where it discusses wheel (rim) size at all.

So if you're planning to buy this manual, I hope I have given you a little insight on how it reads. In my opinion it was worth the money I spent on it, even if I found it a little lacking for someone of my skill level. More pictures and better detail, and maybe some color, would have made this a five star manual for me. As it is, I can give it a solid 3.5.

Modern Chrysler Concept Cars illustrates how concept car designs spurred another business recovery of Chrysler during the 1990s. The storyline is how Tom Gale's daring cab-forward and retro design concepts (again) rescued Chrysler from post-Iacocca business doldrums. The book gives a great birdseye view of the business value of pushing beyond current design boundaries through the voice of Chrysler design honcho,Tom Gale. On this basis alone it should probably be required reading for students of car design. Buy this book for its business lesson about the business power of design and for its great photos of handsome cars, not for revelations of the visual keys to car design.

Despite many high-quality photos (which alone make the book worth buying) there is little about visual design principles behind the success of Gale's cab-forward and retro designs. Most of the pictures are dramatic three-quarter perspectives that reveal little about the shapes and proportions underlying the designs. To understand a car's design you need to understand its basic proportions, shapes and primary lines. These are only revealed clearly in "elevations" - perpendicular-to-the-viewer side, front, rear and overhead views of a car. Such views are rarely shown anywhere and not in this book. These cars are handsome; I want to know why and these quarter-view photos don't show me, nor does the text. The text of this book is more about mechanical concepts, intended performance and design-management decisionmaking than about visual principles or insights into the designs pictured.

This story begins with the financial failure of Chrysler's daring Airflow design in the late 1930s. The Airflow failure induced a long period in which Chrysler marketed increasingly dull designs on the basis of solid engineering. By 1949-50, Chrysler's obsolete pre-WW II design concepts were trumped in the market by the 1949 Ford and Mercury, the first finned Cadillacs and other new design concepts. The book gives only one paragraph to Chrysler's rescue-by-daring-design in the 1950s when Chrysler designer Virgil Exner turned to Italian coachbuilder Ghia for a series of seminal concept cars.

Design themes in the Exner/Ghia show cars quickly found their way into production cars such as the original Chrysler 300, a winning combination of design and performance engineering, the Plymouth Valiant and the gunsight taillights of the Imperial, for example. Only a passing reference is made to the Ghia d'Elegance as a source of design themes in the Chrysler Chronos concept car of the 1990s, citing its radiator-shaped grill. Omitting the 1950s episode is odd given that the 1990s Tom Gale design and performance-based concepts reprise the Exner/Ghia1950s design/performance rescue of a slumping Chrysler. Perhaps the author omitted this era because first-hand design players of the 1950s were not available to interview now whereas Tom Gale and his colleagues were. Even so, Chrysler's 1950's rescue-by-design deserves a full section, not just a short paragraph. Those who do not know history are fated to repeat it. So buy this book to learn how strong design can rescue business, to enjoy dramatic photos of excellent car designs, but not to learn much about what makes these cars look so good.

I thought this book would be the usual pointless gushing, with lots of pictures and no information. Well, there's lots of pictures, all in color, along with sketches. Surprisingly, though, the writer also interviewed notables such as Bob Lutz and Tom Gale to get the story behind the concepts and their journey to production - or not. Lots of surprises.

If you have an older car (like me), something inevitably fails or needs to be replaced. This manual has step-by-step instructions for repairs and service, showing in detail how to get to each part and do what needs to be done.

It has procedures ranging from minimal to major. It's an invaluable tool to have around and a great addition to your other car repair tools. I used mine several times and keep it in the car for the next time it's needed.