Hillman Avenger
Introduced in January 1970, the Avenger was significant as it was the first and last car to be developed by Rootes after the Chrysler takeover in 1967. Stylistically the Avenger was very much in tune with its time; the American-influenced "Coke Bottle" waistline and semi-fastback rear-end being a contemporary styling cue, although from an engineering perspective it was utterly conventional, using 4-cylinder all-iron overhead valve engines in 1.3 L or 1.5 L (later uprated to 1.6 L) capacities driving a coil spring suspended live axle at the rear wheels. Unlike any Rootes design before it, there were no "badge-engineered" Humber or Singer versions in the UK market. The Avenger was available in 2-door and 4-door sedan or 5-door station wagon body styles.
The engines and transmissions were in fact, all new and owed nothing to its larger brother, the Hunter or "Arrow" series. The Avenger was a steady seller in the 1970s, going head-to-head with the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Viva. Chrysler wanted the Avenger to be a "world car", and took the ambitious step of marketing the Avenger as the Plymouth Cricket in the United States, but poor build quality, unreliability, plus American apathy towards small cars, saw it being withdrawn after only two years.
The car was also extensively marketed in continental Europe, first as a Sunbeam. It was without the Avenger name in France, where it was known as the Sunbeam 1250 and 1500; later the 1300 and 1600. Some northern European markets received the car as the Sunbeam Avenger.
Chrysler's South American operations also built and marketed the car. In Brazil it was known as the Dodge 1800/Polara (it utilized a larger stroke 1800 cm³ version of its motor), and in Argentina, where it was the Dodge 1500. The station wagon was known as the Dodge 1500 Rural, while 1800 cm³ versions there were badged as the Dodge 1500M.
Other countries to market the car were South Africa (where it used Peugeot engines) and New Zealand.
Despite the humble underpinnings, the Avenger was a successful car in motorsport; it was a frequent strong achiever in the British Touring Car championship owing to the "tuneability" of its engine. The road-going version of the race car, the 4-door Avenger Tiger, is now a sought-after classic car.
In 1976 the Avenger was rebadged as a Chrysler. It also gained a comprehensive facelift which included a new frontal treatment and a new dashboard. Both treatments looked similar to that of the Chrysler Alpine. The largest change was at the rear where on the sedans, the distinctive "L"-shaped rear lamp clusters were dropped in favour of a straight 'light-bar' arrangement. The top of the "L"s had body-colour metal in their place.
In 1977, a hatchback variant was spawned, the Chrysler Sunbeam, which was based off a shortened version of the Avenger's floorplan. This was intended to compete in the lower "supermini" class, and later became a successful rally car, after it was treated to an engine transplant courtesy of Lotus.
Towards the end of the 1970s, the Avenger was being increasingly outclassed by the new generation of modern front-wheel drive hatchbacks such as the VW Golf, Renault 14 and Fiat Ritmo/Strada. In 1978, Chrysler Europe went bankrupt and was taken over by PSA Peugeot–Citroën, which rebranded Chrysler models as Talbotss. The Avenger survived, rebadged once again, although unlike other Talbot models, it still had the Chrysler 'pentastar' badge, instead of the Talbot logo featuring a letter 'T' inside a circle. Production continued until 1981, when Peugeot pulled the plug on the Linwood production plant.
Remarkably, production of the model continued in Argentina until 1990, as Volkswagen acquired the tooling from Chrysler when it withdrew from South America, and re-badged the Dodge 1500 as the VW 1500.
External links
- The Hillman Avenger / Plymouth Cricket web page
- The Avenger and Sunbeam Owners Club
- Avenger/Cricket/Sunbeam page at Allpar.com
- Site for Simca/Chrysler France products
- Hillmans in Australia page
