BOLD RIDE
The 1998 Plymouth Pronto Spyder was a beautiful 2-door roadster. It used recyclable materials that helped keep costs down and would have cost far less than other high-end sports cars of the time. Unfortunately, the Pronto Spyder never found its way to becoming a production vehicle.
It was always intended to be only a concept car, but any chance of it seeing production ended when the Plymouth brand was discontinued. The car might not have made the cut, but elements from the vehicle found its way into future vehicles in the Chrysler lineup.
It was powered by a mid-mounted, turbocharged 2.4-liter engine with 225 horsepower, paired to a 5-speed manual transmission. That engine eventually made its way in the Chrysler PT Cruiser. The Pronto Spyder was supposed to look like fancy European sports cars and it pulled that off in a car that only weighed 2,700 pounds thanks to the lightweight recyclables used in its construction.
The engine wasn’t the only component that made its way into a production car. The plastic, tortoise-shell steering wheel rim was found in the Chrysler 300C. Had production been a possibility, changes would have been needed to meet safety regulations, but in the end it didn’t matter. The car died along with Plymouth, leaving its bits to be harvested by Chrysler.
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