Plymouth’s British Beetle-Fighter: The 1971-73 Cricket

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Here’s one of the more obscure products that ever wore the Plymouth badge: the 1971-73 Cricket, a rebadged Hillman Avenger from the United Kingdom.

 

By 1970, a new battleground was shaping up in the Motor City: the subcompact category. Into this increasingly crowded class, the Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega, and AMC Gremlin marched forth to fight head-to-head against the imports, then led by the Volkswagen Beetle.

The cash-strapped Chrysler Corporation couldn’t spare the resources to develop an all-new subcompact platform as Ford or GM had done. Instead, the company reached out to its recently formed subsidiary, Chrysler Europe, for a badge-engineered variant of the British-built Hillman Avenger, to be imported and sold by Plymouth dealers in the USA. In an obvious nod to the Beetle, the Plymouth subcompact was named the Cricket.

 

Just like its Hillman twin, the Cricket was a unit-construction, front-engine, rear-drive sedan on a 98-inch wheelbase with McPherson-strut front suspension and a live axle at the rear. However, the Cricket received some upgrades for the U.S. market, including standard front disc brakes and the larger 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine with 70 hp.

 

Available options included an automatic transmission ($178) and air conditioning ($338) on top of the $1,915 base price. There was a single body style for the ’71 introduction, a four-door, three-box sedan, but for ’72 a four-door wagon was added. Badging for the U.S. market included vinyl stickers featuring a cute little cartoon character (below).

While the Hillman Avenger was fairly well-regarded in its home market (and was produced throughout the world) the Plymouth Cricket version was essentially ignored by car buyers in the USA. Not quite 28,000 were sold over the three model years, a tiny fraction of Vega or Pinto volume, and the Cricket was discontinued in 1973. Meanwhile, Chrysler’s Dodge division had much better success with its Mitsubishi-built subcompacts, and from here out, Plymouth’s imports would be Mitsubishi products as well.

 

5 thoughts on “Plymouth’s British Beetle-Fighter: The 1971-73 Cricket”

  1. Had one in the late 1970’s. Buddy and I bought it for $75. The most memorable quality was its very aggressive clutch, it would “chirp” the tires in 3 gears. We were sure that is where Plymouth got the name.

  2. When these cars first appeared in the U.S., Chrysler Engineering took a few examples to Chelsea to run them through the general endurance routes to see how they would stand up. There were a number of mechanical failures, but none were considered by the engineering folks as being serious. A trans-Atlantic phone call was set up between Highland Park and the UK where the cars were built. The engineering guys explained the issues they found, and suggested remedies to improve the cars. The Brits listened quietly and when the engineering guys were finished the Brits reportedly said “This is the way we build our cars, if you don’t like it, don’t buy them” And the phone call ended. It was at that point that Chrysler picked up the phone to call Mitsubishi to ask for yet another variant of the Colt badged specifically for the Plymouth dealers.

    • Gotta love that British approach to engineering. “There are some mechanical failures but not serious enough to fix”. And they still don’t understand why their auto and motorcycle industry went under. I owned several British cars back in the day, including a Sunbeam (Hillman with a different badge). They were fun to drive when they were working right, but you had to be a mechanic to keep them working. Back in the 70s I rented a Plymouth Arrow (Mitsubishi) for a long cross country trip and by the time I got back I was a firm believer in Japanese cars. That little car made British cars, and VW Beetles, seem like antiquated junk.

  3. I had the Australian version called the Chrysler Centura. It had the 245 (4.0l) Chrysler Hemi L6 with a Borg Warner 4 on the floor. Very fast car.

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