Used Plymouth Horizon Buying Guide (and Dodge Omni): Years to Buy

Buy a late Plymouth Horizon or Dodge Omni (1987-90) if you want one to drive. By then the Chrysler 2.2 was the only engine, and the 1990 cars got a standard driver air bag. Early cars have more recalls and the old Volkswagen-sourced 1.7, and the Omni GLH and Shelby GLHS are collector cars now, priced to match. Horizon and Omni were the same car with different badges, so a guide to one covers both.

I read the Autopian's 2025 history of the Consumer Reports fight, two Truth About Cars junkyard finds, Hagerty's October 2025 GLHS drive, and NHTSA's recall data for both badges, which I pulled year by year on Oct. 20, 2026. TTAC called a final-year 1990 car "very, very rare" back in 2014, and that was 12 years ago.

What these cars are

The Omni and Horizon went on sale for 1978, based on a Simca design from Chrysler's European division, and stayed in production through 1990 with only modest changes, according to TTAC's 1989 Horizon America junkyard find. They were Chrysler's first American-built front-drive economy cars. The Autopian reports the early cars used a modified VW 1.7 four with a four-speed VW manual or a three-speed Chrysler automatic, and sales passed 2.5 million over the 12-year run. The Autopian puts the 1.7 at 75 hp, while Hagerty says 70. Either way, it was slow.

The cheap trims tell you how these were sold. Hagerty mentions a 1980 Omni Miser listed at $5,299, and TTAC says the 1989 Horizon America was a fixed-price $6,595 car aimed at the Tercel and Justy. That's why so many were driven hard and never maintained well.

The 1978 "Not Acceptable" rating

Consumer Reports rated the 1978 Omni and Horizon "Not Acceptable" in its July 1978 issue, the same year Motor Trend made them Car of the Year. In CR's test the car was driven at 50 mph, the wheel was jerked and let go, and all three test cars swung from side to side, sometimes more violently each time. It was the first car CR had rated Not Acceptable since the 1968 AMC Ambassador, the Autopian writes. Chrysler ran the same test for journalists at its proving ground and said it couldn't reproduce the problem. A year later it added a steering damper, which reportedly satisfied CR.

For a buyer now, the practical point is to pass on a 1978 car unless you want it for the history. Later cars got the fix, and the 1978 recall list below is long.

GLH, GLH Turbo and GLHS

Hagerty's Steven Cole Smith lays out the hot versions. The Omni GLH arrived for 1984 with a tuned 110-hp 2.2. A Turbo I version with 146 hp followed for 1985. For 1986 Carroll Shelby bought 500 GLHs, all black, and his Whittier, California shop turned them into the GLHS, with an intercooled 175-hp turbo, Koni suspension, Shelby Centurion wheels and a numbered dash plaque. As of that October 2025 story, Hagerty's #3-condition values were $6,500 for a 1986 GLH, $8,900 for the turbo GLH and $17,800 for the GLHS.

That gap is why fakes are worth worrying about. A GLHS should have its build plaque and paperwork that matches the VIN, and a GLH Turbo should have the turbo it left the factory with. Smith also mentions the rod-and-ball shifter is vague, which is common and fixable. A plain Omni with GLH stickers and a junkyard turbo is not a $9,000 car.

Recalls, by year

NHTSA lists the same recalls under PLYMOUTH HORIZON and DODGE OMNI, with a few extras on the Omni:

• 1978: eight campaigns, including 78V026 (fuel tank leaks when full because carpet fasteners could pierce the top of the tank), 77V241 (front hub nuts that might loosen), 79V215 (steering shaft coupling), and 77V229 and 78V103 (lower control arm cracks and ball joint rivets).
• 1979-80: 78V266 (mixed metric and standard wheel nuts that can strip), 80V139 (engine-bay fuel hoses that can crack), 80V138 (hood secondary latch) and 82V011 (ball joint bolts).
• 1981-82: 81V111, a cruise switch that can stick on "resume," and 82V055, cracked ball joint clamp bolts.
• 1984-87: 84V147 (fuel leaks at the silver reservoir can on the air cleaner), 84V116 (stalling from an emissions valve), 91V056 (1986 rear trailing arm pivot bolts that can crack) and 91V132 (1987 fuel pressure regulator leaks). The Omni list adds 85V010 and 88V105, fuel hose leaks at the pressure regulator.
• 1989-90: 89V237, a valve cover gasket that can slip and leak oil.

Use our Plymouth recall check or Dodge recall check with the actual VIN. Many of these campaigns date to the Carter administration, so completion records may be missing even when the work was done.

Checking one out

Look for rust in the floors, rear wheel wells and hatch, and check under the car for fuel leaks, given how many fuel-line recalls these had. A history report on a 1980s car is usually thin, and our post on CARFAX for classic cars explains why. Run an NMVTIS check for title brands anyway. If you want something a bit newer from the same dealers, see our used Plymouth Sundance guide.

CarVins is a licensed reseller of CARFAX and AutoCheck reports, separate from both and from Stellantis. As of late October 2026, a single report was about $5.50 as a guest or $4.50 as a member, with both together at about $6.75, versus $39.99 to $44.99 retail. Your checkout total is what counts.

Sources

• The Autopian: Consumer Reports once hated a Dodge (Mercedes Streeter, Sept. 2025)
• Hagerty: We drive the Omni GLHS and Neon SRT-4 (Oct. 2025)
• TTAC junkyard finds: 1989 Horizon America and 1990 Horizon
• NHTSA recalls: 1978 Horizon and 1986 Omni