The Plymouth Prowler is one of the most bizarre cars to come out of the 1990s. It’s a 2-door roadster shaped like a hot rod, powered by a common V6 engine and featuring some interesting aluminum construction.
Basically, that’s the perfect formula for a future classic, and that’s exactly what the Prowler has been since its conception. There’s literally nothing like it, and because of limited availability, the Prowler will always be a collectible, with most of them having ultra-low miles.
The market has only gone up since Yuri from TheStraightPipes bought his yellow Prowler. And while he made a great case not to buy the usual Plymouth Purple example… that’s still the desired color.
How much does a Prowler cost?
In 1997, the Prowler went on sale for $38,300 which was a whole lot of money back then. Adjusted for inflation, it’s closer to $70,000 in 2022. If somebody asked you to pick between a Prowler and a Supra what would you do? Exactly.
Today, the Prowler averages about $31,000 at auction. The most expensive one this year was $50k and the cheapest was about $20k.
They didn’t make that many, only 11,702 over the 5 model years, which also included Chrysler-badged examples. It’s been reported that 90% of buyers were men, mostly over the age of 50 and with an average income of $190,000. That explains why most have low miles and are in great condition.
How rare is the Prowler Trailer
The Prowler was a novelty car and didn’t have much cargo room. The tiny trunk was about 5 inches deep and had a strange shape, so it could only fit a couple of soft bags.
To somewhat rectify that, Chrysler developed the Prowler Trailer, which was available at dealerships and cost a whopping $5,075. This had exactly the same design as the rear of the car, came with matching wheels, and offered large sedan levels of trunk space. About 20% of buyers opted for this add-on.
Not many people talk about this, but the towing system for the trailer was also bespoke to the Prowler. So you couldn’t pull your boat with it, not that anybody ever tried to.
One of the few Prowers in purple with a matching trailer is being sold by Streetside Classics. It costs $40,000, and we dare you to come up with a more unique modern car for your next cruise/show. It’s also got about 7,000 miles on the clock, which is low even by Plymouth standards.
All-American aluminum
1997 Prowlers came with a 214 horsepower 3.5-liter, which was upgraded to 253 horsepower by 1999. Using its standard 4-speed auto, these roadsters could hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and topped out at 126 miles per hour.
While it may have looked retro, the Prowler was actually an engineering exercise more than anything. Chrysler was still profitable and needed a way to learn about the use of aluminum, of which they used about 900lbs throughout the car.
The roadster had a completely bespoke chassis, unlike most sports cars. Engineers used a lot of adhesives, and it featured a torque tube to send power to the rear-mounted transmission. It’s like the Dodge Viper, C5 Corvette and Lotus Elise all rolled into one!
