Goes Like Hell: 1986 Dodge Omni GLH Turbo
Update – This GLH has been relisted, now with a $3,500 BIN. You can find it here on eBay.
Though virtually unheard-of in America today, practical front-wheel-drive hatchbacks appealed to many U.S. buyers during the 1980s. Some manufacturers offered sport models, and some of those even delivered increased performance! This 1986 Dodge Omni GLH in East Orange, New Jersey represents Dodge’s turbocharged entry into the “hot hatch” market, and this one can be yours with the high bid here on eBay where more than a dozen bids have driven its value above $700.
Collectors may prefer the ultra-rare 1984 Plymouth Horizon HO, as only 84 of these super-sleepers made it to production, disclosing virtually no cosmetic indication of their turbocharged powerplant (thanks to hemmings.com for some details). Dodge released 2247 GLH Turbos into the wild in 1986. This one looks mostly straight and boasts shiny red paint. Bad points include some rust and an interior that may have sheltered a pack of rabid Dingos.
You can probably buy a 146 HP skateboard today, but that was three more than Dodge’s 5.2L (318 cid) V8 made in 1986. The listing says “Fresh installed engine and After market turbo.rare barn.” In fact, that’s the entire listing from beginning to end. Does it run? Does it drive? Does it shift gears, stop, or drive 10 feet without puking out fluids? Simply consult your Magic 8-Ball for possible answers. These cars are not entirely forgotten, and some insanely modified ones populate YouTube.
Perhaps inspired by Ferrari, Dodge gave this bright-red Dodge a once-snappy tan interior that currently looks like it spent some time at the bottom of a pond. Known for ferocious torque-steer, the GLH urges its driver to take a firm grip on the world’s ugliest steering wheel before burying the Go Pedal to counteract the car’s desire to change lanes under hard acceleration. If knocking off more modern and expensive cars in a tiny box pushes your buttons, they don’t get much more interesting than the GLH. What does “GLH” stand for, you ask? Technically this trim designation is not an acronym, but common lore indicates it came from early in the car’s development when someone said it “Goes Like Hell.” What would you give for this rough specimen of an ’80s Hot Hatch?
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Comments
I owned a brand new GLH Turbo in 85..it was blue and yes torque steer was a problem but it was pretty fast
Me too! Mine was black with a red interior. It was a rocket compared to most things sold in 1985, but compared to today’s machinery (like my Focus RS), it was a slug. I sure did win a lot of autocrosses with it, though.
Santa Fe Crystal Coat Blue to be exact. Yep, I bought one of those new also back in the day – a rare one without A/C!
Handled like it was on rails, although you had better be sure you had it pointed exactly where you wanted it to go when you launched it – because it was going to go there, despite your best efforts at steering correction. :-)
It ate every sensor on the car multiple times and frequently.
I wound up trading it on a new 5.0 ’89 Mustang a few years later after it spit out the final drive in the transmission at a traffic light.
Fun car, couldn’t stay together.
question here? what can you tell me about shelby lancers, and shelby shadows I almost bought a shelby lancer wish I had but a direct connection red rampage caught my eye and I was hooked! the d.c. rampage was only sold in ontario canada I ended up owning 3 rampages all direct connections my red one , a tired white one and a loaded black one dummy sold all 3!!!
Used to spank ricers and gti’s all day long on my GLHS. Loved that car for the 190k miles I had it. Would still have it if the puke in the honda minivan was paying attention to the road instead of eating a sandwich while plowing into me.
Dave, Pretty cool. Ricers (Honda’s) have came a long way since the 1980’s. I doubt that would happen toward the early to mid 1990’s and even now. There are single cam Honda’s running around on the street in my area pulling nearly 400 WHP. Now it is the K series that’s king.
Be careful those ricers will now embarass you
A puke in the Honda minivan would probably embarrass him too now given how far things have come. But in the day these were quite fast relative to the IROCs and GTAs out there.
My wife is getting ready to replace her rig this year and the new Acura RDX is pretty sharp…waiting to see if the Type-S version is a rumor or reality. Twin-turbo V6 AWD with torque-vectoring traction control!
Did they choke on the sammich
I bought a new red GLH Turbo in 1986. Kept it 8 years and sold it with only 22 K miles. I daily drove very little but it was my first SCCA autocross car and trailered it to events all over the country. I would love to have another one, even at my advanced age of 75.
Yes, they are very memorable cars. I unfortunately literally wrapped mine around a telephone pole doing something stupid. I had not a scratch, but the car lived all too short life.
I’d love to have another too.
NJ Bell had many of these & Horizons for company cars & they were great little cars to motor around in! They had quick little 4 cyl automatics with great mpg.
This was THE econobox of the 80’s!!! I remember these well as they smoked many GTIs….
The GLH first appeared in 1984 and that was the only year that it wasn’t turbocharged. It was fitted with a high-performance 2.2 that still breathed through an MCA-jet carb. Why is this important? Because it fit neatly into SCCA’s ProRally ‘Production’ class. Running against VW GTIs and other small-bore sedans, the torquey 2.2, combined with its 5-speed trans, pretty much ruled that class for several years. When the turbo cars hit the market in ‘85, they were immediately placed in the Production GT class, where they faced much stiffer competition.
Chrysler quickly realized the potential of these cars and set up a second ‘skunkworks’ to help get their FWD cars into competition. They would stiffen the structure, add a roll-cage and even fit skid pans for very attractive prices. All you had to do was provide a car and tell them if you wanted to road-race, autocross or go stage-rallying. My rally partner and I picked up a lightly-rolled ’84 GLH, had it straightened and trailered it to Detroit. Once back in our possession, we had a well-respected local race shop go through the 2.2 with the allowed .030 overbore and a basic ‘balance and blueprint’ job. Direct Connection also provided a few bits & pieces and we had a very reliable replacement for the GTI we’d been running for several years.
Not long after our car was finished, my partner got into a rather messy divorce and I bought him out. I switched from co-driving to driving and handed over the right seat duties to my buddy Kev, who was an excellent co-driver without a ride (due to a crash that forced the sale of what was left of their rally car). Kev and I competed sparingly for several years (stage-rally is VERY expensive for un-sponsored teams) until 1992 when we witnessed a friend’s death at the wheel of his Quattro. Kev’s wife was pregnant with their first child at the time and this gave me a reality check that doused my driving ambitions.
I still have my little GLH. It hasn’t run in a while… it just sits quietly in a corner of my garage – a nice reminder of good times past.
The normally aspirated GLH was offered in ’85 and ’86 as well as the Turbo.
You probably get this a lot, but do you have any intention of selling the GLH?
I autocrossed with a guy in Eugene Oregon who had one of these back in the late 90s. His was the NA version. He’d owned it since new and he knew the car forwards and backwards. Every event, I’d ask him what he’d done. There were so many variants of these engines and these cars. He always came up with some little class-legal trick to make it a tiny bit faster. He was certainly quick!
Same as Derek, I had an ’86 GLH-T brand new. Mine was black with red interior, I’ve never seen the color combo of the one that’s listed.
These are great fun and if this were closer, would love to take a look. If it runs, it would be a fun bargain that you can clean up yourself.
I’ve never heard of the Horizon HO and decide to search for it. I can find articles about but not single picture. I really wanted to know what it looked like.
Same here, never heard of them, and I’ve been a fan of these go fast econo boxes for quite awhile.
I believe they looked exactly like a regular run of the mill Horizon. Like you, I had never heard of them.
I bought a one of 84 h o powered 1984 HORIZON, plain looking car, no indication of what it had. Only a $395 option! Ran mid 15s and would outrun most stock 84 vettes. The option was dropped since the 120 + mph was greater than the 112 mph rated tires. Still have it, nearly 317k miles and has won the vast majority of my 48 NHRA/IHRA Championships. I dont know how many wins, i only count championships! Btw, Roland Leong, the Hawaiian liked it.
Hey Angelo, Thanks for sharing!
I don’t think it was a turbo. I think it was the 110 horsepower HO 2.2 that was installed in the original GLH and Shelby Charger.
Beyond that, the Hemmings article says nothing about it. And I couldn’t find anything about it online that gave any detail. My guess is that it was simply an engine option, so they probably looked like any other Horizon.
That means they probably lived their lives unappreciated and unnoticed until it was time for the crusher. By averages, that was probably between 1996 and 1999 or so, so good luck finding one now.
Nick G. can you post links to the articles? My search engine must be missing on a cylinder because I found nothing except articles on plain old Horizons. I love them, but I read all the articles back then.
the replaced eng. is out of an 88 car called a turbo ii. the wiring harness an computer are differant. i’d say this car doesn’t run at all. that is why the guy got rid of it.
Anyone wants to see what it looks like – look up talbot horizon, an almost uniquely staid uninspiring and boring squared off 1980s shopping trolley that the French threw together when they were particularly bored.
So clearly dodge got landed with it for some badge engineering embarrassment and they made it faster in a desperate attempt to find a reason for anyone to buy one!
When I was younger, and these where new – and common as muck, they fitted into the same category as Skoda and FSO, in other words, if you need a cheep car – just buy something much better, like a bicycle.
I remember in the 1990s I had an ’84 GTi with some common mods like a hot cam, intake, exhaust, etc. A guy pulled next to me at a light in this little 4-door Omni and gave me the look. I laughed, until we took off and I watched it literally walk away from me as my little 1.8 gave it everything it had. These things must be a blast.
Sold for $1025.
If someone can get the Turbo II running, they’ll have a hot runner on their hands.
I became an Omni GLH fan as soon as I read the first article in Car & Driver/Motor Trendy/Road and Track. One of the articles mentioned making sure you had the wheels pointed exactly where you wanted to go when you mashed the gas, because if they were pointed at a telephone pole, it would climb it. What caught my eye in the text in this ad was mention of the “ultra-rare 1984 Plymouth Horizon HO”. Plymouth made a hot Horizon? Anyone know anything about this?
“Looks like hell” is probably a better description. The 80’s were truly a low point for American cars, despite any performance this one might provide.
Did they choke on the sammich
My “Velcro buddy” would like to have a word with the author about that “Dingo” quip-
This GLH OmniRizon was Detroit’s 80’s version of Wannabe Muscle Cars! Too bad Chrysler put too emphasis on HP but no money for the safe handling of the beast! It could have been a potent competitor to the VW Wabbit GTI. Also this model Omni Horizon was a larger knockoff of the Wabbit’s great commercial: WHY BUY A COPY WHEN YOU CAN BUY AN ORIGINAL? Never owned one but enjoy a ride in one though.
It wasn’t a Wannabe Muscle Car for it’s day, it was capable of easily blowing off the GTIs, IROCs, etc. of the day, and still take the family out for dinner. Isn’t that the definition of a muscle car? And you’re right, no one will ever mistake it for a well handling sports car. But, it did do well, with it’s wide, low profile tires – the first such application in a production car.
And yes, go for a ride if you can, you would be impressed.
Owned an ’85 black w/ gray interior. Move into the next lane? Not unless the wheels were pointed there. You just had to drive it like a video game. No real feedback through the steering wheel, but just keep the front wheels where you wanted the rest of the car to go and it would follow. The rear wheels were there only to keep the rear bumper from dragging on the ground.
Big advantage for the car is that it allowed Dad to have his toy and stay within the family budget…and still have a four-door sedan for Dad duties. It also had (at least for me) the same insurance premium as any other 4-door Omni.
I am a fan who also never heard of a Horizon H.O. My father bought a 78 Horizon when they first came out. In 83 he decided to buy a new Omni 2.2l with 5-speed performance pkg. This car was a blast to drive for a new driver aka me. It punched all the right buttons it was silver with blackout pkg. I loved this car until my lil brother ended up in some trees on a back road.
Seen alot of these cars back then wrecked , fixed and drove them too . The only thing that got them noticed was a turbo otherwise just another poorly built econo box . As usual these engines had problems !
Found a pic of my then new 85 GLH Turbo in Canada. In the harsh winters I used to apply bearing grease to the alum wheels to keep the oxidation down. Come spring I would wipe it off and be shiny again. Stupid snow and cold. No more as I moved to Phx Az!!
Nice! I’ll have to scan an old photo of mine and post it here.