Horizon in The UK
In Britain, it was seen as a modern alternative to the existing Rootes-designed Avenger models, offering buyers a front-wheel drive hatchback alongside the rear-wheel drive saloon. The Avenger was produced alongside it until 1981.
UK sales of the Horizon (which went on sale there in early 1978 and was badged as a Chrysler until 1 August 1979, when it became a Talbot) were initially quite strong, but within five years of its launch it was starting to lose sales in a segment dominated by an increasing number of newer models including the Ford Escort Mark III, Vauxhall Astra, Austin Maestro and Volkswagen Golf Mark II.
The last British Horizons were sold in 1986, soon after the launch of Peugeot's Ryton-built 309 which had originally been intended for sale as the Talbot Arizona, as a Talbot-branded successor to the Horizon, and went on sale in January 1986. The 309 continued the Simca heritage by using Simca-derived engines in its smaller models.
The Ryton factory remained open until December 2006.
Read more about this topic: Chrysler Horizon
Famous quotes containing the word horizon:
“The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me,—a world of which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses, and I did not like to feel the horizon shutting me in, even to so pleasant a corner as this.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)