Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

The Plymouth Acclaim was introduced in 1989 as a replacement for the Carvelle. Plymouth’s sibling brands Dodge and Chrysler offered their own versions of the Acclaim: the Dodge Spirit and the Chrysler LeBaron. The Acclaim was a version of the Chrysler Corporation‘s AA-body four-door sedan, an evolution of Chrysler’s extended K-car platform. For those intrigued by controversy over unimportant matters, Plymophiles acclaim this model as the successor to the Plymouth Reliant, although the Sundance, introduced two years earlier, was closer in dimensions to the Reliant. When production ended in 1995, the Acclaim was one of the last K-car derivatives produced by Chrysler.

My particular Acclaim rolled off the line at the Chrysler assembly plant in Newark, Delaware, on February 3, 1989. It was shipped to Albert Motors, the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in Needham, Massachusetts, just west of Boston. In August of that year, the base-level Acclaim was purchased by Maurice Davidson, a retired paper products salesman from the nearby West Roxbury section of Boston, as a 48th wedding anniversary gift for his wife, Evelyn. He financed the purchase through Chrysler Credit Corporation. Evelyn drove the car infrequently over the next quarter-century. At age 90, after moving to an assisted living facility in Jamaica Plain, she donated the vehicle to the Salvation Army, which consigned the Acclaim for auction. The purchaser then offered the Plymouth for sale online. I acquired it in a private sale near Manchester, New Hampshire, in the Spring of 2013. After a few years of maintenance and motoring in Massachusetts, the Acclaim was reclaimed by the same Salvation Army, on its way to a new owner.

Merrill S. Albert purchased the Needham Chrysler-Plymouth dealership on Chapel Street in Needham Square in 1971, renovating a facility that had served as an auto dealership for over 40 years and relaunching the business as Albert Motors. A native of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and a World War II veteran, Albert had begun his career at a Plymouth dealership after graduating college in 1951, before switching to the electronics industry in 1958. After rising to the position of Vice President-Administration at Allied Research Associates, he returned to the automobile business with the acquisition of Needham Chrysler-Plymouth. His two sons eventually joined him in the dealership. Mr. Albert retired to Boca Raton, Florida, by the early 1990s, and died there in October 2000. Albert Motors closed its doors in the fall of 1994, and its assets were liquidated in early 1995.