Do the Eagles Have Large Talons?: 67k-Mile 1995 Eagle Talon TSi AWD Turbo 5-Speed

The Eagle Talon was introduced in 1990 to a market hungry for sporty front-wheel drive cars like the Ford Probe and Mazda MX6, Saturn SC, Nissan NX2000, Honda Civic, and so on, which meant it was introduced to an ocean of competition. But it proved its salt early on as a wonderful driver – it was balanced and poised, nimble and quick, seemingly well-built and comfortable. It was also from a brand few knew about – Eagle. A division of Chrysler, Eagle was debuted as a sort of replacement for AMC, which Chrysler acquired in 1987. With GM introducing ground-breaking Saturn, Chrysler wanted to do something similar, and Eagle was supposed to fill that niche, apparently by rebadging cars in development, or already made by Renault, Mitsubishi and Chrysler itself.

The Talon came along in 1990 as their sporty entry. It bore a serious resemblance to the Saturn SC Coupe, which it competed with directly, along with its siblings the Mitsubishi Eclipse and the short-lived Plymouth Laser. In typical Chrysler fashion, the Talon would offer a lot more bells and whistles (or complications) than the Saturn, which arguably hurt the brand in the long run – people loved the simplicity of Saturn. But the Talon is a great car, even if not well known – the TSi model made it actually very competitive with upper end cars offering all-wheel drive, a turbocharged engine, and a host of technology, for a very fair price. Poorly marketed, few knew about the TSi and sales lagged – finding one today in any condition worth talking about is all but impossible.

This 1995 Talon TSi, in all black with a beautiful grey cloth interior, cleaner than average undercarriage, original stereo complete with factory auxiliary input, and a graphic equalizer seems to be one for the books. Showing just 67k miles, the seller notes the car was always garage kept and never modified, despite living through the Fast and Furious era, and hasn’t given him any trouble. With that said, it looks to be in fabulous shape – the body seems perfect, the paint shines beautifully and offers great depth and reflection, the cloth upholstery is very ’90s with random patterned inserts, lots of black plastic and vinyl, and a quaintness that tempers the sporty nature of the Talon. It looks to be in great shape and would be a cool little car to take to shows or cruise-ins like RADwood. Many Talons were abused and met their demise early, thus finding them in any condition is really hard, and we think they’re fun collectible cars, random unknowns that will elicit conversations wherever they go, although the first question might be, “What’s an Eagle?”