You didn’t see car No. 87 at the top of the Xtreme A (XA) results during the ’24 Tire Rack SCCA® Solo® National Championships at Lincoln Airpark in Nebraska’s capital city. However, that doesn’t mean the car and driver went unnoticed. A clean, unique, and beautifully modified lesser-known sport hatchback from the 1980s was what rookie Austin Brown galloped around in during his very first Solo Nationals.
“I don't know what initially attracted me to these types of cars,” Brown said of his 1986 Plymouth Horizon. “When Sport Compact Car magazine was still a thing, they had an issue with budget builds, like, how to make a cheap sleeper. One of the things they had in there was you take a Dodge Omni and you pull the powertrain out of a LeBaron or a Caravan or whatever.
“Late ’80s, early ’90s Chryslers were all basically parts bin cars. You could put anything together that you wanted – it was very simple with different parts. So I said, all right, I want to find this … and make kind of a Shelby Omni GLH clone.”
Brown, a Phoenix AZ Solo Region member, purchased the 1986 Plymouth Horizon for $600 and installed the engine out of a Dodge Shadow and the transmission from a Dodge Spirit.
“It's a 2.5L four-cylinder, single cam eight valve, and it's a reverse flow head, so the intake and exhaust are on the same side of the head,” he said. It also has a turbo setup with an air-to-water cooler, Wilwood brakes attached to a LeBaron five-lug conversion, a half cage, race seat, Accusump, and a clean interior that’d make any child of the 1980s grin.
“It's kind of a hodgepodge of different stuff from the late ’80s, early ’90s. I put it together and, I don't know, I thought it was kind of cool. I had the car for about 10 years and did track days with it, and about a year ago I started getting into autocrossing.”
The modifications put the car in XA, a loose-rules class that runs as supplemental at the Solo Nats. “I did a lot of stupid things to the car and that's why I'm in XA,” he laughed. “It's not very competitive amongst these real cars out here, but I'm having fun, and it's at least unique and people are very confused by it.”
Brown’s trip to his first Solo Nationals is the perfect example of what friends are for – both in a good and bad way. “I started autocrossing in June of last year, and, you know, peer pressure from my friends [brought me to the Solo Nationals],” he explained. “We’ve got a big group from Phoenix Region out here. I'm like, it looks like a party – looks like fun. So I was like, let's do it!”
Will Brown be back next year? “Yeah, I believe so,” he said with a smile. “I mean, I kind of got the bug. I never realized how technical and difficult autocross was. I thought, oh it's just racing around in the parking lot with cones. Nope – every little bit counts, and it's taking a long time for me to adjust to that.
“It’s so technical and so precise, but I’ve got a lot of good people in my group that I can ask anything. They'll help me out if it’s over my head. I'm just trying to get around the course and not spin out.”
Photo: Austin Brown and the 1986 Plymouth Horizon he ran in Xtreme A at the ’24 Solo Nats.
Photos by Philip Royle
