Mitsubishi 3000gt on 2040-cars

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Turns out Mitsubishi's history is far more interesting than we thought

Former Autoblog editor-in-chief Mike Austin was kind enough to drop this little nugget onto Twitter yesterday: the history of Mitsubishi timeline on the company's press website. Basically, it's a virtual museum, spanning from the 1917 Mitsubishi Model A to the 2008 Galant Fortis Sportback. Frankly, it's not that surprising that they didn't go much further beyond that, but still, the timeline provides both a fun trip down memory lane and an introduction to fun and/or wacky JDM models we never got.  Besides showing photos, there's actually a sizable amount of info for each, which has quite clearly and often delightfully been translated from Japanese. Take the New Minica Toppo that "adopted a 1:2 door configuration with a single door on the driver's side and two doors on the passenger side (think a Hyundai Veloster), as well as a 'Super High Roof' that added 70 mm to the height of the standard roof ... Addressing the desire to drive something a little different, the lineup was soon joined by a number of variants with personalities designed to bring more fun to the class and including the recreation specification Carabosse, the young mother and baby-oriented Marble, and the Town Bee with its round frog-eye headlamps projecting just forward of the leading edge of the engine hood." Also, check out those diagonal door handles. There are more than just JDM kei car oddities, however. There's the Mitsubishi FTO, which you may remember from Gran Turismo and other racing video games from back in the day. It was "a car that delivered fun-to-drive qualities in abundance (and) was selected 1994-1995 Japan Car of the Year." If you didn't know, it was called the FTO because it slotted below the Mitsubishi GTO, the car you know as the 3000GT. I didn't know that before. Thanks, timeline! There's also the off-roady JDM Delica vans that are now all over the Pacific Northwest having surpassed the 25-year import embargo. The 1994 Delica Space Gear (above left) was notable in that it moved the engine under the hood rather than beneath the front seats where it was previously (above right with the Delica Star Wagon), but according to the timeline "The Gear variant name was added in the belief that customers would become attached to it as a familiar 'piece of gear' for leisure and everyday purposes." Judging by the ones I see around here in Portland, mission accomplished. "Suspension was by double wishbone at the front and a 5-link with coil spring arrangement at the rear.

Junkyard Gem: 2007 Mitsubishi Galant Ralliart

We began getting Mitsubishi Galants here way back in the 1971 model year, when the Colt Galant showed up bearing Dodge Colt badges. Mitsubishi didn't start selling cars with its own badging in North America until the 1983 model year, and the first Mitsubishi-badged Galants showed up on our shores as 1985 models. When the ninth and final generation of Galant appeared for 2004, it was a generic-looking Camry rival, enlarged and priced attractively but otherwise not very interesting. Then, for 2007, a sporty Ralliart version showed up. Here's one of those rare cars, found in a snowy Colorado self-service yard recently. Ralliart is the racing and performance division of Mitsubishi Motors, and I've managed to find a few Lancer Ralliarts during my junkyard travels. I'd forgotten the existence of the Galant Ralliart, I must admit, so at first glance I took this car to be an ordinary Galant with Lancer Ralliart badges pasted on. Unlike the Suzuki Works Techno badges found on Aerios and Renos of the era, these Ralliart emblems really did indicate a quicker-than-the-base-model car. The '07 Galant Ralliart got a 258-horsepower V6 and a stiffer suspension, plus a few styling touches. It certainly would have been more fun than a new Camry, though the Mazdaspeed6 was quicker. Even the soporific Camry could still be bought with a manual transmission in 2007, but not the Galant. All the US-market 2004-2012 Galants (which were built in Illinois) came with automatic transmissions. The Galant managed to hang on until 2012, by which time it had been largely forgotten by American car shoppers. That's too bad, because the gadget-packed Galant Sigma four-door hardtops of the late 1980s and screaming Galant VR-4s of a bit later were interesting machines. I still haven't found a junked VR-4, though I have spotted a discarded Galant GS-X. This one lived fast and died young-ish. Perhaps someone will grab that 6G75 engine to swap into a Chrysler K-Car. We can hope. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Hop in. It's go time! This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Taiwanese car shoppers could buy this car as the Grunder. The real gone cats preferred the Grunder Police Interceptor, of course.

Junkyard Gem: 1977 Dodge Colt Mileage Maker Coupe

While Ford and GM each had the resources to develop their own Michigan-designed subcompacts for the dawn of the 1970s— the Pinto and Vega, respectively— Chrysler couldn't afford the huge price tag for such a project. Instead, Chrysler's European operations were tapped for a couple of models that sold well enough on the other side of the Atlantic, giving us the Plymouth Cricket (known as the Hillman Avenger in the UK) and the Simca 1204 (aka the Simca 1100 in France). American car shoppers gave those two models the cold shoulder, but then Chrysler found genuine sales success by making a deal with Mitsubishi to sell the Colt Galant with left-hand drive. This became the Dodge Colt, with sales beginning in the 1971 model year. Though the 1971-1978 rear-wheel-drive Colts were once as commonplace as Corollas or B210s on American roads, they have all but disappeared today. That makes today's Junkyard Find, discovered in a Denver-area yard last week, particularly interesting. This car shows signs of having been in the hands of a speed-crazed enthusiast owner, including an aftermarket steering wheel and one-piece racing seats with slots for five-point harnesses. The primer-gray paint is another clue. The rear-wheel-drive Colts were reasonably quick for their time, and they could be made genuinely quick with basic engine upgrades. This Mitsubishi Saturn four-banger has a tube header, hot-rod ignition system, and a two-barrel (Mikuni-made) Solex carburetor. We can assume there's probably some kind of cam upgrade under the valve cover, too. The shifter is gone, but the original transmission in this car was either the base four-speed or optional five-speed manual. A three-speed automatic was available for $270 (about $1,275 today). Later on, front-wheel-drive Colts (and Mitsubishi Mirages) could be bought with the Twin-Stick overdrive rig, which gave drivers eight forward speeds and the opportunity to make Twin-Stick beer taps. The 1977-1978 Dodge Colt two- and four-door sedans were based on the Mitsubishi Lancer and were a bit smaller than the 1971-1977 cars, while the wagon version moved to the Galant Sigma platform. The build tag shows that this car started life as the cheapest 1977 Colt model, the "Mileage Maker" two-door sedan (Dodge dealers called it a coupe, so that's what I'm calling it in the title).