Rusty But Trusty

One of the great themes of 1970s and 1980s design that has yet to be repeated is the wedge, and perhaps it will never come back due to pedestrian safety rules. Great expressions of the wedge include the Lamborghini Countach and Lotus Esprit. Less great, but equally interesting wedge design cars include the Subaru XT sports coupe and the 1988-90 Mitsubishi Galant Sigma. In fact, having those two parked in your garage would make an interesting picture. In the US market, the Galant Sigma was available with a 3-liter V6 and 4-speed automatic, and had limited sales success. You can find have your own Japanese rarity, today’s 1988 Mitsubishi Galant Sigma, for $2250 in East Elmhurst, NY.

If you squint your eyes, you can imagine you have a Maserati Quattroporte. Mitsubishi had some great and some not-so-great names at this time – Galant and Debonair for the kind of car James Bond would drive (right!), and Cordia, Tredia, and Starion for the rest of us. Either way, this car had much more interesting styling than, say, a Toyota Cressida or Nissan Maxima.

The interior is also so typically 1980s Japanese, only missing some digital gauges like you’d find in a Subaru. Check out the mass of buttons on the Citroen-esque steering wheel and pods, as well as the wacky square shifter. Seats look pretty comfortable and leather covered. Mitsubishi has gone through some real hits and misses, selling interesting cars such as the Twin Stick Mirage, Eclipse, and Lancer Evolution series, and watered down designs like the standard Colt sedan and various also-ran SUVs.

The tail is also interesting. This particular car looks like it’s been off the road for a while, so plan for jumping through some hoops to get it running reliably again. The seller has done some work to help you get there, so ask some questions, give him your money and you won’t see yourself coming or going very often at all!

Tags: Feature, galant sigma, japanese, mitsubishi, sedan

This entry was posted on September 23, 2013 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.