Rusty But Trusty

The history of the North American car market is littered with all kinds of efforts from abroad to understand what these people with their big highways, big macs and big gulps would want to drive. That makes for some interesting variety on the used car market, even if it’s now difficult to find any trace of those efforts. The Mitsubishi Mirage was consistently an also-ran on the American market, but Mitsubishi did have interesting variants of each generation. The first 3 generations of Mirage sold here all came with a turbo option, most notably the twin-stick GT-S of the first generation. However, the later car is quite interesting for having a tunable, 160hp 4G61T engine, and the possibility to upgrade by dropping in a 4G63 from an Eclipse! Find our rare survivor, a 1989 Mitsubishi Mirage Turbo (known as the Cyborg in other markets) for sale in Mendocino County, CA for $2995.

It’s not immaculate, missing some trim, but as the seller says, it’s the best one you can find. Perhaps because it’s the only one in the immediate vicinity. Online listings for the car make much of the fact that only 1500 of these were imported – was that deliberate on Mitsubishi’s part? One would think they’d have gladly sold more if they could have. Among 1980s hatches, it’s actually quite a smart, sporty looking thing when you lower it and add some performance wheels.

Did one of the designers moonlight here while working for Honda? The contemporary Civic looks very similar when viewed from this perspective. Why is there a trailer hitch on this car, and what’s with the odd placement of the reverse lights? Were those optional in the rest of the world?

The interior is very 1980s, but has held up surprisingly well. Even the dash doesn’t seem to be cracked, and the sports seats are not torn. That steering wheel appears to be from an Eclipse, and works very well to convey what this car is about. Sadly, if you purchase this car, it will strangle you with its motorized seat belts in a modern re-enactment of Christine.

Apparently, this fun-loving bunch of nearly-all-blond Americans has convened in Japan to watch a staged autocross event featuring one car. Check out the original Corvette C3 knockoff wheels. Those absolutely need to be reunited with this car, and as it happens, the seller still has the set for this car.

Tags: Feature, hatch, hatchback, japanese, mirage, mitsubishi, turbo

This entry was posted on November 8, 2013 at 2:16 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.