Junkyard Find: 1992 Mitsubishi Diamante LS

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Mitsubishi has struggled mightily to get a solid toehold in the North American market. The Eclipse sold fairly well, but Mitsubishi’s top-of-the-line (for America; we never got the Debonair) luxury sedan never really emerged from obscurity. Here’s an example I found yesterday at a Denver self-service wrecking yard.

The interior looks quite comfortable, with luxury rivaling its Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura competition.

The ’92 Diamante LS listed at $25,503, which was $503 more than the (rear-wheel-drive) Mazda 929 S. The Lexus ES300 listed at $25,250, the Infiniti M30 was 25 grand even, and the cheapest Acura Legend was $28,000. The Diamante seemed like a lot of car for the money.

The engine in the LS made 202 horsepower, which was pretty good for an early-90s front-wheel-drive sedan.

However, Mitsubishi never established a strong reputation for build quality or reliability, and perhaps the Diamante didn’t seem as safe an investment as its rivals.








Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Defender looks way better than the Bronco in both 2-door and 4-door.
  • ToolGuy I found this particular episode to be incredibly offensive.I am shocked that eBay Motors is supporting this kind of language and attitudes in 2024.I will certainly keep this in mind next time I am choosing where to buy auto parts (I buy a LOT of auto parts).
  • SaulTigh When I was young in the late 80's one of my friends had the "cool dad." You know the guy, first to buy a Betamax and a C-band satellite dish. Couple of stand up arcade games in the den. Bought my friend an Atari 2600 as soon as they came out. He had two of these crap heaps. One that only ran half the time and one for parts in the yard. My middle school brain though he was the most awesome dad ever, buying us pizza and letting us watch R rated movies recorded on free HBO weekend. At the time I though he was much better than my boring father.Now with adult hindsight, I now know he was "dad who should have taken better care of his family" and not had so many toys.
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