Junkyard Find: 1982 Plymouth Sapporo

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

It was just a couple of months ago that I shot this blue ’82 Sapporo in a California junkyard… and now here’s another Sapporo in the same yard.

Where have these cars been hiding?

This one managed to get close to 200,000 miles, which is excellent for a Malaise Era Mitsubishi product.

Yes, Malaise Era cars looked best in brown.

Rear-wheel-drive with a big Astron four-cylinder engine. The Sapporo and its Dodge Challenger sibling didn’t sell particularly well, but they had a certain goofy cool.










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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  • Lboggie Lboggie on Oct 29, 2012

    Hello where can I locate the dodge challanger/sapporo in the caption picture I need parts badly thanks. email gladitor169@yahoo.com thanks What is the location/email address?

  • Nico Maxmillan Nico Maxmillan on Jan 13, 2013

    Hello I would also like to place an offer for the body parts as it is hard to come by in Malaysia. Please kindly email me at nimillan26@gmail.com thank you. Restoring one here, hope everyone else succeed in their project :)

  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
  • Tassos Jong-iL Communist America Rises!
  • Merc190 A CB7 Accord with the 5 cylinder
  • MRF 95 T-Bird Daihatsu Copen- A fun Kei sized roadster. Equipped with a 660cc three, a five speed manual and a retractable roof it’s all you need. Subaru Levorg wagon-because not everyone needs a lifted Outback.
  • Merc190 I test drive one of these back in the day with an automatic, just to drive an Alfa, with a Busso no less. Didn't care for the dash design, would be a fun adventure to find some scrapped Lancia Themas or Saab 900's and do some swapping to make car even sweeter. But definitely lose the ground effects.
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