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 :)

  • TheEndlessEnigma Let's fix that headline, shall we? "It Turns Out That Car Buyers Aren’t as Hot on EVs as Ford Had Hoped". It's not just Euroweenie car buyers that aren't all lathered up to buy an EV, it's the car buying public in general.
  • Dave M. Get rid of anything 4 cylinder. I know a lot can be done with them, but I have occasion daily with luxury cars and whether it's Mercedes, BMW or any other luxury or semi-luxury brand, 4 cylinders (turbo, supercharged) still sound like an economy car.
  • Kosmo Resume the CTS V Wagon with 6MT!!!
  • Ajla I'd also rather fix Jaguar. 😔
  • Flashindapan I’m not an engineer but 30psi seems really high for factory turbo.
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