Junkyard Find: 1989 Mitsubishi Lancer, Wait, I Mean Plymouth Colt
At the same time Chrysler was selling heavily evolved— if that’s the word— Simcas, you could walk into the same showrooms that sold Turismos and Omnis and buy yourself a badge-engineered Mitsubishi Lancer. By the late 1980s, Mitsubishi itself was selling these cars (badged as Mirages), which meant that car shoppers could choose between three more or less identical versions of the same car, all priced within it-doesn’t-matter distance of one another: Dodge Colt, Plymouth Colt, and Mitsubishi Mirage. The owner of this Plymouth Colt, however, decided that he or she wanted to go all JDM and convert this car into a Lancer (on a shoestring budget).
This would make more sense if you wanted to turn your Q45 into a President or even your Tercel wagon into a Sprinter Carib. Perhaps the association with the Lancer Evolution was the main motivator for the Colt-Lancer switch.
You’ll find one in every car, kid. You’ll see.
Almost made it to 100,000 miles.
It’s pretty easy to get the correct badges if you’re motivated.
Future project: convert a Colt into a Cyborg!
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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Had one. Did not love it. Considered dropping an Eclipse turbo in it after a drunken reading of an Austrailian car mag, sobered up and gave up.
There was a fourth version, the Eagle Summit. Sold alongside Eagle Talons, Jeep Cherokee's & Grand Wagoneers.