Junkyard Find: 1983 Mitsubishi Cordia
The Mitsubishi Cordia was one of the first Mitsubishi-badged cars to be sold in the United States (prior to that, US-market Mitsubishis were Chrysler captive imports). They didn’t sell in huge quantities, and we don’t remember the Cordia as well as the Starion or even the Mighty Max, but I still see the occasional example in California wrecking yards. There was this ’83 Cordia Turbo (from which I obtained the amazing digital instrument cluster), this ’84 Cordia, and this ’87 Cordia Turbo, and here’s this well-worn ’83.
That’s a lot of miles for an early-80s Mitsubishi. Actually, even (non-diesel) Mercedes-Benzes were hard-pressed to get to 200k back then.
This car has been used up.
You can’t talk about the Cordia without showing this maddening Australian-market ad.
This Japanese-market one is a puzzler.
Then there’s this list of “Cars whooped by my Cordia.”
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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Murilee--how about a Mitsubishi Mighty Max junkyard find. Having owned a silver 85 Mighty Max for 14 years it would be nice to see an old Mighty Max.
I remember reading a letter to the editor of some car magazine back in the 80s, and while I don't recall what the letter said, I remember that it was signed by "The Cordia Kid."