Rare Rides: The Luxurious 1993 Mitsubishi Diamante Wagon

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

We featured the predecessor to Mitsubishi’s American flagship last year — a little Sigma sedan that happened to one of the cheapest Rare Rides ever shown. Today we take a look at the car that came after Sigma: the Diamante.

And it’s the rare wagon version.

Overlapping the end of the Sigma’s life were two distinct models serving as its replacement. On the lower end was the new Galant, which was roughly the same size as the Sigma. The new flagship for Mitsubishi in North America was the more expensive and luxurious Diamante, which was quite a bit larger than the car it replaced.

Mitsubishi needed to step up its offerings abroad after it being surprised by the introduction of the Acura Legend in 1986. The brand had no global car to compete with the Legend, nor anything from the upcoming Lexus and Infiniti brands. Enter Diamante.

There were three body styles, two of which were sold in North America. The most familiar version is the sporty frameless-window sedan (not a true hardtop), which was built in Japan. There was also a more traditional sedan with three windows on each side, a taller roof, and slightly altered front and rear clips. That version was for Europe and the Australian market. Australians called it Magna, and built it domestically. The Magna was used as basis for the North American Diamante wagon, which was designed and built by Mitsubishi of Australia.

The wagon followed the sedan version to North America a bit late. Sedans went on sale for the 1990 model year, but wagons didn’t show up until 1993. While the Japanese market Diamante had available all-wheel drive, all-wheel steering, world-first adaptive cruise control, and various engines and trims, North America received much more straightforward offerings.

There were two trims: base (later ES) or LS, and power was always to the front wheels via an automatic transmission. Base models had a standard 3.0-liter V6 that produced 175 horsepower, while upmarket LS versions had a dual-cam version of the same engine for 202 horses. Base models weren’t shy on equipment, but LS was required if buyers wanted alloy wheels, leather, or a sunroof.

A refresh took place a year after the wagons arrived, with new rear lamps on the sedan, satellite audio controls on the wheel, and a passenger airbag. Unfortunately for Mitsu, the refresh didn’t help move the Diamante. The rather expensive sedan and wagon were off the radar of most buyers. The wagon was dropped after 1995, as did all consumer sales. For ’96, the sedan was still available, though only to fleet customers. The relative product flop didn’t put Mitsubishi off, though, as a new Diamante arrived for 1997. Not that the second album went particularly well, either.

Today’s Diamante wagon is a 1993 example, and with all its equipment and leather trim is definitely an LS. With 134,000 miles, it looks nearly pristine and asks $2,995. It’s located in Orange County, which is slightly south of Downtown California.

H/t to commenter ciscokidinsf, who put today’s Rare Ride on Twitter.

[Images: seller]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on Mar 21, 2020

    Beautiful car. I always liked them because of design being more elegant than Toyota/Honda/Nissan/Mazda. Used ones were pretty cheap in Germany compared with German cars. Still do not understand why they were not popular in US. It's the car made for American tastes.

  • Cprescott Cprescott on Mar 26, 2020

    What a nice car and what a shock at how far Mitsubishi has fallen. Now they build a cheap rollerskate and a bunch of bland me too suv's that aren't compelling.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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