#Eclipse

Today we dig deep and bring you a Mitsubishi. A 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT, to be precise.

Last time on Buy/Drive/Burn, we took a look at three two-door, mid-market offerings from American brands for the 2001 model year. Most people hated such a Sophie’s Choice.

Perhaps things will be a bit better today, as we cover the same market segment with offerings from Japan.

While assembling my website pages with links to every Eagle and Mitsubishi car I have ever photographed in wrecking yards, I learned something troubling: I had never shot an Eagle Talon. Sure, there was this Plymouth Laser Turbo and this much never Mitsubishi Eclipse, but no examples of the Eagle Division’s most beloved — well, only— sports coupe.

I resolved that I’d shoot the next Talon I spotted in a wrecking yard; that car turned out to be this one in Denver, from the final model year of Eagle.

The Dodge Stratus Coupe was another one of those badge-engineering/branding oddities that will be driving parts-counter employees crazy for many years to come; it had very little in common with the Stratus sedan and in fact was a close relative of the Mitsubishi Eclipse. I see never-ending lines of Stratus sedans at wrecking yards these days (only the near-valueless Sebring outnumbers the Cloud Cars in the Chrysler sections of U-Wrench-It today), but R/T Coupes are fairly uncommon. Here’s a clean one I spotted in a Denver yard last week.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to mourn the loss of the four-seat convertible. We have known for a while that its time was coming. First, they came for the Pontiac G6. Then, they came for the Toyota Solara. Then, they came for the Mitsubishi Eclipse. And when it was time to come for the Chrysler 200, nobody cared, because nobody buys these cars anymore.

But surely some people still buy them. I mean, there are still millions of people out there having midlife crises, looking for the last modicum of driving excitement before they start ranting about how mobile apps are tearing at the fabric of our society. But sadly, the fun is over: there are no reasonably priced four-seat convertibles left.

We’re following up a week of Volkswagen Junkyard Finds with 21st Century Junkyard Finds (don’t worry, we’ll go back to Junkyard Finds arranged in whatever random order strikes my fancy soon enough). On the heels of yesterday’s ’02 JuggaLambo, here’s a not-even-a-decade-old fourth-gen Mitsubishi Eclipse that showed up at a Denver yard last week.