#MitsubishiGTO

Chrysler started selling Dodge-badged Mitsubishis all the way back in 1970, then built plenty of Mitsubishi products in North America under the Diamond-Star Motors flag later on. The Mitsubishi GTO (sold as the Mitsubishi 3000GT and Dodge Stealth on this side of the Pacific) was built in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, and was one of the more interesting sports cars of the 1990s.

Here’s a 1995 Stealth R/T, photographed in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service wrecking yard.

There are some vehicles that I know will get picked clean within days of showing up in a self-serve wrecking yard. For example, the Toyota Land Cruiser— say, this ’71 or even this ’85. Sixth-gen Honda Civics go the same way. But this 1996 Mitsubishi 3000GT? Apparently, the hunger for 3000GT/Stealth parts is high in the Denver area.

I’m always looking for more Mitsubishi Junkyard finds, because the Mitsubishi-in-America story has been fascinating ever since the days when the first Mitsubishi product was imported via the Aleutian Islands. The Mitsubishi GTO (which was sold in the United States as the Mitsubishi 3000GT and the Dodge Stealth) didn’t steal many sales from prospective Supra Turbo— or even fourth-gen GM F-body— buyers, but it was still a fairly credible high-performance machine for its day.