The #DodgeColt - really a product of Mitsubishi - was a fixture in #Dodge (and Chrysler-Plymouth) dealers for over two decades, lasting from 1971 to 1994 (when the Neon finally replaced it). The #Colt was always a small car and always built in #Japan. But one version of the Americanized Colt, the rarest to see today, was unlike all the others. Given that #Mitsubishi manufactured a bewildering array of vehicles labeled “Colt” and that the market was changing very quickly, it’s no surprise that #1977 was a strange one for the U.S.-market Colts. Two-door and four-door sedans were now based on the A70 Mitsubishi Lancer and were smaller than before, while the wagon and hardtop coupe, based on the old A11x Galant, hung on into the summer. For #1978, the coupe was dropped (replaced by Dodge’s MkII Challenger - a reworked #MitsubishiSapporo / Galant Lamda) and the #wagon was redesigned - now based on the Mitsubishi Galant Sigma. This wagon was almost totally unlike the other, Lancer-based cars bearing the Colt badge. The A120-generation #GalantSigma was bigger in every way than the outgoing A11x Galant, and MUCH bigger than the A70 Lancer. If the Colt sedans were compacts, the Colt wagon was a mid-size. And they looked nothing alike either - the Sigma was a chiseled and angular 1980s future to the Lancer’s curvy #1970s look. #Mitsu did not yet sell cars here under their own brand, so the Colt wagon was the only version of the Σ you could buy here, and it got hardly any marketing. Power came from the 1.6 4G32 shared with the other colts or the 2.6 4G54 shared with the Challenger/Sapporo. The gulf between the wagon and the other Colts got even wider in 1979, when the other rear-drive Colts gave way to the fwd Mirage-based cars. The handsome wagon had just one really good year - over 29,000 were sold in 1979, before sales crashed to 6,700 units during Chrysler’s near-death experience in 1980 and just 3,878 in the final year of 1981 - Dodge dealers now had the K-car Aries to sell instead. #WagonWednesday #Longroofsociety #wagons #japanesenostalgiccar #Japanesecars #ig_autoshow #forgottencars #oldschoolreunion #carshow #stationwagon #mopar #captiveimport #retrorides (at The Kelley Farm)
