The very first front-wheel-drive Mitsubishi production car was the Mirage subcompact, which first hit Japanese streets in 1978. We were introduced to this car when it appeared in North America as a 1979 model with Dodge Colt and Plymouth Champ badging, replacing the rear-wheel-drive Colts that had been sold here since 1972. Mirage-based Colts were available in the United States all the way through 1994, but that wasn’t the end for that generation of Mirage on our streets. Here’s a Mirage from the first year of the post-Colt era, found in a Colorado self-service boneyard recently.
For devoted fans of the Mirage, the 1989 through 1994 model years offered American car shoppers near-identical versions of that car sold via four different brands: the Mitsubishi Mirage, the Dodge Colt, the Plymouth Colt and the Eagle Summit. For 1995 and 1996, the Eagle Summit remained available in coupe, sedan and MPV form (the Colts having been shoved aside by the new Neon).
For 1995-1996, the Mirage was available only as a two-door and in just two trim levels: S and LS. This car is the cheapest new Mitsubishi available in the United States for 1995, and one of the most affordable new cars overall: its MSRP was $9,799, or $20,483 in 2024 dollars. The essentially identical 1995 Eagle Summit DL coupe listed at $9,836 (presumably, the extra 37 bucks was for the prestige of the Eagle name).
This is a 1.5-liter SOHC four-cylinder, rated at 92 horsepower and 93 pound-feet. The Mirage LS got a 1.8-liter with 113 horses for 1995, but it cost nearly three grand more.
The final year for a new Mitsubishi with a four-speed manual transmission in the United States was 1993 (and that car was really a Hyundai), so this car’s base transmission was a five-on-the-floor manual.
This one got well past 150,000 miles during its life, which is not terrible for a disposable econo-commuter of its era. The best-traveled Mitsubishi product I’ve documented in a car graveyard was a 1986 Dodge Ram 50 with 313,560 miles.
There’s rust and copious amounts of body filler over rust.
Are you practicing safe shoring?
The JDM commercials are always more fun, so we’ll watch one of those.
The Mirage Asti coupe wasn’t available on our shores.
