(First posted 2/15/2018 Another one from the R&T 1975 Buyer’s Guide, which are really just reprints from 1974 issues)
There wasn’t a whole lot to distinguish this Dodge Colt (Mitsubishi Galant) from the other Japanese competition, as in Datsun 610 and Toyota Corona. But it had rather unique feature: a US-designed Chrysler Torqueflite automatic, rather than the Borg Warner previously used, and also used by other Japanese and European makers. Did it make a difference? You bet.
R&T was quite impressed by the smoothness and crisp response of the Chrysler unit. And combined with the Colt’s rather nicely-running and performing 94 hp four, the Colt ticked off performance numbers that beat a stick shift Datsun 610’s. And were comparable to American cars of the time. Which made the Colt eminently suitable for US conditions.
Typically for Japanese sedans at the time, handling was not a strong suit. Nor were the brakes. But the interior and accommodations were praised. That all put the Colt at or near the top of its (Japanese) class.
Wiki says the Colt’s auto was a shrunk version of the A904 Torqueflite called the Baby 904, built under license I assume. This makes sense; otherwise I couldn’t understand how one sized for an A-body with /6 could fit the Colt’s engine & floor pan.
Back then, the US still had the advantage in auto trans design, which was a matter of incentive, not brains: why should a foreign carmaker, selling primarily low-torque stick-shift cars, invest in catching up? They often resorted to Borg-Warner and GM instead.
I’ve changed the text to reflect that this was apparently not a US-built TF.
Sold here as the rather ponderously-monikered Chrysler Valiant Galant Coupe. No idea why the Valiant badges were there, nor where the second “l” went.
Typical Japanese fodder of the time, good interior, reliable, well made, no fun to hustle at all. This two door pillarless variant at least remains quite handsome. Surviving coupes here now fetch very good money.
Check out the data panel: BR70-14 tires on 13×5 rims. A rare mistake for R&T in those days.
As was mentioning that the 1.6 “was previously avalable with the B-W automatic but now comes only with the TorqueFlite” after having established the 2.0/TF came as a bundle. I think they meant the 1.6 now only came with the manual.
I think they meant that the automatic with the 1.6-liter engine was also TorqueFlite, but it is confusingly worded.
The Colt of those years seems such a tragic car. Given its many charms (including a best in class automatic transmission that should have endeared it to American drivers) its wide dealer network and its high quality, the Colt should have been a huge seller. Particularly against the aging and overweight Pinto and the incredible disintegrating Vega. The car sold decently but was certainly no great hit for Chrysler/Mitsubishi.
My guess is that American buyers wouldn’t accept it because it was not a “real” Dodge (even though it may have been the best car in Dodge showrooms in 1974 other than the Dart) and lovers of Japanese cars wouldn’t buy it because it was too Americanized.
I’m not so sure that’s the whole truth. From what I understand, Mitsubishi got fairly irritated with Chrysler not selling cars on a level anticipated. This was likely due to indifferent dealers and upselling tactics for those that did carry the cars. After 36,000 were sold in 1971, Chrysler themself in 1972 publicly said they expected to sell 125,000 of these in 1975. That clearly did not happen. Long story short, Mitsubishi had enough and opened up their own dealer network by the early 80’s to move more cars. I doubt that was part of their original partnership plan. Mitsubishi would have likely had more success with their own dealer network from the get go.
And Chryler’s decision to build the Omni/Horizon put the coffin nails in the relationship. Mitsubishi was not amused…
If Dodge dealers indeed upsold buyers to the Dart, they didn’t miss out on much; the Torqueflite Colt’s reported MPG is surprisingly low and not much better than what a /6 Dart could do.
To me the car never felt “American” like the Pinto or Vega. But perhaps the reason for that is that Chrysler never tried really promoting the car with the kind of advertising it needed to convince us that it was better than the American cars in the showrooms of the competition. To me it carried a vibe of being kind of an orphan, a car that Chrysler carried because it had no better options.
By 1974 with sales of their domestic stuff in a freefall and knowing what I do about corporate strong-arm tactics employed with dealers to move the stuff coming out of American factories, I suspect that all of the incentives were for dealers to sell the crap out of the Detroit cars and let the little Colt languish in the corner until someone came in who insisted on one.
Mopar dealers treated them the same as Buick stores did with Opel, forced on them. “For a few bucks more a month, we can put you in a Duster, made in the USA!”.
I know whenever I needed to get my Plymouth Champ [Colt HB] fixed, it was like I owned a Ferrari, parts were costly and hard to get.
Captive imports were ‘bait and switch’ products, IMO.
I never drove one of these Colts, but did drive the slightly older…or was it newer(?) Colt that had a write-up here recently as a miniature Dodge Coronet. It was a pleasant enough car but I don’t know if it was my anti-Japanese car prejudice or the fact that you HAD to buy them at a Chrysler/Plymouth dealership, but they never made me feel sorry for not buying one.
I think what contributed quite heavily to Mitsubishi’s lack of success as a captive import for Chrysler dealers is that while some of the engineering was….quite good(?), as in the twin stick manual transmission, balance shafts for large displacement 4 cylinder engines, and later the VR4 models that bettered Subarus of the period, Mitsubishi rarely built a compelling car. And when they did, no one knew it.
As far as I am concerned, Mitsubishi’s only compelling car was the Eclipse….except for the final generation.
That’s interesting. I’ve long thought the automatic Volvo Amazons, 140s, 164s, 240s, and 260s would have been much better with Torqueflites than with those crude, nasty BW35s Volvo chose.
The 200s had the newer Borg-Warner 55, not the 35.
Same ѕhit, different designation.
It is interesting to see how standards change. The Colt has a 0-60 time of 14.1 seconds and is considered quick, by the standards of the day. My Kia Rio can do the same in under 9 seconds, and uses less fuel doing so.
This was a Mitsubishi colt here and only 1600cc automatics were best avoided the four speed cars are ok to drive but not much fun when corners are encountered, A mate in Aussie had a Valiant badged version with four speed it was economical and fairly reliable once the carb was sorted out but again not a great driving car, very few left here now the rust bug has seen to that but survivors especially two door coupes are quite prized.
Kent, a college friend of mine in the 1970s, had one of these ’74 Colts in sedan form. His dad worked for Chrysler Aerospace so the family got really good leasing deals on Mopar vehicles. Kent’s Colt was a sturdy and reliable car, but it had one strange quirk: if you pulled out the driver’s inertia-reel seat belt to full stop, the dome light would come on. We called it a “deceleration warning light”.
I had a 75, and harbored dreams of converting it to V-8 power (273 or 318)..did all the measurements, but never followed through. Somewhere, I saw where someone sucessfully installed a 340, and used it for several years to tow a race car! 🙂
V-8 conversion, you say? This guy is one step ahead of you:
Looks better than the Plymouth Cricket.
USA Plymouth dealers got the Arrow hatchback as consolation prize starting in 1976 MY. Then, the Sapporo, and Champ, etc.
Was funny that for awhile, could get Mirage by Mitsu and badge jobs of Dodge, Plymouth or Eagle versions.
The earlier, quad-headlight, non-5 mph bumper version looked better and, frankly, is my favorite Mitsubishi. OTOH, categorizing them as a Japanese, mini-Dodge Coronet isn’t far off the mark.
With that said, the Dodge/Plymouth Colt was one of the first casualties of a well-built Japanese product that suffered mightily due to having a domestic badge. The cars were one of those that the cognoscenti bought when they wanted a Toyota or Honda, but didn’t feel like forking over the outrageous ADM gouge. GM would later follow suit with the NUMMI Cornova. It was pricey for a car sold at Chevy dealers (and no discounts), but cheap for a Toyota.
Of course, Mitsubishi didn’t do a whole lot better on their own, either. Even now, they seem to be hanging onto the US market by a thread, and are only surviving by the surprise, mild success of the bottom-feeder, 3-pot Mitsubishi Mirage, a car that gets generally panned for its cheapness, sort of a latter-day K-Mart special.
Seriously, where do people get the idea Mitsubishi is in a downward spiral in the US? They have consistently increased their sales for five years! 2012 sales: 57,790. 2017 sales: 103,686. Those shitbox Mirages sure hurt that bottom line, sure…
Exactly. I would imagine the profit margin on a low-priced Mirage is razor thin. So, even if it’s true that Mitsubishi has doubled sales over a period of five years (of a relatively low number of vehicles to begin with), if that increase was due mainly to sales of very low profit vehicles, well, it’s not exactly a long-term strategy.
Rather than selling a whole bunch of low profit Mirages, they’d be better off selling higher profit SUVs/CUVs, and that doesn’t seem to be happening.
I expect the Mirage often either gets financed subprime or bought with cash (the latter most likely in Eugeneish but road-salty places), so they’re not making it up on the F&I side either.
The Mirage is made in Thailand, so that profit margin is likely a lot larger than you think.
Elsewhere on CC is the “Colt Chronicles” series, which is 9 parts! Explains in good detail all the versions sold at Mopar stores; 1971-93.
OTOH, yes, Mitsubishi is “hanging by a thread” these days. At this year’s Chicago Auto show, they were tucked in a far corner, hidden behind huge GMC display. The Eclipse name is now on a CUV. How long will they last?
Their display has been in that same spot for the Chicago show for years…
If I were to go out and buy a new Mitsubishi in Portland right now, I wouldn’t even know where a dealership was located.
While TorqueFlite was a big advantage over the older Borg-Warner/Aisin-Warner units the Japanese automakers had been using, there were also some newer BW/AW automatics appearing during this time that were much more like TorqueFlite. Toyota started using the Simpson gearset A40, which I think was basically the B-W 55, around 1973, and Nissan and Mazda had Simpson-geared JATCO units. I don’t know how these automatics stacked up in functionality, but in operation, they were fairly similar.
I don’t know that these Colts were such a sales failure – I used to see quite a few of them in Florida in the 1970s. Chrysler spread the Mitsubishi line-up thin as the ’70s went on with a smaller, curvier, cheaper Colt, the Plymouth Arrow, the Challenger/Sapporo twins, the relatively big Dodge Colt wagon, and the small, FWD Colts. As for the Colts in the featured article, Dodge had a dressy hardtop called the Carousel that seemed to be fairly popular.
My father bought this exact white version with the faux denim roof in late 76 early 77 as last years 76 model. He wanted to get an economical car. I went him one Saturday to go car shopping….he started small and at the end of the day he was looking at the new large Thunderbirds. As he was driving home he said he was confused, unsure what he should buy. I reminded him his intent was to buy an economical car and he looked at me and said you’re right Christopher, so he bought the Colt. It was to be my first car which my parents gave to me Thanksgiving weekend in 1981 if my memory servers me correctly. They said they were going to give it to me after my college winter break which mean I would have driven it back to college late Jan or Feb of 82. I suggested to them that since xmas break was only a month a way, why not just let me drive it back to college from the Thanksgiving break since I’d be home in about a month anyway. LOL For once, my parents had to admit it did seem practical rather than having to deal with the greyhound busses I’d been taking. I drove the car for about 3 or 4 years and then I gave it to my brother as he knew how to take care of cars and by that time the car had seen better days. Thanks for the giggle.
New York Auto Show as well. Tucked into a corner on the lower level.
It is true, though, that Mitsubishi sales have been on a steady upswing since bottoming out in 2012. They broke 100,000 units last year and January sales figures are up almost a third compared to previous years.
The Outlander and Outlander Sport are competitive crossovers that have been carrying them, they’ve dropped the Galant and the Lancer is moribund. But that’s just about the state of every brand these days, where the sedans are taking a back seat to crossovers.
As for the Mirage, any car on the bottom of the new market has always had to compete with used cars. Why buy a cheap Mirage new when you can have a two-year-old something larger, more comfortable and with way better resale value for the same money or less?
Competitive is a relative term. The Outlander and Outlander Sport are generally at the bottom of any comparison reviews. With that said, someone earlier mentioned subprime loans and I would guess this is the one area where Mitsubishi’s mediocre SUV/CUV excel. When the consumer just ‘has’ to have a new S/CUV, but doesn’t have the resources to afford one of the better ones, it’s off to the Mitsubishi dealership (if they can find one) who will finance those with even the worst credit scores.
As to the Mirage, it’s kind of a tossup between paying the same price for a two-year-old, ex-rental car Corolla or Civic, or a brand-new, zero mileage Mirage with a warranty. I always thought the Mirage was imported as a way to placate the remaining dealership agreements as sales wound down prior to closure, sort of how Studebaker continued building Larks in Canada up until 1966. But with the unexpected uptick in sales, well, Mitsubishi had to rethink that strategy. IOW, in the classic Chrysler manner, they’re hanging in there, despite their best efforts to do otherwise.
The old industry adage of ‘timing is everything’ applies. Any S/CUV is currently a hot seller, and there’s always a market for cheapo shitboxes that don’t instantly self-destruct the moment they leave the lot, so at least Mitsubishi has that going for them.
Ex-rental cars often have some leftover warranty, with the option to purchase an extended one. And there’s always the certified pre-owned option which might come in a little more expensive but still competitive with a new Mirage.
The problem with the Mirage is that it was designed for the Southeast Asian market. It’s even made in Thailand. It’s too small and too stripped down to keep people from shopping at the local Enterprise for that Civic or Corolla, which are at least one class larger and have a much better track record both in terms of reliability and resale value. Both will still be worth something after five years. The Mirage won’t be worth much.
As for the Outlander, it certainly does bring up the rear in comparison tests, but American cars had been doing that for years, and of course Hyundai and Kia spent a lot of time at the bottom of the market.
The mystifying thing about Mitsubishi is that it is a massive multinational concern in so many industries but save for the Lancer Evolution series, the 3000GT and Galant VR-4, has put out one indifferent model after another dating back to these Dodge Colts.
I’m assuming you guys are aware the Mitsubishi is now part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance? And as such, it’s future is essentially secured, as it will have access to platforms and technology from both of them. Mitsubishi also has a dynamic new CEO, global sales are on the upswing, and they had a huge increase in profit. No worries about Mitsubishi.
Internationally, maybe. But sticking with a total of three, indifferent models and a dwindling dealer network wouldn’t seem to be a viable, long-term strategy for success in a highly competitive US market. Maybe they’re planning a major influx of new, state-of-the-art products in the near future, but I sure haven’t heard of it.
Suzuki pulled their cars from the US market in 2012. AFAIK, they’re still around and doing okay on a global scale (including motorcycles in the US), too.
I liked these when they were new. The styling was clean (particularly for a Japanese car of that time). They were available as a two-door hardtop, two-door coupe, four-door sedan and four-door wagon. That line-up was broader than the line-ups of the Pinto and Vega. Our neighbor’s son had a Colt Carousel hardtop, and it was a very nice-looking car for the time.
Regarding Chrysler’s decision to build the Omni and Horizon, and not rely on Mitsubishi for small cars – I don’t believe that, with the enactment of CAFE legislation, Chrysler had any other choice. If I recall correctly, the standards were specifically drafted to prevent the Big Three from meeting the requirements by slapping domestic badges on captive imports and selling them through their existing dealerships. To be counted towards the CAFE goals, the cars had to be made in the U.S. or Canada. Chrysler could have adapted a Mitsubishi design for the North American market, but Chrysler had to build it here.
True. And the Horizon started life as a Simca, as in Chrysler Europe, design, so it was pretty much in-house. The US version looked similar but had different components, especially the VW-supplied engine in early models until Chrysler’s own 2.2 came on line.
Same thing applied to the Ford Escort. Ford couldn’t just import Fiestas like they had been doing beforehand. Besides, the Fiesta embarrassed the Pinto, which had been in production for nearly a decade before being retired in 1980. Problem is, they screwed the Escort up big time compared to the Euro version.
GM, of course, used the Opel pipeline for captive imports and when that became cost-prohibitive due to the rising Deutsche Mark, went to Isuzu to import its version of the four-door and fastback Kadett C, which interestingly was sold at the same time as the US-built Chevy Chevette, which was simply the hatchback body styles of the same T-body platform.
Yes, the latter was a big factor. Under EPCA, which created the CAFE standards, U.S. automakers could count a certain number of imported cars toward their fleet average for 1978 and 1979 only (see 15 USC 2003 § 503). After that, domestically made and imported cars were counted separately.
Remember when Chrysler built the sturdiest transmissions? Drag strip tested. Now even their truck transmissions have problems. What’s next? American cars with lousy heat/AC?
I really like these page by page shots of older vehicle reviews. Interesting that the average fuel economy of teh Colt was only 20 mpg, with the average full tank range only around 250 miles. As stated in a previous post – probably the slant 6 engines did almost as well, but with a larger fuel tank.