If you didn’t already know, the term “captive import” is used to describe a car that was produced by a foreign automaker and rebadged with a domestic logo. The entire GEO line, the Dodge Stealth, the Mercury Capri, and the Dodge Colt were, among others, captive imports, and a lot of them were really good cars. One that you’ll rarely see nearly fifty years on is this 1978 Plymouth Arrow GS, which is for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Delaware, Ohio, with an asking price of $5,000.
Chrysler bought a small stake in Mitsubishi in the early 1970s, and that grew into the joint venture of Diamond-Star Motors in 1985. Without going into a complex corporate history, it’s fair to say that most of Chrysler’s captive imports were based on Mitsubishi products, including the Arrow, which was based on Mitsubishi’s home-market Celeste. Therefore, the Arrow had two Mitsubishi engine choices: a 1600cc “Saturn” four and an optional 2000cc “Astron” four.
Because Facebook Marketplace ads are often notoriously short on information, it’s not mentioned which one this car has; however, we can tell just by looking that it’s the big 2000 “Silent Shaft” four cylinder, and in this case, it’s teamed with the optional automatic. The tag on the radiator support tells us that the Bright Blue paint is the original color, and if the 62,000 miles on the odometer are accurate, there’s a good chance that this “no rust” Arrow is all-original.
For comparison’s sake, this is the “Saturn” engine that would have come standard in the Arrow. An easy tell is the big plastic cam belt cover on the front of the engine; the 2000 used a chain which drove both the camshaft and the balance shaft.
We don’t get any good dashboard pictures in the ad, but we can see the selector for the floor-shifted automatic, and we can also see that the blue vinyl seat covers have given up the fight after 48 years of service. The new owner will have to get creative with upholstery, because as far as I can tell, there are no pre-sewn covers available. An upholstery shop might be able to make something up, but that will be fairly expensive (and you’ll have to find a shop that sews, not a given these days).
This is all too bad, because the back seat is in excellent original condition, and it would be a shame to reupholster it to match the front seats.
The car also comes with a luggage compartment full of parts, including a NOS grille, a bunch of manuals, and a variety of filters. The little bits of rice all over are dredging up bad memories for me; a mouse once got into the “trunk” of my Corvair and created a mouse house with a rice buffet, undoubtedly found in a neighboring storage unit. Long story short, look carefully for mouse damage in the Arrow.
In fact, as with all Marketplace cars, you’ll want to take a close look at everything if you’re interested. On the major auction sites, sellers generally include dozens if not hundreds of photographs so the buyer can make an informed decision, but that’s never the case on Facebook. Still, if this car is as original as it looks, it’s a very nice example of a captive import with handsome styling and reasonably common mechanical bits.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1977 Plymouth Arrow GS – Celeste Before the Fire (by Dave Skinner)
Road and Track Vintage Review: 1976 Plymouth Arrow GT – Balance Shafts To The Rescue (by Paul N)
COAL: 1976 Plymouth Arrow – Hitting the Bullseye Dead Center (by Jim Brophy)
Always liked these. They came/went, quickly though. Remember humming along to the “me and my Arrow, commercials.
I had the unfortunate opportunity to ride in the back seat of one of these a few times. They were really 2+2 cars, meant for only small children in the back. When offered a ride again, I said thanks but no thanks.
The North American bumpers do it no favours but these are neat cars. Sort of a 2/3 scale pony car. Amazing condition on this one.
JT beat me to the Arrow commercial reference. But since I now have that line stuck in my head, it’s time to listen to the full song from Harry Nilsson’s concept album The Point (and later animated TV movie narrated by Dustin Hoffman and Ringo Starr, and later than that a stage adaptation produced by Monkees Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz).
I kinda’ liked these when they were around: had that classic-ish late mid-late 70s Japanese car kitsch to it.
I remember reading one of my hot-rod type magazines, maybe it was CarCraft and there was a piece where a guy successfully shoehorned a Chrysler 340 into one. Wowzers.
Great little cars, seldom seen anymore. Last couple of years they sold these things in the U.S. there was a high performance version called the ‘Fire Arrow’, it featured the 2.6L. Chrysler also stuck the Arrow name on Mitsubishi’s pickup to give Chrysler-Plymouth dealers a mini-truck to sell, which made that truck available in the U.S. as a Dodge, Plymouth, or a Mitsubishi. The original plan was to have Dodge dealers sell Mitsubishi’s and Chrysler-Plymouth dealers sell Rootes Group rebadges like the Cricket (Hillman Avenger) but that didn’t work out too well. The Arrow was a rebadge of the home market Mitsubishi Celeste, which was a car that Dodge didn’t sell a version of at the time.
I’m about 95% certain that if you wanted an automatic transmission, you were forced into the 2 liter engine. The 1600 with a 3-speed auto would have been quite the dog.
I believe you are corect. The automatic transmission was a version of the A-904 TorqueFlite.
Sales materials aren’t always correct, but the 1978 Arrow brochure says that the automatic was available with the 1600, but only in the silent shaft version of the engine.
Fair, but that chart also says that the 2L was not available in high-altitude places. So I suppose if you lived at altitude and really wanted an automatic transmission, you had better be willing to go very, very slowly. And maybe that’s the only place that you could buy a 1600/TF.
Plenty of these on the roads of Victoria BC back in the day. She seemed to attract retired people. Since cars don’t rust much in Victoria, there are still a few around. I saw a mint one on my last trip there, driven by an elderly lady.
My first car was a 76 Arrow I bought from my brother in 85. 2L, 5-speed, a/c. Same color as this one.
Was a fun car and I have a lot of fond memories with it.
I sunk a lot of money (as a high schooler), new paint, stereo stuff, wheels/tires. Bought 280ZX wheels off my friend and they looked surprisingly good on the Arrow, I thought.
Several weird breakdowns: clutch cable bracket and deteriorating shifter bushing come to mind. Main bearings went out on it and after a rebuild, it was never the same.
I am not really familiar with the Arrow, and don’t recall ever having seen one. It looks nice, but was it a competitor to, say, a Gremlin or Pinto, or was it more sporty like a Celica?
More like a Celica or Datsun 200SX of the time.
Its’ most direct competitors were the hatchback coupe versions of the Toyota Corolla and Datsun B210.
This looks like a good restoration prospect for a Concours d’Lemons show as an example of an ordinary car. Personally I’m guilty of the GTO effect because the only one that interests me is the Fire Arrow rally car that was very successful in SCCA Pro Rally
I had one, a ’77 in metallic gold. It was my kind of car: small, cheap, sporty looking, and a hatchback. The underside was clean and the driver’s side looked great but the passenger side for some reason had several spots of surface rust all over it. It was the 1600 and never seemed to run quite right. The heater core had been removed so it also didn’t have heat. Eventually it developed an oiling problem and the engine seized.
Simply called the Lancer Hatchback down under. A work colleague bought one with the 2.6 four. From memory hers had the Fire Arrow graphics without the name.
The British version:
The front end reminds me of the 71 thru 73 Mustang
Nice, I remember these .
Thanx also for the song link .
-Nate