A while back I started a series of what are almost certainly the last of their kind still on the streets here. While there’s always a good chance there might well be another one (or more) on the ones I’ve done so far, I’m mighty certain this is the one and only Sapporo hereabouts. And it has been since I first shot it back in 2006, one of the first cars I ever shot, several years before starting my CC series at the old site.
It was in pristine condition then, but since it is a genuine daily driver (I see it regularly), it’s obviously not immune to the forces of entropy. Still, it looks pretty good, like a well-kept ten year old car, which it essentially is. But maybe it should have gone straight into a museum instead.
Here’s how it looked back in 2006. I was pretty blown away when I stumbled into it, as it was so well preserved. I assumed it had to have been an old-person’s car that hid in the garage for several decades before being discovered. And I was right. I ran into it when the owner was arriving, and he confirmed it. He bought it about seven years ago from the classic old lady type: only drove it to church on Sundays; literally. It had 24k miles then. That explains the pristine interior. But it’s become a daily driver since then, probably the only Sapporo in the world in that capacity, or it least in this kind of shape. A true Curbside Classic; no wonder it inspired me to look for more, and more, and more….
It still looks pretty good, at least form this angle.
But obviously, the vinyl top is showing the effects of its re-introduction to UVs.
Actually, it’s getting pretty bad.
Here’s how it looked in 2006. I rarely say this, but this car might have been worth putting into a museum after it was bought in 2006, as where else is one going to see a pristine Sapporo in 2067? Maybe there’s a Mitsubishi museum in Japan, but if so, they probably don’t have the Plymouth or Dodge branded ones. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the finest example left in the US in 2006. It may still be, despite the deteriorating vinyl.
At least he has seat covers. Hopefully he put them on a while back.
Here’s how they looked in 2006. Good luck trying to restore these with the right fabric.
Ouch; the MCAJet badge on the trunk has melted away, or something like that. Or maybe it just fell off.
Here it is in its 2006 state. It’s a bit sad to see it slowly falling apart. yes, just yesterday I was extolling honest patina. But this car was so well preserved and is so rare. Apples and Hassaku oranges.
Coincidentally, a very nice (restored, no doubt) Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser was parked next to it. I only got one shot, but you know what they look like. If not, head this way.
My CC on the Sapporo is here. It’s titled “Stayin’ Alive”, which turns out to have been rather appropriate.
Very nice Sapporo. If you’d seen it for the first time yesterday we would all be marveling at its excellent condition, now it doesn’t seem as great since we have the old pics but still a great example. Hey, at least the inside door panel is still there so it has a ways to go!
In 2006 this was just a nicely preserved Japanese car. If the exact same circumstances of sale presented themselves now (i.e. It was perfect and available) and it was marketed correctly, it likely would go to at least some sort of collection or likely end up on Bringatrailer and fetch some decent money.
Very interesting (and unexpected), seeing and documenting the actual aging process of an individual car over time with some of the same camera angles.
I remember having such mixed feelings about these in the late 70s, particularly the Dodge Challenger version. On the one hand, I considered these to be one of the most attractive Japanese cars out there. It’s simulated hardtop styling was becoming a bit of a throwback, but one that I liked. A friend bought a new Challenger upon graduation from high school, and it was a very nice car.
But as the Mopar fanboi that I was at the time, putting a Challenger nameplate on a Mitsu import was sacrilege. No matter how nice the Mitsu imports were, they were not “real Mopars” and so never got the traction with me that they deserved. Today I would own one of these in a heartbeat.
“Grandma cars” seem to meet one of two fates. The more common is this one – the deterioration is just delayed until it gets put into normal use by the next owner. The less common one is where someone recognizes that they have something special and preserves it. I think the car has to get older to have any chance of avoiding the first kind of post-Grandma buyer. If only Grandma had lived longer in this case.
True hardtop, JP. The rear windows roll down. Little bro had a blue one.
Yes, the Challenger name on a Mitsubishi is a bit, er, “challenging”. There’s also a third Grandma (or Grandpa) scenario – the low mileage garage queen in what could have been in perfect physical condition like this one, but not enough family intervention early enough to avoid a multitude of scrapes on the sides from misjudging the garage entry and exit angles as well as front and rear parking damage…
Good point – that third category describes my 68 Newport that was in excellent shape at 30 years old, except for the big dent in the right rear door where someone’s grandpa cut a corner short in a gas station and ran the door into one of those concrete poles around the pumps.
You hit upon the Category Three I was also thinking of. My now 96 year old grandmother finally quit driving about two years ago. Her 2000 Taurus had around 24,000 miles but she had spent almost as much on body work on the car as she had paid for it in 2000. Perhaps I exaggerate some, but she spent a pot-full on physical repairs and it still had some dings when she sold it.
This is interesting, for sure. I can’t remember how or why I ended up stumbling onto CC about 3 years ago, but it may very well have been the original write-up of this car that was my intro to CC.
I owned a 1982 Dodge Challenger as my first car in high school. Despite the derision heaped on it as being “Unworthy of The Name” it was fairly hot stuff in 1984, and I loved it. Unfortunately mine was totalled one fateful Friday night when I loaned it to a buddy to drive his girlfriend home from a kegger (Unwise for all the obvious reasons). The car was very light in the rear, and it was early Spring in Northern NJ, so while accelerating through a curve apparently the rear wheels encountered some leftover grit along the shoulder of the road, thus spinning the poor little thing 180 degrees, after which it came to rest upside down in a culvert. Nobody was seriously injured, but the Challenger was toast. It was replaced, thanks to insurance proceeds, with a 1982 Charger 2.2, which ironically is a car also derided for being “Unworthy of The Name”, but that’s another story.
Every so often curiosity has gotten the better of me, causing me to Google Challengers of this vintage, but because “Dodge Challenger” yields way too many search results to sift through I frequently searched “Plymouth Sapporo”, for obvious reasons. So while I can’t say for certain that this car broke my CC cherry, I do distinctly recall reading this post way back when…so I’m thinking it was. It’s great to see it still rolling along.
As for the new ’78 Dodge Challenger being worthy of the name, I’ll point out that (a) there *was* a Hemi under there – albeit a Mitsubishi 2.6L Silent Shaft four, and (b) it was probably a worthier Challenger than a four-cylinder Mustang II from the same year was a worthy Mustang.
That was a fun engine, while it lasted.
This is so cool! It is amazing to see the impact of daily use and the elements on a car, even one that is seemingly still well cared for. This is also an interesting example of a car that will simply vanish–no museums, no recollections, just gone. Few were sold in the U.S. (14,183 for model year 1978 to be exact) and the survival rate–in any condition–must be incredibly low.
I remember being excited about the Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Sapporo in the fall of 1977. I rode my 10-speed to the local Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge dealer to see all of the new cars, and these looked really fresh and different at the time. The Sapporo was trimmed to look like a mini-Cordoba, while the Challenger was obviously the sporty one.
These were really fresh at the time. In ’79 we went to our local dealer to trade in my mother’s ’75 Monza 2+2, which had aged badly, was horrible in the snow and wasn’t exactly a paragon of efficiency with its V8 and automatic.
That year we ended up going home with a Horizon TC3, which was a brand new model in ’79 and had front wheel drive. But my father’s friend who owned the dealership saw my mother looking at a new Sapporo and gave the following demonstration: Jack opened the driver’s door of the Sapporo about 4 inches and let go of the handle, allowing the door to lightly swing shut the 4″, upon which point the latch quietly clicked into place. His comment was, “Don’t even bother trying that on a Horizon. That’s how precisely these things are put together.” My father was not prepared to buy a Japanese product at the time, and the Sapporo was probably $1000 more than the TC3 that we came home with, but in ’82 when that TC3 was traded in its replacement was a white Challenger, which was passed on to me in ’84. Chrysler’s domestic products of the time really couldn’t hold a candle to the quality of the rebadged Mitsubishis sold next to them. From that point on my family would go on to own several more, including the ’85 Conquest that my mother replaced the Challenger with, a twin-stick Colt that my brother drove, and a Ram 50 4×4 pickup used for plowing and towing a small utility trailer. I suspect that the only reason these cars weren’t wildly more popular at the time was because they were sold through Chrysler dealerships. There was still a bit of a stench surrounding Mopar at the time, and as it wore off with the Omnirizons and K-cars the Mitsus did sell more, but of course the pricing on the domestic Mopar products trumped them by a wide margin.
I remember reading that, when Chrysler bought an interest in Mitsubishi in the early 1970s, executives visited the company’s factories in Japan, and were surprised – and somewhat disturbed – at the workmanship levels and tolerances required by the company.
They were far stricter than Chrysler’s at that time.
You would think that would have been a clue. Imagine if Chrysler had taken the lesson to heart and started building their cars to that standard. We’d be talking about the glory days of the Chrysler 80s here at CC and I’d still be seeing TC3s and Horizons on the road. I haven’t seen either since about 2000. Not even in Portland traffic do these show up. The American worker can do work that precisely, look at the quality of the Hondas and Toyotas made here.
Ford found the same when they started with Mazda. The Ford factory in Sydney had to deal with circular holes for bolted connections for example on the new 323-based Laser, rather than slotted/elongated holes that allowed for adjustment of misaligned or out of spec components they were used to with the small British Fords.
At one time, we had three Plymouths in the family: my 63 Valiant Signet, the 78 Fury my parents owned [Spinnaker white, maroon vinyl top] and little bro’s dark blue Sapporo.
The thing rode like an N Car: quiet and smooth, grey velour interior. Quiet engine [unlike like the N]. Quite domestic in it’s trim choices.
From some angles it looks like the 79 Mustang, but sleeker.
Wiped out when a girl made a left turn in front of my brother, but it was a sweet, right sized car.
His next car was a Yugo, IIRC.
I’m regularly surprised and impressed at how many of these CCs Paul documents remain in original condition. I know I as an owner would have been tempted by the mid 80s (or sooner) to repaint this Sapporo in a more modern color. And upgrade to alloy wheels. As the color and wheel covers, each reflect mid 70s style. Making this Sapporo look even more dated than 1978.
It takes lots of discipline to maintain an economy car in original condition like this for the duration of almost 40 years.
It’s where he lives (Eugene, I think). I don’t recall if it was the main rationale for choosing his place of residence, but it’s definitely been a sweet-spot for finding a veritable cornucopia of automotive survivors in very near-original condition.
Although, for some odd reason, a few northern Indiana contributors seem to have a lot of success finding them, as well.
Thank you. I understand, and am impressed, why these cars manage to withstand the elements and time, for years and decades in the Pacific Northwest. What *especially* impresses me is that many of these cars still sport their original wheel covers and paint, and other details, when I and many owners would decide at some point to give these cars a refresh. If only to maintain our interest in the car. And to keep the ownership and driving experience pleasurable. Perhaps new paint or new seats. Certainly upgraded tires and wheels and suspension. I can maintain cars a long time, but even I would want to freshen my ride in some way.
Who needed that 1957 Plymouth Belvedere time capsule in Oklahoma, when you could just give the keys to an owner(s) like this. 😉
Good recall, I think it was 10 years ago that they uncovered the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere after 50 years of being buried underground in Tulsa. Unfortunately as I recall it was in bad shape, despite being coated with cosmoline before it was stored. Thinking about it brings a sad memory to me; my Dad died last year, he owned a ’56 Belvedere (complete stripper, flathead 6, manual transmission) when I was born…would have been my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary in another month. Coming up on 60 years this year.
Guess keeping cars above ground isn’t too bad an idea compared to the alternative. I live in central Texas, and although you’d think there’d be older cars around they seem to be a distinct minority, probably due to the sun…it cooks thinks like rubber gaskets and soft interior parts, plus with all the people moving here and the congestion, accidents are common.
When I first moved to Texas (many moons ago) I had a friend that owned an ’83 Mitsubishi (Dodge) Challenger, got to ride in it many times…the back seat impressed me for its roominess (even compared to my FWD Scirocco I owned at the time, which I’ll admit was a tight car for non-scramblers). The interesting thing about him was that he previously also owned a ’78 Plymouth Sapporo while in college (I didn’t know him then)…both bought new…wonder what the odds are of finding a person who owned not one but two of the same rare car? Odd thing I recall he had trouble with rear wheel alignment for some reason ..maybe hit one curb too many (was getting cupped tires) and after awhile traded it in on a ’88 Mercury Tracer…which was OK, but not nearly as nice of a car as the Challenger was in my opinion….have lost touch with him, makes me wonder what he’s driving now? Miss the variety of cars back then, like these 2 doors which were popular at the time.
I remember seeing the Challenger/Sapporo cars when I was a young lad and just loved them. Always thought they were great looking cars. I tried looking for one when I got my first car in 1986, but could not find one anywhere.
Thanks for taking me down memory lane…again.
As surprising as it is to see these, BaT had a Sapporo AND a Challenger up for auction in July. That Sapporo was the (slightly) more common wine red color.
I imagine these 3 examples are the last roadworthy cars of their kind left in the U.S.
Like a few others here, when these were new I wasn’t in the market for a Japanese built car. It didn’t help that they came across as a sort of mini Cordoba, when they were always featured in ads with whitewalls and velour upholstery. I was probably more interested in the Plymouth Fire Arrow, when they hit showrooms.
Still, if I came across a Sapporo or Challenger as nice as this one (preferably in 2006 condition), I’d be sorely tempted to give it a good look.
BTW, as rare as these cars are, finding one with an automatic transmission makes this one extremely rare.
Hey! Velour was the “coin of the realm” back in the day! We had velour couches, velour shirts, Stage music acts wore whole velour outfits. Always wondered if there was a secret factory that had an exclusive of the manufacture of velour. Like National Velour works Ltd? 🙂
Velour grew in rolling fields, where it was food for herds of gamboling Naugas grown for their hyde by the Lay-Z-Boy corporation…
You DO know of course, a baby Nauga, is called a NOUGAT, right? Very rare seldom seen in the wild. Some guy named Cliff Claven told me that in bar once.
There’s still at least two more nice Sapporos driving around I know of, both owned by elderly people. One in Seattle and one in Victoria BC. I see both regularly when I’m in each city.
I was a huge fan of the Challenger in 1981, it seemed like Mitsubishi/Chrysler had a car that the domestics couldn’t do – a legitimate feature-packed modern day sports coupe that could run with Celica’s and Preludes. But the Plymouth broughaming treatment left me cold, with the stainless steel bar and wheel covers borrowed from the Aspen. I love ’70’s broughams but not on a Japanese sports coupe!
The wheelcovers – you beat me to it. I thought I recognized them from a Plymouth Volare Premier.
The Broughamized Sapporo was a one-year wonder. For its second year on the market (1979), the mini-Cordoba look was replaced with a more restrained European look, one of the first of many cars that would undergo this process in the ensuing years. Specifically, the stainless-steel targa band, the vinyl roof, the opera lamps, the bright applique between the taillights, wheel covers, whitewall tires, and crushed velour interior were all binned. In their place were new alloy wheels with blackwalls, vertically ribbed seats in plainer fabrics, and body-colored C pillar and taillight area trim. The woodgrained dash did get a reprieve though.
Ohh a real digital clock in 1979? Surprised
Reminiscent of the early Celica — inside & out.
I haven’t seen a 1st gen Celica in decades
I was surprised to see one driving down the road in Tualatin last month since they are not common.
Actually, more similar to the second generation Celica. Except Sapporo/Challenger managed to do without a B pillar, and the curved rear window glass was probably a costly trick.
Watching a certain BBC/america automotive TV show awhile back and one of the presenters pronounce Celica as….Sell-leek-ah…Different for sure
How do you pronounce it?
sell-ah- ka.. call a Toyota dealer and ask them how they pronounce it. They way I noted it being said had the emphasis on the middle syllable.
Sell-LEEK-ah. And this concludes our grammar lesson for today. 🙂
Call a Toyota dealer in England and see how they pronounce it. Maybe we both call one in Japan.
We used to pronounce it “sell-leek-a” back in western Canada back in the day.
Won’t help, they’ll say it in Japanese! And frankly I never knew what a
CELICA was. Animal, vegetable, or mineral, or just a made up name?
Celica in American lingo is commonly “sell-i-ka”.
In Europe you will hear “sell-leek-a”.
Japan, from how I’ve heard it, typically defers to “sell-i-ka”.
It’s all Heavenly, apparently…
I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but the only pronunciation I’ve ever heard is
Tow-jowta Say-leeka.
I’m sure the Germans, Swedes, Italians, French etc.etc.etc. come up with another variation.
Nobody remembers Connie?
In 1983 I had a 1980 Sapporo. Had about 50k miles on it when I bought it. For 1980 they stopped using the fake targa trim on the C pillar and no vinyl top either, fortunately.The first time I hand washed the car a few weeks into owning it I was quite shocked to find the bottom edges of both doors were rusted pretty badly. Like most of the Japanese tin back then, rust (not sealing body panel edges with seam seal, cavities that held water and road salt, no zinc metal plating used before paint applied) was not something the engineers had focused on. I too have seen a few of these show up on bringatrailer over the years. There seems to be no love for these cars,mostly because of the use of the Challenger name for the Dodge variant of the model. Given the rust my nearly new one developed so quickly I am amazed whenever I see one still on the road with solid looking body panels.
I’ve seen just one of these in recent memory; it was a driver, and was in fact driving, so I couldn’t get any pictures. Still, that was at least 5 years ago, and I’ve been on the lookout, but the one featured here may very well be the last.
The paint on this one still looks near-pristine, but it is a little bittersweet to see the once-perfect condition slowly melt away, as it were. On one hand, the deterioration is evidence that the car is still being driven, in the spirit of a true CC. On the other, as noted, it’s a bit sad to see a museum-quality example of such a rare (and forgotten) car get progressively less museum-quality. Still, props to the owner for keeping it on the road and hopefully he keeps it around for good while longer.
Good write up and here is a Hyundai Accent(?) I found near Saint Helens. Might it be the last one in Columbia County?
Oops, here is the photo.
That’s a ’91 Excel. There are still a few of these running around, but they’re slowly disappearing from the streets.
These are noteworthy for a number of reasons. For starters, they seemed like the ‘poor man’s’ Celica as Mitsubishi products of the era were very similar in build quality and performance, but could be had for far less since they weren’t yet a known quantity. Another was that they were one of the last true hardtops with no B-pillar and roll-down quarter windows.
Finally, these seemed to be one of the first badge-engineered Plymouths which were almost identical to the Dodge version (in this instance, both the Sapporo and Challenger had the same front end and only the taillights were different) and would spell the eventual doom of that once storied Chrysler division.
For their first year on the market, the Dodge and Plymouth variants were given distinctly different looks. The Plymouth was geared towards luxury, 1978 American car style, meaning vinyl roof, opera lamps, bright trim, whitewalls, crushed velour, and woodgrain dash. The Dodge tried to look sporty, with a split grille, less bright trim, alloys, blackwalls, louvers ahead of the C pillar, plaid cloth interior, and black rather than woodgrain interior trim. The Sapporo lost most of its Brougham-y trim for its second year on the market, and the Dodge was eventually toned down losing the louvers and plaid. In any case, by the time the Sapporo/Challenger was introduced in 1978, many domestic Dodges and Plymouths had little to separate them beyond grille inserts and taillight lenses. The ’78 Challenger and Sapporo had much more distinction between them than the Aspen/Volare or Omni/Horizon did.
Too bad the cars not garaged or parked under a carport to minimize sun damage. I think it’s good to see the car still being used and cared for as it was intended. Some flat black vinyl spray paint would do a lot to improve the 40 year old top’s looks, at least up to about 10 feet away. The interior has a nice rich quality look to it’s that’s not typical of most Japanese cars of the ’70’s.
Having the internet to source parts for a car such as this has probably been a big help keeping this old Challensubishi on the road. Wonder if the owner does a lot of his own repairs?
The vinyl top and the MCA Jet badge then and now pictures are the automotive version of “Faces of Meth”.
Vinyl tops can be replaced for only $$$. What looks bad is that he top may have not been painted before the top was attached.
Hahahahaa……so true!
Use it, or lose it.
It’s just a car.
Not sure if the Sapporo offered the same plaid interior as the concurrent Dodge Challenger, but it seemed Chrysler wanted to keep the plaid fun going as seen in the earlier Aspen/Volare and 024/TC3 optional interiors. It has an early 70s feel.
Nope, the plaid was for the Challenger only. The Sapporo had crushed velour in ’78, smooth solid cloth (or vinyl?) in ’79 and later. Curiously, although it was the Challenger that was intended to look sporty and the Sapporo luxurious, only the Challenger had loose-cushion look seat backrests, a feature usually associated with full-lux Brougham trim rather than sporty models.
There at least 1 person here in mass who has one of these “chapparos”
I like to think of these 70’s-80’s re-badged Mitsubishis as “Peak Mitsu” or “Fat Mitsu”. While Chrysler was importing these, they made a name for themselves with their cars.
To wit: Upon re-reading the love fest that was Brother Paul’s old post about the Civic last week, I was reminded of my brother Paul’s quest for new wheels in the summer of 1980. He was looking for something good on fuel as was everyone else at the time. He did the whole spiel with the Toyota and or Honda dealer, got on the waiting list, etc. I forget how he came to look at a Dodge Colt, but it was a neat little car with a lot of features. Cheaper than a Civic or Tercel, it had FWD, 1.5L motor, a dual range transmission, AM/FM radio and a plaid interior. In our neck of the woods, no waiting list, either.
A high school buddy of mine had a 1982 Challenger which was a nicely equipped little car. A little bland on the outside, actually, but very nice on the inside. It did have a mechanical issue, though. Something with the “Silent Shaft” system broke, and no one in the US had the replacement parts for it. They had to wait for them to come from Japan. A real problem when you have a wife and a small child. The parts did eventually make it and the car was repaired. Shortly after, it was sold when he found out #2 child was on the way.
It just floors me to think that Mitsubishi was producing such innovative vehicles, only to let it all slip away. We’ll see how they survive under Carlos Ghosn. I don’t think they will.
I see this one was for sale only weeks ago on Craigslist—I wonder who the new lucky owner is? http://autoweek.com/article/classic-cars/plymouth-sapporo-emerges-time-portal-and-lands-craigslist
Personally I wouldn’t want to be using this for regular transport, the rust under the vinyl will be compromising strength of the roof structure so it will be very poor in a crash at any sort of speed. Another strike against vinyl roofs IMO.
These repurposed Mitsubishi’s were actually quite the car in their home market; they were not cheap when fitted with the 2.6 4G54 “Silent Shaft” motor, and later versions even could be had with both the 4D55 turbo diesel or the now famous 4G63T turbo inline four. US cars never received the independent rear end, but the later Starion/Conquest twins actually used that exact suspension setup from the Galant Lambda GSR with little change. Very underrated coupes of the era.
It’s remarkable what subtle changes can do to a car. The restyled 1981 Challenger/Sapporo kept just about all of the styling cues of the previous cars as well as the basic shape. However, the old puffiness was gone and the new cars ended up being much sleeker.
The interior though, particularly the dashboard, was distinctly different.
Great to see this car still in daily use, though the sun damage to the vinyl is unfortunate. I still find these quite an attractive design, with a lot of personality, even if the mini-brougham cues are quite abundant. And I’m glad it’s the original color and hubcaps, rather than having been “upgraded”. Rolling history, and I hope whenever the current owner is done with it that it finds another owner who cares for it (and maybe moves it to Sunday driver status to keep the wear and tear down…)
Seeing this Plymouth so nicely preserved is cool and all…
But GIMME that FJ! The old school FJ-40 Land Cruiser is easily the best thing Toyota has ever done, IMHO. The execution is at least the equal of the classic Jeep CJ and in some ways its actually a bit stouter. The beefier tires/wheels may not be ‘original’ but definitely a solid upgrade that sets the look and makes a better offroader.
Mitsubishi + Lee Doodoocaca = Mister Shapiro