My next car would be my first new car purchase. After owning 3 fairly crude, rear wheel drive imports I was ready for something a bit more civilized. But I still wanted a small, two door import with a manual transmission. Discerning eyes will note that the subject photo is of the Plymouth Champ, a virtual twin (triplet?) of the Dodge Colt and Mitsubishi Mirage.
My job in electrical contracting was going well. After a year and a half I gotten a promotion to project manager along with a commensurate pay increase. At about that time, I began to grow bored with my Corolla. Rust had started to appear along the rocker panels and fenders and I just didn’t want to deal with that again. Mazda had introduced the 626 sedan and coupe models during my senior year of college and I really liked the look, especially the coupe. To my eye, the 626 had a vaguely European look, especially after the 1981 facelift, not much like anything else coming out of Japan at the time. But with college loans, I decided that maybe the GLC was a better choice for my pocketbook. The GLC came in a Sport trim level, I think it maybe had alloy wheels and some interior upgrades. I spent a couple of months reading everything I could about the 2nd generation GLC that was introduced in 1981. Although clearly a VW Rabbit clone, I just fell in love with the look. The Mazda dealer in North Syracuse had a couple in stock, but as was standard practice at the time, it was loaded up with dealer options and dealers weren’t negotiating. My memory is a little vague, but I think the car I wanted was stickered north of $7,800. More than I was willing to spend at the time.
The VW Rabbit GTI was still a couple of years away and the Westmoreland, PA produced Rabbit was just too, well, American for my taste. The rectangular headlights and extended width taillights ruined the proportions for me. The FWD Tercel was just strange looking, as was the Datsun F10. And I’ve just never seen myself as a Honda owner, so the Civic was out.
In the spring of 1981, with hopes of buying a GLC starting to fade, I began to consider some more affordable alternates. The little Mitsubishi Mirage, sold in the US as the Dodge Colt (and Plymouth Champ) had been collecting some very favorable reviews in the motoring press. Paul covered this generation in part 5 of his Colt Chronicles, so I’ll keep the technical details short. Suffice to say, this was a very slick looking two door, especially when compared to the competition.
What most people remember now about this generation, if they know of it at all, is the Twin Stick stick manual transmission. A traditional 4 speed coupled with a second smaller shifter for selecting Power and Economy modes, giving you essentially an 8 speed. Gimmick? Sure, but fun, at least until the novelty wore off.
There was a Dodge dealer not far from where I worked in East Syracuse and I went over after work one night to see what they had in stock. I was really interested in the RS package with two tone paint, 1.6L engine, handling package and interior upgrades, but there were none on the lot. However, I did find a black one with the 1.6L and upgraded wheel package for under my target price of $6,000. I took a test drive and went home with a brochure to study. You can tell that Dodge really didn’t have their heart in selling these Mitsubishis. They had just one brochure covering the Challenger, Colt and the Ram 50 pickup. Still, this car looked very promising and after 2-3 days of talking myself into it, I made a struck deal for the black Colt.
This was to be an all cash purchase, I didn’t want another loan on top of what I was still paying for college. That helps explain my $6,000 budget. So I made arrangements to pick up my new car after work, having a coworker drop me at the dealer on his way home. This being my first new car and all, I was a little vague on how to close the deal. We had agreed on the price and the dealer was prepping the car, so I assumed I could just show up and write them a personal check. Apparently not back in those days, especially if you were a young man under the age of 25. My salesman explained that I would need a cashier’s check. My bank was set to close in about 30 minutes and I had no transportation. Relax says the salesman, take your soon-to-be new car and drive over to the bank to get the check. I can still recall how nervous I was driving across town during rush hour in a brand new car I didn’t own yet, hoping to get to the bank before they closed. But everything worked out and by 6:00 that evening I was sitting in the parking lot of my apartment enjoying that new car smell.
Ownership of the Colt was uneventful. I remember driving up to Potsdam to surprise my girlfriend that first weekend. We drove up to Massena to look at the Eisenhower Lock on St. Lawrence Seaway. The car was so much more refined than the Corolla. More power, better handling and just more fun to drive, especially before the Twin Stick novelty wore off. I did have a couple of appearance issues show up pretty early on in my ownership. Road grit soon started taking the paint off the rear fenders, just in front of the rear wheels. And the quality of the seat material, a combination of cloth inserts and vinyl sides, was not quite up to Toyota quality and soon started to show wear. But I never had any mechanical issues in the 4 years I owned it and it remained a fun car to drive, especially around town.
This was the last new car I would own without A/C and after four years, I was starting to get the urge for another upgrade. By this time I was married and living in Cambridge, MA while my wife pursued a PhD in Chemical Engineering. I was now working for an electrical distributor in South Boston and the Colt was the perfect cross town commuter car, but not so great for long distance trips back to New York to see family.
The mid-1980s were perhaps the peak of Japanese car innovation and that drove demand for these cars as Detroit continued to struggle to keep up. Dealers were adding on aftermarket options like undercoating and fabric protection, boosting the sticker prices on popular models well over MSRP. I quickly found I was once again priced out of the 626, now in it’s third generation. But we somehow stumbled into an amazing deal on a new model competing directly with the 626.
I remember getting a ride home from a summer job from a coworker with a twinstick plymouth arrow.. always had a soft spot for mitsubishis – the forgotten japanese import. And they”re still with us wirh their quirky designs.
How sad that the once slick looking compact car built by Mitsubishi is now such an unattractive penalty box of a car.
I saw an older example of the current generation Mirage this week and it just looked so blah. It looked like the kind of car where the bean counters decided that a bit of styling wasn’t worth the expense/higher price…or maybe someone decided that if it was good looking enough for the Asian customers looking at entry-level new cars it was good enough for American buyers in the same situation?
My only Mitsubishi experience is driving a friend’s RWD Colt sedan of the mid 70s, the one that looked like a miniature Dodge Coronet. It was a fairly decent car, but there were so many better choices available, you probably only bought one for the looks, price, and excellent automatic transmission.
To be fair, the first generation of the current Mirage was brought here from Thailand as a stopgap model to satisfy dealers who were screaming for new product. They hoped to sell 7500 of them annually. Sales easily exceeded all expectations. There’s been two newer generations since, both using the same basic body but with newer flashier looking styling. Despite what the automotive press writes, they are not penalty boxes. The press hates them. The people who buy them have very positive opinions on them. I bought a 2017 ES manual new. I’d buy another because I like it and it’s treated me well.
So interesting to see that gold Plymouth Champ at the top of your post. I grew up in one just like that and it was also gold. My dad bought it used in 1985 or 86. Seeing that car brings back some potent memories for me as I was young, in 5th or 6th grade. We didn’t have much money and my dad had trouble holding a job so he couldn’t properly take care of it and keep it tuned up. I remember we went though quit a while of it being very hard to start. Part of me hated that car, the other park of me liked it. I could tell it had more get up and go than our Chevy Chevette (I think our Champ had a little blue performance/economy button) and I loved that our Champ had a pop-up sunroof. Even still, it would leave me mortified when its engine would flood. As a matter of fact, that was the car that taught me what a flooded engine was. When we would be out running around I would dread heading back to that car. Every time we would get in it I would hold my breath wondering if it would start. When dad would turn that Japanese starter I would breath relief when it started. If it flooded I would sink into the seat in hopes of melting away from public view as the starter would turn and turn. I remember seeing my dad hold the pedal to the floor while pleading with the car to start. The starter had a happy and peppy Japanese sound to it but the combination of its continued cranking while flooded, my dad’s pleading and the smell of gas in the air left me feeling humiliated and hopless in public. All I could do was sit there and watch my dad try over and over again to get his Champ started and it was so embarrassing. Later, when I turned 16 that would become my first car. I never trusted it fully, never forgave it for all those embarrassing hard starts I watched my father have back when I was a younger boy and I for sure didn’t want that to happen to me.
I owned one of these – Dodge Colt four door, automatic. Purchased as a used car when about seven or eight years old and tasked as a winter driver in Illinois and Wisconsin. Served me well with no problems whatsoever. This was a rugged, durable but spartan car. As I remember the only work I did on it was to change the oil & filter, repaint the black rear bumper and to put in new plugs and wires.
One of these was Mrs. JPC’s first new car – a 1983 Plymouth Colt (I think 82 was the last time they bothered with the separate nameplate for the Plymouth version). Hers was a 4 door with the twin stick. She bought it with no air, but had the dealer install a/c some months later – a fairly easy proposition for many Japanese cars of the time.
She sold it to her brother in 88 and I bought it from him in 91 and drove it for about a year before it got terminally crinkled when someone pulled out right in front of me. I liked that car a lot and even at around 8 years old and 60-70k miles it was almost completely trouble-free.
I loved the twin stick. After some time I started driving it as a 4 speed with OD – shift up through all 4 gears in low range, then shift the range lever into high (economy). Then at a stop light, shift lever into first and range lever into low (power) and do it all again. Maybe I might have tired of the two levers if I had owned the car longer.
The people I knew with them did that too, just used the economy as an OD most of the time though I understand 3rd economy could be useful in some situations.
Hyundai figured out that was the way to go when they put they started building this car as the Excel. When you put that trans in 5th you actually put it in 4th and activated the 5th gear switch. That switch would then operate a solenoid that connected to a vacuum can that controlled the power/economy shifter. I would really like to take one of those apart and see exactly how the shifting mechanism that put it back in 4th with going over and up works.
An Econo Box with a Brownie Box ~ what an idea .
Mom bought one of these and being ‘Yankee Thrifty’ she of course bought the twin stick as you did .
It was an O.K. little thing, when I visited her I’d borrow it and drive it all over New England .
I tired of the twin stick in about ten minutes and left it in the power range .
The Southie ~ oh, boy . I remember running those streets in the early to mid 1960’s .
-Nate
My brother owned an ’81 Colt twin-stick. It was a quick little bomber. Enjoyed “splitting” those shifts.
I couldn’t agree with you more re. the 81 facelift 626 looking vaguely European. In particular, the sedan from the c-pillar back looked very much (to my eyes) like full-sized BMWs of the time. I think that look was ruined in succeeding generations.
I think the last time I drove a Mitsubishi was in the US Virgin Islands. Mirages, and Montero/Pajero SUVs (not re-branded as Dodges) were exceedingly common in the USVI and Puerto Rico when I used to work down there in the 90s and early 2000s.
In ’89 I bought an ’81 Champ from a neighbor for about 900 bucks. My daughter learned to drive, & got her license in this little beast. We kept it around for about 4 years so I could get my shifting jollies when boredom set in. T’was fairly bullet proof for the whole time.
Having worked as a mechanic at a Chrysler-Plymouth Dealer during those years, I remember these cars well. The turbo version of these cars was really fun to drive. As long as you could hold on to the steering wheel due to torque steer, they were really fast.
They were the first turbo cars that I had driven but surely not the last.
In my opinion they were good, reliable little cars and many people loved them, for a time.
I and three other military buds rented one of these while in San Diego, and used it to to L.A. and tour the sites….the HOLLYWOOD sign, Brown Derby, Rodeo Drive..etc. etc. I’m still surprised that all four of us fit into it, as I’m 6’4″, LOL!! 🙂
The first time I saw one of these it hit me, that the exterior design was a scaled down, squared off version of an AMC Pacer. Actually it looked a whole lot better than the pudgy Pacer but the styling cues were all very similar. To this day I still see the similarities.
I’ve been intrigued by the Super Shift/Twin Stick transmission ever since I first read about it, which was well after the cars featuring it were used up and discarded. Though I remember a number of this generation Colt on the roads when I was growing up, they were just background cars that I never looked at too closely. One of my best friends had a 1985 model that I drove on occasion, but it only had the typical 5 speed box that you’d expect on an econo car of the era.
I haven’t been able to find info on the primary, secondary, and final drive ratio on these units, but the concept seems solid if said ratios were well chosen. That said, I’ll wager a guess that an average driver of the era would prefer the simplicity of one stick with a fifth gear to two shifters and bunch of extra gears.
This was a nice car.
It was like a clean little bubble.
Back when it was new, it looked very futuristic.
The twin shifter was unique and fun.
They lasted longer than they should have.
A very nice car.
Mitsubishi just couldn’t keep up with the competition, but for a few years – it did!
I had one, bought used with 100K on it and liked it. A small utilitarian hatchback. Having been in small underpowered cars for a while it seemed faster than it was, I don’t think it would hit 90, maybe 86-87, but it felt quick probably due to the twinstick. If in a hurry my shift pattern was 1st low, 2nd low, 2nd high, 3rd low and after that they were all about the same. If you were moving the levers in the same direction you could do both at the same time with one hand pretty easily. I had CV joint problems that were probably compounded by my frugality and I had to do valve guide seals at ~125K because they came off the valve guides and it started smoking. I’d describe it as a better than average small car for the era, but nothing special, just a little more interesting with the OD on every gear.
I also was in the market 40 years ago after I ran my ’74 Datsun 710 into a cable guard rail after driving on black ice on I-89 just outside Sharon, Vt and didn’t want a light RWD anymore. Didn’t do as much perusing of the market as I did 5 years later (and have not done since) but I did know I wanted FWD and b bit sporty; ended up with a ’78 Scirocco. I looked at quite a few cars, as far as Dodge though my Father had bought an ’80 Omni the year before, I also looked at the new K car as well as the Pontiac Phoenix, and a VW Rabbit….almost forgot Subaru GL. Didn’t look at the Colt though. I’m a big hatchback fan, currently have an ’00 Golf, and ’86 GTi after the Scirocco, so these are right up my alley. Wish something like this was still being offered, it is getting tough to find new hatchbacks for sale (well, cars in general, I guess, instead of SUV). If VW didn’t make it so hard to find car with cloth upholstery, I’d likely replace my Golf with another…but I’m open to alternatives. No more Hyundai Elantra GT nor Kia Forte 5 (Rio is too small) so maybe I’ll have to get a Mazda 3?
The way it’s a 1980 Plymouth champ LS with air conditioning how do I know this I own the car LOL it was purchased off of a nice gentleman in Colorado if he’s still alive he’s my daughter’s next door neighbor LOL hey Jim what’s going on that’s the guy who owned the car. So if you’re going to rip it off from bring a trailer LOL at least get it right