Ah, the old Starion / Stallion debate. It’s been going on for about 40 years by now – albeit only on one side of the Pacific Ocean. As far as I can tell, the Japanese have found this Engrish affair a little childish and confusing. According to Japanese sources describe it, the Starion name was a portmanteau of “Star” and the mythological Greek name “Arion,” who happens to be… a horse, fathered by Poseidon and owned by Heracles. Because all that makes a lot more sense than misspelling “Stallion.”
Well, it’s Mitsubishi’s own fault for devising a car more or less specifically tailored to the North American market but not running the name by a couple of New York PR firms first. Sterling-Cooper would never have let this slip through. They managed to catch “Pajero,” after all.
It was the late ‘70s and Mitsubishi were in their heyday both at home and abroad. Export sales, thanks to the Chrysler connection, had become massive in North America, Australia had diamond fever and Europe was starting to succumb to it too. There were opportunities for growth, though: a true 260Z/Celica-fighter was missing, leaving Toyota and Datsun alone in the sexy Japanese RWD coupé segment. In March 1982, the Starion was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show and the world went: “Hey, that there’s a fine-looking coupé!” It had a turbocharged 2-litre 4-cyl. under its hood, mirrors on its fenders and a twinkle in its retractable headlights.
Well, let’s pump the breaks on the lyricism. It was a decent effort from Mitsubishi, but nothing that would keep Toyota and Datsun up at night. Initial sales in the US were pretty good, but home market results were muted, leaving the planned notchback variant stillborn. Probably a good thing, as it’s hard to fathom how that would have improved the Starion’s looks.
JDM Starions were available with either the carburated 1997cc “Sirius” SOHC engine or the turbo, output for these was 145hp and 170hp, respectively; the turbo got an intercooler from late 1983, bringing it up to 175hp. The platform was a shortened version of the Galant Sigma, featuring two possibilities for rear suspension: the short-lived base model GX had the Sigma’s live rear axle, all other grades received the 2nd gen Galant Lambdas’ strut IRS and ventilated discs on all four wheels.
The turbo was a commendable step in the right direction, but what the Starion lacked was the bragging rights that came with a straight-6. Hence, the Japanese enthusiast of the mid-‘80s tended to overlook the Mitsubishi in favour of the Fairlady Z or the A60 Supra. The Starion did well in the Touring Car championship, scoring several wins in 1986-87. Despite Group B’s cancellation, Mitsubishi had an AWD version of the Starion ready by 1985. It was only produced in five units, but did race in the prototype class rather successfully in the following years. Commendable though it was, the Starion’s racing glory was not enough to make up for its other shortcomings for its home market audience.
The sticking point always ended up being the 2-litre four. In North America, where it was also marketed as the Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler Conquest, the Starion was powered by the 2.6 litre “Astron” 4-cyl., which was also turbocharged. From MY 1986, most export market cars got new bulkier fenders, which were a no-no in Japan due to rigid width restrictions. But then Mitsubishi figured that they might as well try and sell the Starion on the JDM with the added displacement and the chunky wings, just to see if it would improve sales.
Alas, even with those wings, the Starion just didn’t fly in Japan. But at least, from mid-1987 onward, Mitsubishi could save themselves the trouble of having to manufacture two versions of the same car. Our feature car here is one of those last-model-year oversized Starions, the top-of-the-line GSR-VR with the same 175hp Aston engine that was seen in contemporary American models. Some European countries also got this model, albeit with stricter emissions regulations that brough the output down to 155hp. The last Starions were sold by February 1990, though production must have stopped well before that date.
The Starion was aimed at the US market, and in that sense it delivered: around 75k units were sold over the Pacific between 1983 and 1989 (including badge-engineered versions), while JDM sales (1982-90) barely topped 13,000. However, it does have a special place in Mitsubishi’s diamond-studded scrapbook as the manufacturer’s last RWD car. That and it has a weird star-horse monicker that was a little odd, but nowhere near as much as well over a dozen others (nearly all Japanese, of course) that I could name off the top of my head. Might make for a good post, that…
Related posts:
Curbside Recycling: 1986 Mitsubishi Starion ESI-R – Boxed In, by Jim Klein
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Mitsubishi Starion Turbo – Or Is It Stallion?, by PN
I remember these as being fairly popular. First, because they could be bought at MoPar dealers, and second because Mitsubishi wasn’t as hurt by the Voluntary Import Restrictions as Toyota, Datsun/Nissan, and Honda were. Those 3 brands often carried big dealer markups, while the Mitsubishi could be bought closer to MSRP, making them somewhat of a bargain in this class of cars.
Why wasn’t Mitsubishi affected proportionally as much as Toyota, Datsun and Honda? Mitsubishi’s sales through Chrysler were impacted just as much as sales made under the Mitsubishi brand. There was no break for badge engineering.
“…leaving the planned notchback variant stillborn. Probably a good thing, as it’s hard to fathom how that would have improved the Starion’s looks. ”
It didn’t:
Wow – I never knew that such a plan existed. The rear angle looks like an updated Sapporo/Challenger.
Um – no. They did well to avoid this. I see what they were trying to do, carry over the wrap-around glass as a sort of visual link with/ homage to the old Galant Lambda, but it just doesn’t work.
Those images give me a strong early 80s Buick Skyhawk/Skylark coupe vibe and not in a good way. Something about the rear wheel/pillar/window relationship also has an Irv Rybicki-esque quality to it, also not in a good way. Thanks for digging those up though, it’s good to see there was some restraint at Mitsubishi.
We didn’t get widey. This is a reply to Peter Wilding, but this eternally fucked up site – that makes me log in EVERY TIME i I might want to comment – has given it to Jim.
Had a buddy who bought a new TSI back in the day. After too much time back at the dealer in the service bay his brother told him that maybe TSI meant Totally Shitty Investment.
A car that always filled me with questions. I was never sure what target Mitsubishi was trying to hit with this car. It wasn’t one that I could relate to. It didn’t look like a Supra/Z-car competitor, yet neither was it a coupe version of the Galant (or anything else). Like the Pajero in its niche, it avoided tackling the competition head on, being perhaps smaller and more practical.
This wide-body version does look much better than the original. I’m not sure whether we got these in Australia; certainly I never saw one on the road.
I had to smile at the typo where they fitted an Aston engine – that would’ve solved a whole LOT of problems!
The narrow body had its charms but I’d likely have picked a Celica GT-S over it even with the turbo, but the wide-body, oh yeah, still by far one of my favorite Japanese 80s designs and I don’t dislike many Japanese 80s designs…. The wide-body improves the overall look even more than the Porsche 944 did vs the 924 and that was quite the improvement without really that much changing (if purely talking about visuals).
By 1989 it probably was getting a bit past its sell-by date but just a couple of years earlier it really fit in with most of the rest of the Mitsu lineup visually – the angular Mirage especially in turbo firecracker form, the origami Galant Sigma, and still the boxy Montero. And this Starion looking like it’s ready to take off for the moon – It has all the requisite teen boy fantasy 80s cues – box fenders, tinted huge/wide tail lights, big deep dish alloys, and a turbo, and I was the poster child 80s teen boy, albeit with no money to indulge my fantasies. I’m guessing people 20 years my senior think it’s angularly tacky, and 20 years my junior perhaps thing it’s plain weird, but to me it’s still a perfect dream, easily up there with (or beyond) a late 2nd gen Supra and far better than a 1980s 300ZX.
I’m digging 80s week, T87, keep bringing it!
Yes, I really liked these wide body versions as well, although I never even sat in one. I distinctly remember a very pretty girl who had a brand new bright red Conquest version – they both caught the eye!
Also during this period the Japanese were trying some innovative things on instruments and controls – from the interior shot this looked to have a bit of that. It was often a bit gimmicky and not all of it worked so well (or at all), but it was interesting and different.
Come to think of it an article on ’80s Japanese dashboards might be fun!
Funny you should mention instrumentation; interior designer Toshihiro Ito assigned to the Starion project has since recalled much information regarding the challenges faced during the Starion’s gestation regarding what was proposed during the design phase and what the resulting product compromised out of concerns it was too “high-tech” (I suspect Chrysler’s input and say regarding the Starion project had much to do with this; they dictated a whole lot of what the Starion ended up becoming and I suspect this car’s flat reception in the marketplace plays a big part in how the Mitsubishi-Chrysler relationship began to sour around this period). Ito crated what he called a “black-face” instrument cluster that would have been the first of its kind in an automotive application – electroluminescent backlighting that only revealed the instrumentation upon starting the vehicle. This was of the same effect first seen in the original Lexus LS. This was rejected. Also rejected was a suede effect capping to the meter cluster and dash top, as well as a swath of electronic ‘touch-type’ button controls for various functions such as the climate control that was rejected in favor of traditional at-that-time mechanical implementation…
Regarding poorly translated model names, I was behind an Audi e-tron today, its name proudly indented across the rear bumper. I’m still amazed that Germans would give their new model a name that means ‘turd’ in French. The countries are literally neighbours ffs. What Audiot at Ingolstadt let that one get through?
Oh, I dunno about that whole Starion misunderstanding. Look, it’s probably true, given the horse symbol, but it’s also just as possible that it’s a product of good old racism (now so officially trendy again), especially at a time when Detroit was churning out turd upon turd – name your turd – that was “better”. The horsey joke works well as a put-down.
For lord-knows what reason, I’ve always really liked these. The styling is for sure some mash of mish, but the eccentric whole worked well enough to be interesting, even now. Let’s agree that it is unlikely that Pininnfarina was involved, but I liked and like ’em anyway, as their own oddball thing.
Around a track, in their day, they made a 944 or RX-7 look silly, simply by the gumption of their gruntiness, and OK-enough handling, so a bit of a bargain they were.
Hereabouts, we never got the turbo Astron version, the Sirion orginal being from a long-lasting and hard-to-kill type: a good thing, I’m sure, as standard Astrons, smooth as they always were, could blow up if you coughed in the engine compartment. Glad no-one has been so careless here, Prof T.