Japanese Mustang: 1988 Mitsubishi Starion Turbo
Sometimes timing can make or break a new car offering, and the early eighties seemed like a ripe period in the American market for Mitsubishi to get into the so-called hot hatch mix, as several other GT-style Japanese sports cars were already popular among buyers during this era. But the company needed the help and support of an established U.S. brand, and that’s where Chrysler stepped in, who was eager to have a cool compact of their own, so through a joint venture the Chrysler Conquest and Mitsubishi Starion twins were born. Not surprisingly, the Chrysler version was the better seller, making the Mistubishi the rarer of the two. If you like the performance hatchback cars from this era, this 1988 Mitsubishi Starion here on eBay might be worth considering. Bidding has only gotten up to $3,000, but enough to drive it home as there’s no reserve, so head on over to Doswell, Virginia if you want to see the car in person first before making your decision.
The seller states this one’s just shy of the 100k mile mark, but at 75,000 miles the engine got an overhaul, with the turbocharger set at 15 PSI and said to be making a good amount of power. There’s no smoke or unusual noises, but the seller is upfront in letting us know there are a couple of quirks, including the car not wanting to start. But the remedy is moving the shifter from Park to Neutral a few times, then once it’s running expect the car to start losing revs and boost power on longer drives. The magic touch here is to turn the engine off briefly then restart, and off you go at full power again.
Outside, the body itself is in overall pretty good shape for its age, with a few cosmetic issues here and there but that’s also still the original paint, so for a silver car from this time period it’s not really all that bad. A respray of just the front bumper and rear spoiler would go a long way in the looks department, or an entire new paint job would result in a really sharp car all the way around. The seller says there’s no rust on the body or underside either, plus that’s a recent set of tires with just 1,000 miles mounted on the factory wheels.
Things inside appear to be OK for a driver, with some wear mentioned on the driver’s seat and both buckets showing some splitting on the top seams. This one also comes from the time when some lap belts traveled across a track around the door frame, something I was never a fan of, but it’s small potatoes if you like everything else about the car. Bidding may go up some, but if it doesn’t get too far out of hand perhaps somebody will end up getting a reasonably good deal here. What are your thoughts on this 1988 Mitsubishi Starion Turbo?
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Comments
I wanted one so bad in high-school the chrysler dealer had a black dodge conquest wide body on their lot tan leather interior. I stopped every day to check it out. Was turboed and a 5 speed.in 85 their wasn’t much to get excited about. Front wheel drive didn’t do much for me. The mustangs were too popular and the F bodies weren’t exactly what I was looking for. Never got that black beauty. The next year I bought my 69 roadrunner. The best decision I ever made.37 years later I still just sit in it. I worry more about someone hitting it. I would buy that mitsubishi and wedge a small block chrysler in it with a 5speed. And drive it everywhere.
Mitsubishi used to make some very interesting vehicles, even if this one is saddled with an automatic. These days, they don’t even make interesting SUVs.
My son had a 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse years ago. I thought that was a nice looking sporty car. Unfortunately, mechanically it seemed to have everything wrong with it.
I had a 98 Eclipse GST convertible. Car had great power and good looks. It was a comfortable sports car. I added a 97 BMW Z3 2.8 to the herd. The Eclipse had more power, handled better and was more comfortable. After that I traded the Eclipse for a 350Z, a great car.
These were and still awesome. Friend in H.S. had a Conquest TSI in Red with black leather and 5spd. His mom had the same but Black on Black and the brother had a bare bones Conquest Blue with Blue cloth. Fun cars…good times then.
I had same color 88 Starion ESI-R but with the 5spd. and black leather seats back in the mid 90’s for a few yrs. By tweeting turbo boost line using fish tank air valve got boost pressure up to 20 pounds. Every pound of boost was good for 5 HP. Surprised a lot of Mustangs and IROC’s. Fun car to beat on. Whomever owned one of these cars can relate front air dam always cracked and rear exhaust manifold bolt would strip away from head. Had to heli coil more than once.
The 1986-1989 Widebody years looked so much better than the preceding 1983-1985 years Having staggered 16×7 front and 16×8 rear wheels made it stand out among other 80’s sports cars
I was in Japan from 1979 – 1983. I remember seeing these in a dealers showroom and there was a prancing horse (stallion?) plate on the front of the car. Native Japanese have some difficulty with pronouncing the letter “L” in the middle of a word and I think there was a foulup in the initial marketing name. I could be wrong and there is no insult intended but it’s just an observation.
Officially, Starion is a portmanteau of “Star of Arion”, referring to Hercules’ horse in Greek mythology, which is consistent with Mitsubishi often using star, horse, and Greek references in their model and engine-family names around that era.
It’s possible some of the horse imagery used in early Starion promotional images contributed to the popular “stallion” rumor, or perhaps the naming committee thought they were making a clever pun, but it’s highly unlikely they meant to call it “Stallion” and just blithely misspelled that without knowing any better.
At any rate, Japanese doesn’t even have distinct phonemes for English-style “R” or “L” sounds but, rather, a single “R” phoneme that’s usually “tapped” — like how some Brits pronounce, say, “Sarah” as “Saddah” — but may vary by dialect and context, sometimes sounding closer to “L” or other anatomically-related sounds.
Love these cars! They look so mean and the wide wheels out back and wide body just added to the cool looks. Imo they look best in red.
You guys remember the commercial where it gets lowered off a barge in a cage?
https://youtu.be/jLP2i2zylLc?si=aApZxGx12M8EhDQW
The Station & Conquest (or StarQuest if you prefer) helped pave the way for the creation of the Diamond Star alliance joint venture between Chrysler and Mitsubishi.
Whoa there. That alliance was established in the 70s young man.the dodge colt the 2nd generation challenger it goes back to 74. Also the reason mitsubishi never really got established well in the US .
Actually the alliance wasn’t officially incorporated until October of 1985,sir.
And incidentally,my mother had one of those captive imports-a 1984 Dodge Colt DL(Deluxe) 3 door hatchback. Beige exterior with a brown interior and the 4-speed “Twin-Stick” manual transmission.
The origins of the agreement date back to the 1970s however. The alliance was necessary to get around the import quotas that were in effect at the time,plus other issues including Chrysler’s right to first refusal of any Mitsubishi vehicles in the US market until 1990. The Normal,Illinois plant where most DSM vehicles were built came online in March of 1988.
Marques Dean, Chrysler started importing Mitsubishi Colt Galants to rebadge and market as Dodge Colts starting in 1970 for model year 1971, as a sort of pilot program leading to Chrysler acquiring 15% of Mitsubishi in 1971. Many more such Mitsubishi “captive imports” were soon to follow, including several subsequent generations of Colts, the ’78-83 Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Sapporo, and eventually the Conquest.
Diamond-Star Motors (DSM) was indeed founded in 1985 as a separate corporation in a 50/50 joint venture by Chrysler and Mitsubishi, to produce the DSM sport-coupe triplets (Mitsubishi Eclipse, Plymouth Laser, and Eagle Talon) at a brand-new factory in Illinois. However, that factory and corporation were of course unrelated to any earlier Mitsubishi “captive imports” rebadged and marketed as various Dodge/Plymouth models as part of Chrysler’s part-ownership stake in Mitsubishi.
My neighbor had one of these he put a 340 in…. Sounds great but I never rode in it.
A starion with a 360 used to run the drag strip bunker hill in the early 90s. Ran mid 10s. Never ran him but I enjoyed watching him eat alot of my Friends up. He only ran half season and disappeared. One quick car.
They were a very nice car. Good Acceleration, good handling and good looking. However, they were not particularly reliable. There was always something wrong. 175 hp. This one seems to be status quo with it’s running issues. I wouldn’t pay too much for it. It will be a money pit.
I knew a guy (didn’t like him.. very snobby), got hired at Boeing and went out and immediately bought a new Conquest TSI. 2 weeks later the starter went out.. $800 to replace not covered by the warranty. Served the smug bastage right. That was in 85-87 sometime… $800 was still worth something then.
I kinda wanted one back in the day, and this one looks rescue-able, but the automatic kills it for me.
Gotta be a way to do something about/replace those ridiculous shoulder belts.
Looking at the rear wiper as a good ex., i really don’t undertsand why modern wiper arms rust – even on some ’99 3000gt’s i seen & newer hondas, yet cars from the ’60s that have been outside all their life – the dull silver wiper arms still haven’t rusted or even show peeling – with no care at all!
Joe, the 60’s cars used Stainless steel. Some of the new ones use cheap pressed metal. Stainless does not rust. The 60’s cars even had stainless wiper blades housings as well. Hope that this answers that question.
SubGothius-I’m well aware of the history of Mitsubishi selling captive imports stateside in Chrysler dealers-I worked at various Chrysler Corporation dealers from 1997 to 2002. At that time the Eagle brand was being phased out (only the Talon and the Vision reminded),Plymouth was next on the chopping block and Chrysler was preparing for the so-called “merger of equals” with Daimler(to this day that is still known as the raping and pillaging of the company but that’s another story). As well the Eclipse,Laser and Talon the Normal plant also produced:
Dodge Avenger coupe(1995-2000)
Dodge Stratus coupe (2001-2005) &
Chrysler Sebring coupe(1995-2005,across 2 generations)all of which used Mitsubishi components.
Sadly,not many of those are left on the roads today.