By RoadworkUK
So, the weekend is a fading memory and you’re back to 9-5 drudgery again, but fear not, there’s always the glorious treat that is The Carchive to take your mind off things. Regular readers (thirteen of you, at the last count) will know that The Carchive is the number one global internet series based on Original Manufacturer Publicity Material for cars that may have faded from memory a little.
Today’s serving trawled from the dank, damp dungeon of delights probably won’t have slipped from any mind. It’s the Starion.
First things first; the name. Mitsubishi reckon it derives from “Star of Orion”, some reckon it derives from a mispronunciation of Stallion. Personally I assure you that it’s in reverence to a legendary aromatic vegetable flavoured essence once served in coffee, namely Starbucks Onion. The Japanese lapped that stuff up.
“Mitsubishi wide-body Starion. 2-Litre turbo. 177bhp. 143mph. Plus a 3-year unlimited mileage warranty”
What the Gods of excitement give with one hand, they take away with the other. “Meet Chloe; 36D, Imaginative in bed, fantastic body but will not stop talking about Cretaceous fossils “. But typical of the Japanese to create a risk-free performance car ownership proposition. Buy one, drive it hard, if it breaks bring it back and we’ll fix it. I wonder how much warranty action they saw?
Starion (also known as Dodge Conquest) came in a number of configurations during its seven year (’82 to ’89) lifespan, with Sirious 2.0 and Astron 2.6 litre engines being installed depending on the market. States of tune varied from an unpopular base spec normally aspirated engine to a full on 225hp powerhouse. 8 or 12 valves could be had. This brochure refers to the UK market Wide-Body car as seen in 1987, the last year for the 2.0 over here.
“Any way you look at it. the new wide-body Starion has the look and feel of a real thoroughbred”.
See, even Mitsubishi were still drawing on the stupid Stallion misunderstanding. That big centre spread should really have been photographed outside an urban coffee-shop, not a grand stately home. And anyway, I don’t really buy the image that they’re trying to depict here. That horribly pretentious looking bloke and his catalogue-model partner do not look like Starion heartland clientèle. What do you reckon? For additional credit, what kind of people bought Conquests?
The Starion was a notably more angular machine than the rest of the early ’80s school of fast Japanese coupe’s, but was still among the more aerodynamic, with coefficients ranging from 0.32 to 0.35, depending on girth.
“Total comfort and control: a milestone in performance motoring”
In truth, there wasn’t a huge amount to set the Starion apart from, say, the Toyota Supra. The Starion was possibly a bit more chuckable thanks to its compact size, but it was nowhere near as dexterous as the RX-7, for example. It’s difficult to see how anybody could mark it as a milestone in anything, except possibly unintelligible nomenclature. Mind you,, who could forget the astonishing dance steps that Pentti Airikkala could make his Starion perform.
That all said, it was a very accomplished all round highish-performance car with a relatively accommodating cabin and very supportive seats. The dashboard was stocked full of informative gauges, including an amusing boost gauge dead centre. Clearly, though, UK cars were a little de-contented over those from the rest of the world, with things like air-conditioning being omitted.
My favourite bit is the fact that the slot for the stereo is double-DIN, so you could install one of the many deeply killer brushed aluminium and LED JDM hi-fi systems, a high-end Alpine, perhaps, or something infeasibly futuristic from Nakamichi. Something with a tape door.
“It’s breathtaking mix of a stunning aerodynamic shape, intercooled-turbocharged engine, computerized fuel injection, high performance sports suspension, superb handling and comfort puts the Starion in a class of its own”
Well, yes. The Mazda RX-7, Nissan 300ZX and Isuzu Piazza all had names that kind of made sense.
(Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity materials, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Mitsubishi Group, who pulled out of making cars that I find appealing about fifteen years ago. This goes out to the memory of Pentti Airikkala)
Jeff Glucker