Haven't seen one of these in ages. Was this a rebadged Mitsubishi? http://flint.craigslist.org/cto/3316438852.html
Yep, Solid little cars. Not sure how hard ($$$) it would be to get the drive train for it. Is that some sort of Renault or something next to it? mike
Yup. Built by Mitsubishi, but Mitsubishi didn't sell that same model under their own name like they did with some of their other vehicles. That little thing next to it is a Renault Dauphine. (sp?)
Finding an original drive train is not the easiest for these. They did tend to be oil burners, and up here, real rust buckets, too. It was normally a race to the death between the engine and the body. When one or the other went, the whole thing was normally crushed. They were also quite slow, even by the standards of the time.
I remember driving a '77 Dodge Colt coupe back from California to Colorado in the Summer of 1978, and my friend had a '76 Colt four-door, both loaded to the gills with his girlfriend's crap. Back in days of the 55 mph speed limit, we were doing max speed with both cars - right at 80 mph along I-15 outside Barstow. We were both just 18 or so, long-haired kids on a pretty adventurous road trip. A CHP Dodge Monaco cruiser hauls ass up behind my car, gets on his PA speaker and says "Pull over when I get to that green car ahead!"...crap! So, we pull over and the CHPpy goes to my friend's car and has a chat with him and the hitchhiker my friend picked up in Los Angeles...who looked a LOT like Charles Manson. After afew minutes, the cop comes back to my car and says "Son, license and registration, please". Mind you, my friend and I had Colorado driver licenses, driving two cars with California registrations, and our names did not match the registrations. OK, I'm thinking the worst case here. We're going to jail, two skinny white kids in the Barstow slammer, not a good scenario here! He came back and said "Your story better match your buddy's, or you are in a heap of crap!" Our stories of course, matched, so we got off with just a $30.00 mail-in ticket for 62 in a 55 (we were doing 80!) Damn, that was a fun Summer, now that I reflect on all this! See what that damn Colt wagon did???
Dang! That would have been a stiff sentence right there - one night in a Barstow jail. I had to go to Barstow once on an inspection assignment. Seemed like one of the most depressing places I've ever been. Great place to drive by on the way to Vegas.
Never in person seen a wagon, but my sister inlaw bout one one just like this in the mid 90's...exactly the same. I honestly thought she was nuts but she got a couple years of trouble free driving out of it untill it was t-boned in a intersection.... The car was very clean and rust free, mint, and she only paid a few hundred for it. It was a very nice car condition wise...
The wagon version looked practically identical in a lot of respects to the original Datsun 510 wagon - pretty much the same size, too.
Damn, the coupe I was driving was the opposite color scheme! The Twin-Stick came out in 1979 with the totally redesigned front-wheel-drive Colt. It was not available on the earlier cars, as they were rear-drive. My Dad had a 1981 Colt he towed behind his motorhome back in the '90s. I had to replace the starter on that for him. What a cluster-fornication THAT was! Worst design I'd ever seen! Had to take apart nearly half of the top end of the engine to access it.
