Mitsubishi Starion - Background

Background

The Starion's appearance in 1982 occurred during a period in which a number of Japanese Grand Tourer (GT) sports cars were increasing in popularity. Nearly every major Japanese manufacture put their hats into the ring. Mitsubishi produced the turbocharged Starion as their entry into the competition. Its most direct competitors were the Nissan Z cars, Mazda RX-7 and Toyota Supra.

Over the production run of the Starion, nearly every year brought changes, increased engine power, as well as larger body sizes and more complexity in the vehicle.

The Starion was sold under different brandings. In the US it was sold under Mitsubishi as the Starion and under Plymouth and Chrysler as the Conquest. In the UK it was sold as the Colt Starion.

The Starion was produced in two distinct body styles; A narrowbody and widebody often referred to as "Flatty" and "Fatty". This was so that the vehicle in Japan was in compliance with Japanese exterior dimension regulations that required an additional tax to be paid for larger vehicles, and engine displacement exceeding 2000cc. Only the narrow body was offered until the 1985.5 model year in the US. Mechanically both body styles were similar, but many parts are not interchangeable.

The introduction of the widebody also split the car into two distinct ranges. One a non-intercooled lower horsepower car using the narrow body style and a high-performance intercooled widebody. It should be noted some markets never received the widebody cars, but had "flatties" with most of the wide body upgrades as their top of the line model.In most markets widebody cars were given the label of Starion ESI-r or Conquest TSI. Markets that never received the widebody had the ESI-r label these cars had similar performance as the widebodies, just in a "flatty" body.

Production ceased entirely by 1989, and its successor, the GTO was fitted with the mechanicals of the recently demonstrated Mitsubishi HSX Sports Coupe concept vehicle.

Many of the performance features of the Starion were integrated into later vehicles and can be found in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, and the Mitsubishi Eclipse.