Back in the 1980's, seemed every automobile manufacturer on both sides of the Pacific had a long hood, short deck sports car for sale in this country. Or at least a sporty looking car with a long hood and short deck. Teeny-tiny Mitsubishi had a neat little runner they called the "Starion". Apparently, Chrysler thought so much of the Starion they bought a bunch of them and sold them here as the Dodge Conquest from 1984 to 1986 and the Chrysler Conquest from 1987 to 1989. This Facebook Marketplace find is a 1987 Chrysler Conquest for sale down in Akron for $6,000.
Starion's sold as Chryslers were "captive imports", that's where a manufacturer bought a make and model from another manufacturer and sold them as their own. The thought was it cost effectively stopped up gaps in a manufacturer's lineup. What was the gap in Chrysler's lineup given they had their K-car Dodge Charger, Daytona. Plymouth Turismo and Chrysler Laser at the time? Calling those front-wheel-drive K-cars "sports cars" for starters.
I remember these from back then and reading the rave reviews they got from auto scribes; I still didn't give them the time of day. All I wished was that my beloved domestic pony cars could get the ink these things got.
Contemporary reviews heralded their powerful, turbocharged, four-cylinder engines, precise 5-speed shifters and nimble handling that could carve up a mountain road with the aplomb of cars costing two- to three-times more. Best any critic wrote of a third-gen Camaro was they didn't get killed driving it fast. Seemed there was a mass right-wing conspiracy against my beloved Detroit iron. What did those guys know that I didn't?
When I met my wife, her father had a 1984 Starion which I thought interesting given the man was pushing 60 at the time. Little did I know he was a sports car fan with a taste for dramatically styled cars. I never asked him why a Starion of all things, but his father-in-law was fond of Toyota Celica's and Supra's so something tells me the man we called, "The Don", wanted something similar to a Celica or Supra but not too similar.
Couple of times I drove his Starion, I really liked it. It was an automatic so the performance of the big turbo four was muted somewhat, but that thing could go. And its slot car like handling had me wondering why I was driving an '82 Buick Riviera at the time. Oh, that's right. I couldn't afford anything other than an underpowered "old man's car".
His Starion wasn't perfect and he had had plans to get rid of it. It had some electrical gremlins, for instance the power windows wouldn't work; probably just a fuse now that I think about. The AC didn't work either. Only way to get any air flow was to open the small moonroof. He traded it in soon after I met my wife for, of all things, a Nissan Pulsar.
I thought about ribbing him about it saying, "I thought you liked sports cars", but I thought better of it. Probably one of the reasons he liked me. I knew when to keep my mouth shut.
Mitsubishi had stated that the name "Starion" is a contraction of "Star of Arion", symbolizing a star and the mythical horse Arion, linking it to power and high performance.
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