Junkyard Find: 1981 Dodge Colt

Friday, June 27, 2014

Junkyard Find: 1981 Dodge Colt

08 - 1981 Dodge Colt Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin By the final years of the Malaise Era, Chrysler had their econobox needs covered on the one hand by much-modified rebadged Simcas, and on the other by not-at-all-modified rebadged Mitsubishis. These cars were no worse than their Ford and GM competitors (which isn't saying much), but the inherent cheapness of the 4th-gen Mitsubishi-built Colt meant that most of them weren't worth fixing after about 1992, and these cars are rare indeed nowadays. In this series, we'd seen just one example of this generation of Colt/Mirage/Champ prior to today's find.
05 - 1981 Dodge Colt Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin This one was parked illegally in Hayward, California, and the owner couldn't or wouldn't rescue it before the tow-truck man came to take it on its last ride.
09 - 1981 Dodge Colt Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin By any sort of 21st-century standards, these cars sucked. They were noisy, rattly, slow, and broke down a lot. However, we are now living in the Golden Age of Miserable Little Econoboxes, where even the diminished-expectations Versa and Spark are perfectly pleasant transportation applicances, and so it just isn't fair to apply 21st-century standards to the '81 Colt.
01 - 1981 Dodge Colt Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Just imagine you're listening to Debbie Harry "rap" about Fab Five Freddy on the AM radio and getting 40 mpg in the grim years after the Ayatollah jacked up gas prices and this car makes more sense.
11 - 1981 Dodge Colt Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Not much attempt was made to obscure the Japanese origins of this car, though the same could not be said of the French origins of the Omni/Horizon.