An awkward friendship: 1988 Mitsubishi Galant Sigma Σ

[dem00n]

A few months ago, a friend and i were looking for a project car. We would search on eBay and craiglists for many classroom hours for the right one. The challenge we presented to our selves that it had to be kept under $1000. Now in truth, 80% of the cars of which we liked under that price range weren't running. Well, that holds true for any car under $1000.

Sure, we could of picked up an Alfa Romeo Milano but we missed that, then we missed an E30 which would of been awesome. So we spread the word to friends and family that were looking for a project car. Soon enough my friend Anthony's mother knows a good friend whom has to get rid of some cars.

Turns out the daughter of a mother whom passed away and had to get rid of some cars, one was that very obscure Galant Sigma.

I've never seen one of these before, no one has. It's a mysterious car meant to compete with a market that it was never going to reach. You see, the Galant Sigma was meant to battle against the mid sized luxury car market (BWM, Merc, etc) It featured such things as a 4 speed automatic, power everything, electric sunroof, stereo with adjustable EP and cassette. Cruise control. The car even came with adjustable suspension. Yes, adjustable sport/comfort suspension. But of course it didn't work when we owned it. It was however a good looking car, at first it may seem ugly and boxy. But it has true design to it, the more we looked at it, the more it seemed to appeal to us. Honestly a part of me wanted to slam it and put some nice retro wheels on it, i'd go to car shows and just win because it's some rare JDM oddity. Fresh yo!


(Not ours)

So after much researching (Pointless!) we bought the car from her for $400. Now the fun part. It had a bee hive inside the car. It was right inside the passenger door frame, right before the weather stripping so the bees could live safe from the hazards of the outside. The owner didn't know and we learned right when were going to drive it away. So, how do you deal with a bee hive inside a car when you're two broke college kids?? You park a mini van right next to the car and you bring a water hose right through the mini van driver window, peak the hose through the passenger window right next the car and open up the hose. Right when the bees go nuts and start flying very close to you, you lose your shit and pull back the open hose into your brand new 2013 Chrysler Town and Country. Talk about flood damage... Now of course it needed work, well i'm just fucking with you cause all it needed was basic maintenance at best. Fluid flush, new oil, new oil sensor and the passenger seat belt didn't work. So we bought a perfectly working car with 80,000 miles. Didn't burn oil, the suspension was fine. Slight rust on passenger rear quarter panel but was nothing to worry about.

The car was boring to us sport thirsty millennial's. (He has a modified Ford Focus and i have the FRS) It was a lifeless automatic that didn't really wanted to rev all that high when you pushed the pedal. The steering was dull and very light, just like the infamous Audi steering. It was comfortable to ride along in but you know that means tons of body roll, which it never stopped in the corner. It's by no means a driver car, but for some sick reason we liked it. 3.0L V6 with blah horsepower, almost the same engine as the one in the 3000GT. Stereo was alright and it had one of the most funky steering wheels/dashboards we've seen so far.


That stalk thingy on the left? You pushed that up or down for the turn signal, at first very weird but then very natural. Everything was at the touch of your finger tips, a bit overwhelming.

We tried to get rid of it as soon as possible. It was fun while it lasted but we were looking for something a bit more sporty, something we could autocross and track if we had the balls to. We sold it for $1600 (We made about $1k profit, not bad!) to some dudes who wanted to drive it all the way to Michigan. Did they make it? Honestly i do think so, but the CEL went on right when they drove it off so...maybe not?

Now whats the point of this story? That you could buy a rare car so rare that we were the only people in America selling one at the time? That you could pickup a perfectly good car for $400 destined for the junk yard for no real good reason? I don't know, i just felt like i should write about it because in the next 30 years these cars will be all gone, perhaps for the better or worse. This will most likely be the most you'll ever see of one of these cars, unless someone does a 2JZ drop or something like that.

Ah, now the pictures. Well of course, we lost all the good ones. The biggest problem with modern day cell phones is that we take so many pictures with them but cell phones break like nothing. All lost except these extremely bad ones...please excuse them.






Oh and we never bought gas for it, i guess it has great MPG or that fucking fuel gauge is broken.

I'm sure i'll do another topic of our next project car, unless you all hate this topic.


Oh and the CEL wasn't serious.

[akyp]

I think it looks better than Mitsus of today, for better or worse.