This next car is an interesting pile of semi-built parts. It is a kit car that was born in 1980, but has been sitting in storage for the past 40 years. Perhaps the next owner will finish the dirty work and turn it into the pavement pounding beast that it should be…or let it sit […]
The Dodge Colt (technically an imported Mitsubishi Mirage with a Dodge emblem) is either a cool/interesting cheap classic if you never had to rely on one for daily driving use or a total pile of garbage if you needed drive one for many miles back in the day. Personally I have no idea if the […]
If you’ve always wanted to build a 70s kit car, the opportunities are limited these days. It isn’t just that lawyers and politicians want you to be safe, but also that most of the businesses making kits are long gone, so you’ll need to find an unfinished project, like this 1974 Manta Mirage offered for […]
The Chevrolet Monza was released for the 1975 model year on a chassis shared with the tiny Vega, but it was designed to have power from an exotic rotary GM-Wankel engine. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the rotary was scrapped after GM engineers couldn’t figure out that wankels are total piles of junk, so GM shoved a […]
The 3rd generation Mitsubishi Mirage was sold in North America starting in the 1989 model year at Mitsubishi dealers, but you could also get the same exact car (albeit with different badges) from Dodge/Plymouth dealers as the Colt, and over at Eagle as the Summit. They should have imported the top of the line JDM […]
The Manta Mirage was a crazy Can-Am inspired mid-engined road car built out of a garage in Costa Mesa by brothers Brad and Tim LoVette in the late 1970s. The basic recipe was a steel space frame with a Chevy V8 mounted in the middle connected to a Corvair transaxle, all wrapped up in a […]
The 1989-92 Plymouth Colt, Dodge Colt, and Eagle Summit were captive imports riding on a sixth generation Mitsubishi Mirage/Lancer platform. It was badge engineering at its finest, where the only difference between the Mitsubishi and the Dodge was a vinyl applique. Even the steering wheel and gauges were free from identifying marks, so the minimum […]
Named after an Italian town and originally intended to bear a Wankel rotary by NSU, a German company, the Chevrolet Monza isn’t the American car you expect to see in an Evel Knievel jumpsuit. Yet here it is adorned in stickers and polyurethane aero bits comprising the rare (and very American-themed) Mirage appearance package. Built […]
Maybe because it’s Friday and the meds have worn off (or finally kicked in? Who knows) but this Evo IV clone has my attention. Evos I-IX were 4G63-powered rally rockets offering varying degrees of wing size (just kidding – they’re all enormous) prohibited from American showrooms until number eight. Meanwhile, thumbstick jockeys got to experience […]
The Manta Mirage was a futuristic low volume car kit car built starting in 1974 out of a small garage in Costa Mesa, CA. Production of the McLaren M8 CanAm race car styled beast ended in 1986, but if you want one for the street in California, you’ll want a smog free pre-75 example. This […]