Tri-Star Space Coupes: The Starion Showdown


For some reason whenever I think of the Mitsubishi Starion, my mind wanders to the classic space tale “The Last Starfighter”. The excellent (or perhaps, totally rad) story of Alex Rogan, the galaxy’s greatest hero. The movie came out in 1984 and the Mitsubishi Starion made its North American debut in 1983.
Today I present to you two star-crossed Southern Californian examples.

First on the block is a 1986 Starion described thusly…

im selling a 1986 mitsubishi starion tsi turbo with only 66xxk miles runs good
a few dents but nothing serious
will negotiate $
if any questions please let me know. will reply

Not too much to go on there, but the low mileage, solid looking photos, and sub-$3000 starting price all look promising. Besides, Alex Rogan didn’t have a lot to go on when he decided to hop in the spaceship-limo with Centauri.

In this corner sits a 1988 Starion with the following description:

Hi im selling my 88 mitsubishi starion. 2.6 Liter Engine/4 cylinders. chassis has 175*** miles but motor was rebuilt and now only has ten thousand. transmission was rebuilt as well. The car is sitting on Boyd Coddington Wheels 17″s. Stick Shift-5 Speed. Leather interior. really nice interior except the front two seats are worn out but nothing big. not salvaged. Bone Stock. New Brakes.Front Tires.New Head Gasket. Limo Tinted Windows. Also Has 2.5 Exhaust done by exhaust performance so yes it sounds pretty loud. Sounds good too. better than hondas. Air dam(the lower piece of front bumper) is broken like all others but is repairable Price is negotiable at 3200. Call after 4pm 805-340-6849 Alfonso Weekends available all day

A little more money but seemingly a LOT more car. Hopefully this car doesn’t turn out to be a Zan-Do-Dan. and you can successfully defend the Frontier.
Wait…what the hell are we talking about again?
OH cars, that’s right!
So which is it hoons,
the 1986: http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/cto/1564556965.html
or
the 1988: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/1602275868.html
[poll id=”13″]

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  1. Jeff Glucker Avatar
    Jeff Glucker

    admin

  2. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    86 has better looking wheels, less tint, better color, distressed leather and an audio equalizer.

  3. engineerd Avatar

    The '88 isn't bone stock. It has Boyd Coddington 17s! Ugh. And a 2.5 (inch? foot? you never know with these cats) exhaust.
    While I prefer the later body, the '86 seems to have a lot more going for it at a better price.
    Also, The Last Starfighter was a great movie! "Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada. "

    1. FuzzyPlushroom Avatar

      Exactly my line of thinking. Am I paying for those awful wheels? Please, spare me.

  4. DeadinSideInc Avatar

    Who wouldn't want the car that has this dude on it's photo stream: http://s602.photobucket.com/albums/tt106/Jair633/
    I trust him as a previous owner.
    Maybe you can get the chairs from the dinette set to replace the stock front seats: http://s602.photobucket.com/albums/tt106/Jair633/

    1. P161911 Avatar

      Can I vote for the 73 Pontiac instead?

  5. RacinG73 Avatar

    Maybe it's the pictures, but the '88 looks a lot cleaner to me. The 86 looks like maybe some of the trim has had to be re-attached or something. And with the '88 you at least know what has gone wrong and been repaired. With the '86 you have to wonder what's about to blow on it… I'm guessing the seller meant 66,000-ish miles, not 6,600. That's a lot of wear and tear on those seats, though, for a 24-year old car with the same number of miles as my 4-year old car. I call shenanigans.

  6. BGW Avatar

    Something seems dodgy about the '88, but the '86 could be a real conquest.

  7. Kogashiwa Avatar

    One of these cars, in the Chrysler-badged version, was my introduction to turbocharged Japanese performance. Won't ever forget the massive lag or the massive (ok, I thought it was at the time) thrust once the turbo woke up. The styling, too, along with the Subaru XT (notable for its 3d-style bar-graph speedo and tach, as well as sounding like a 911) represents pretty much the best of '80s sci-fi-anime JDM design.
    I'd love either one of these.
    Gah, now I'm searching for XTs, shoulda been at the gym a half hour ago …

  8. tenbeers Avatar

    Any Live For Speed players here? Yeah, you want a Starion too.

  9. dustin_driver Avatar

    The '86 has a purity to it, and I dig the blood-red interior. It's a better buy, IMO.

  10. Tanshanomi Avatar

    I've traditionally been partial to wide-body Starquests, but lately I've been digging the more understated narrowbodies. They are kind analogous to the 289 Cobra.
    <img src="http://www.allpar.com/images/chrysler/1984/conquest.jpg"&gt;
    Photo hotlinked from Allpar.com. They totally rock.

  11. Ambersand Avatar

    My best friend in high school had one of these, (1989 Chrysler Conquest TSI Turbo.) She convinced her mother to buy it for her, how, I'll never know. We had WAY too much fun in that thing. I'm surprised we're still alive. I'm goin with the 88. Like the white/red combo. Gold/tanish cars skeeve me out.

  12. Adelina Tinger Avatar

    There exists definitely a great deal to know about this. I think you built some great items.Keep doing work ,fantastic position!

  13. Val Eppler Avatar

    Hi. I study a couple of of one’s other posts and wanted to know in case you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links?

  14. Alec Lashlee Avatar

    Make an impact on! You actually covered this matter effectively. Are there other means that i ought to check out?

  15. Markie Avatar
    Markie

    As a Conquest owner I vote for the '86 just because of the white/red color combo. If the color is original, the '88 is much rarer, btw, but I'm a sucker for white/red…