We haven’t featured many Prime Finds from the Land of the Rising Sun recently, so this week, we are going to redress that a little.
Because the Japanese motor industry didn’t really emerge until the mid-1960’s in any meaningful global way, there are fewer Japanese classics to choose from than there are European or American. Since then, Japan has become the third-largest producer of automobiles on the planet, and as the number of cars manufactured in the country has increased, so has the number of classic Japanese cars, as well as the number of enthusiasts for such classics, our International Editor among them.
Me, not so much, but then this column isn’t about me (not mainly, anyway) so despite my inbuilt bias towards products of the German and Italian motor industries, I try to cast my inter-net (ho-ho) as far and wide as possible.
I think we can all agree that the best-known Japanese manufacturers are Nissan, Toyota and Honda, with Mitsubishi one of a group of smaller but nevertheless significant presences, and this week’s Prime Find comes from them – a 1977 Colt Galant GS Coupé, on sale with a UK dealer near Manchester in England’s North-West.
In the 1970’s Mitsubishi had embarked on an expansion plan involving alliances with other major manufacturers, one of which was Chrysler, in 1971, with the US company taking a 15% stake in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MIH). The first generation Galant had already been introduced two years earlier, and was built until 1973. As a result of Chrysler’s investment, the Galant was sold in the US as the Dodge Colt (could there be a more “Western” name for a car – or anything else, for that matter?) and as the Colt Sigma in Australia.
The next generation Galant became the basis for the first so-called “captive import” deal with Chrysler in 1973, and lasted three years before being replaced by the generation represented by “our” car. I’m not going to attempt to unravel the various versions of the Galant sold in different markets; suffice to say that here in the UK, it was sold initially as a saloon, then a coupé and finally an estate.
Colt’s weren’t particularly exciting either mechanically or stylistically – quite unexceptional, in fact – but they had a reputation for being well put together and in common with most Japanese-made cars, were reliable as clockwork, which in an era when British Leyland and Vauxhall in particular were bywords for poor quality, was a very desirable attribute. Engines were four-cylinder units with capacities of 1597cc and 1995cc, offering respectable if not outstanding performance. So – pretty unexceptional all round, then?
But before we take a closer look at our car, what other saloon-based coupés could you buy for similar money? The most obvious one is probably the Opel Manta B and its Vauxhall equivalent, the Cavalier Coupé. True, they don’t possess explosive performance either, but those looks…Alternatively, the other Vauxhall coupé, the Firenza, is worth a look, as is of course the Ford Capri II or the VW Scirocco…or from the Colt’s home country, how about a super-cool Toyota Celica GT? This is by no means an exclusive list, there are many other options.
But what our Prime Find lacks in rubber-burning speed or made-you-look styling it makes up for in – in the UK, at least – being as rare as hen’s teeth, even more so than any of the above. According to the dealer, only four are registered in this country, and purely anecdotal evidence of its rarity here is that among the many thousands of photographs of cars that I’ve taken over the years for ViaRETRO, not a solitary one is of a Galant, so if you want something a little different, this might well be worth a closer look.
This one is a recent South African import – therefore RHD (as it would have been in its home market too, of course) – so it has been spared the ravages of European winters and based on the photographs we have borrowed from the dealer, looks to be in exceptional condition both outside and in. It’s a fantastic colour, a metallic orange, that really makes the car pop, as they say, with a more subdued but still smart black upholstery with subtle orange stitching around the edges – this latter touch could have been disastrous but actually seems to work quite well to lift the otherwise sombre interior.
I don’t know if the alloys it sits on are originals, but I do think they suit the car, and they haven’t had to work too hard, with the odometer reading just 87,000, which I believe will be kilometres. There is no information to say whether or not this is correct, so it’s possible that the car has actually covered 187,000kms, but even so, this is still under 120,000 miles, or only a little over 2,600 miles a year. If it’s been looked after – and again, while it looks as though it has, there is no mention of service history or invoice files – this brightly painted Colt should provide fun classic motoring for years to come. It’s not cheap, at an asking price of £15,000, but if it’s as good as it looks, it will certainly stand out in the crowd.
You can see the full dealer advert and many more photos here, and as always, if you’re interested in this piece of Japanese motoring history, we recommend arranging an inspection before you part with your cash.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk.