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Before the 3000GT, before the Eclipse, and long before the Lancer Evolution crossed the Pacific, Mitsubishi sold Americans a pop-up-headlight, rear-drive, turbocharged coupe called the Starion. This original-owner 1984 Mitsubishi Starion LS is live on Bring a Trailer right now with 48,000 miles and a five-speed manual, bid to $5,600 as of Friday morning. The auction ends Thursday, October 22, at 3:39 p.m. ET.
What Was the Mitsubishi Starion?
The Starion was Mitsubishi's turbocharged rear-drive sports coupe, built from 1982 to 1989 and sold in the United States from the 1983 model year. Mitsubishi says the name is short for "Star of Arion," a nod to the mythical horse. American cars got a 2.6-liter turbo four, and on this 1984 example it is rated at 145 horsepower and 185 lb-ft of torque, per the listing.
It was also a rare piece of badge-engineering with a fun twist. Through its Chrysler partnership, Mitsubishi's coupe was also sold as the Conquest, wearing Dodge and Plymouth badges in the mid-1980s and Chrysler badges later. Same car, different grille, and a lot of confused shoppers. It even got a moment in Hollywood, with Jackie Chan behind the wheel of a Starion in The Cannonball Run II, and it was a winner in American endurance racing, taking the Nelson Ledges 24 Hour four years in a row from 1984 to 1987.
Why Did the Starion Disappear?
The numbers tell the story. Starion and Conquest sales were around 19,400 in 1986, then slid to under 2,000 by 1989. The car was priced above most of its competition, it was squeezed by the Nissan 300ZX, and a rising yen kept pushing Japanese imports up the price ladder just as buyers lost interest. Mitsubishi also had bigger plans. Its rear-drive platform gave way to front-drive-based cars built through Diamond-Star Motors, the joint venture with Chrysler, which is why the Starion's actual descendants were the Eclipse, the Eagle Talon and the Plymouth Laser rather than another rear-drive coupe.
The Starion is often described as Mitsubishi's last rear-drive sports car, and it left a quiet fingerprint on what came next. Mitsubishi's work on all-wheel-drive rally machines at the time fed into the Galant VR-4 and, eventually, the Evo. And if you want to see where the performance story went by the mid-1990s, look at this 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 Spyder, a twin-turbo, all-wheel-drive grand tourer that could hardly be more different from the Starion's back-to-basics formula.
About This 1984 Starion
This one was bought new by the seller from Homewood Mitsubishi in Homewood, Illinois, and all of its 48,000 miles have been added under that ownership. The window sticker lists an MSRP of $13,344, and it is included with the sale, along with the owner's manuals, service records, spare parts, a clean Carfax report and a clean Indiana title.
The car was originally finished in Kaiser Silver Metallic and was repainted gray in 2025, with some repair work to the bottoms of the fenders at that time. The 14-inch eight-spoke alloy wheels were refinished the same year and wear Kumho tires. Under the hood is the turbocharged 2.6-liter four, backed by a five-speed manual and four-wheel disc brakes. In August 1989, the selling dealer retrofitted the water-cooled turbocharger conversion that Mitsubishi offered to 1983 and 1984 Starion owners free of charge. A 2020 service rebuilt the throttle body and replaced the water pump, spark plugs, drive belts, fuel filter, two injectors, the upper radiator hose and cap, and the oil cooler lines. An HKS exhaust was added in 2026.
Inside are gray cloth bucket seats, a contoured rear bench, air conditioning, a cassette stereo, automatic shoulder belts and a full set of gauges for boost, oil pressure, coolant temperature and voltage, along with a 150-mph speedometer and an 8,000-rpm tachometer. Buyers should note the listing's caveats: the fuel gauge does not read correctly, and there are blemishes on the rocker covers.
Why It Matters Now
With bidding sitting at $5,600 and several days to go, this is the kind of car that makes people say, "I forgot they made those." It has a real backstory, a face that could only have come from the 1980s, a rare Mitsubishi-meets-Chrysler identity, and a one-owner history that is hard to find on a 40-year-old turbo coupe. It is also a good reminder that Chrysler's Japanese-built cars were stranger and more interesting than most people remember.
For another Chrysler-family car that quietly disappeared, read about the Dodge Spirit R/T, America's fastest sedan in 1991, which everyone forgot. Then check the full listing for the 1984 Mitsubishi Starion on Bring a Trailer.
