The Mitsubishi Starion was a two-door, turbocharged four-cylinder rear-wheel drive four-seat hatchback sports car that was manufactured by Mitsubishi from 1982 to 1989. Rebadged variants were marketed in North America as the Conquest under the Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth brands. The Starion is one of the first modern Japanese turbocharged performance automobiles with electronic fuel injection.
Overview
Mitsubishi began marketing the Starion in 1982, during a period in which a number of Japanese grand tourer (GT) sports cars were available, including the Nissan Z cars, Mazda RX-7, Toyota Supra and to a lesser extent, the Honda Prelude and Isuzu Piazza. The Starion was marketed in the US under Mitsubishi as the Starion and badge engineered variants of were marketed as the Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler Conquest. In the UK it was sold as the Colt Starion. Manufactured in two body configurations; a narrowbody and widebody, the narrower style complied with Japanese exterior dimension regulations taxing larger vehicles and engine displacement exceeding 2000cc. Only the narrowbody was offered through the 1985.5 model year. The introduction of the widebody also split the car into two ranges: one a non-intercooled lower horsepower car using the narrow body style and a high-performance intercooled widebody. In most markets, widebody cars were given the label of Starion ESI-r or Conquest TSi. Markets that never received the widebody had the ESI-r label, these cars had similar performance as the widebodies. Widebody cars were offered in 1986-1989 model years in the US.
Name
Mitsubishi says "Starion" is a contraction of "Star of Arion" — and refers to both a star and the mythical horse, Arion. Several sources attribute the name to struggles by Japanese engineers to pronounce the word stallion. Automotive journalist Paul Niedermeyer noted that an early Japanese television commercial for the Starion closed with a logo of a stallion's head with the word "Starion" below it. The translation of the voiceover says the name refers to a star and the mythical horse, Arion. The Mitsubishi Colt and Mitsubishi Eclipse featured equine names, with the Eclipse named after the champion racehorse. Marketing material from 1982 somewhat confirms the official explanation.
The name STARION — derived from the combination of star and Arion, Hercules' horse in Greek mythology — symbolizes a sense of the universe, and of power and high performance. — cover of original Japanese Starion sales brochure, published by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, May 1982. On an episode of BBC`s Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson says the name was supposed to be stallion however it was misunderstood as "Starion" in a phone call with the marketing team and the name stuck since then.
Source: Wikipedia
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