Mitsubishi launched its rakish Starion 2+2 grand touring sports coupe for '82 and at the time, it was fairly competitive with its domestic competition. The 280ZX 2+2 and Toyota Celica Supra both sported 2.8L inline sixes to the Starion's 2.6L turbo four, but the Mistu pretty much kept up, at least in the intercooled ESI-R variant. Within a couple years, though, the motors in the Supra and Z-car had swole up to three liters and the Starion was outclassed.
It was replaced in 1990 by an all-new car, sold as the Mitsubishi GTO in the home market and the 3000GT here in America. Replacing the longitudinal turbo four rear-wheel-drive setup of the previous car was a transverse three liter DOHC V-6.
In the base cars, this motor was naturally aspirated and sent 222 SAE net horsepower to the front wheels through either a four-speed automatic or five-speed manual transaxle.
The performance version added a brace of intercooled turbos and was called the 3000GT VR4, signifying the "Viscous Realtime 4WD" system, sending power to all four wheels. It had active aerodynamics and four-wheel steering. All that gear came with a price, as the base MSRP for a 1993 VR4 was $38,492, or just shy of eighty five grand in today's money.
With the 6G72 motor thumping out 300 (wink wink, nudge nudge, seriously underrated) horsepower, the 3000GT VR4 was plenty beastly for its time. While all that tech made for a chunky 3,860 curb weight, Car and Driver's 1993 test car managed a 5.6 second sprint to sixty, which would have been a supercar-only number just a decade earlier. The quarter mile was disposed of in 14.1 seconds at 99mph and the car barreled all the way to 155 before it couldn't push the air out of the way anymore. On top of that, the plushly-equipped, nearly-two-ton coupe circled the skidpad at 0.93g and stopped from seventy in just 161 feet.
3000GT VR4's like this Monza Red example are scarce sights in these parts these days, with most of them having been sucked into the black hole of the west coast import tuner scene.
The one in the photo was snapped with a Canon EOS 7D and an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS zoom lens in January of 2023.
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