Once Upon a Time

The second generation DSM was quite a car. Available as a turbo all wheel drive compact, if not slightly overweight, coupe in what is in my opinion the sexiest package of the decade. Then The Fast and The Furious came out. From that point on the 2G DSM was doomed to be the most abused and stereotyped car of it’s time. I know, I had one, Blitz type 2 kit and all. After F&F the 2G was the punching bag for all rice bashers, but DSM owners were just as much to blame, suddenly kitted, APC winged, stickered up, and fart canned 2Gs were everywhere. Today the only ones I see rolling around are clapped out stock ones and badly kitted ones desperately clinging to 2001, and that’s a real shame. The DSM community as a whole has never really broke free from that, so very rarely do you see one lowered more than an inch or two with respectable wheels, tucked bays, anything you really associate with today’s “scene”. I was very happy to run across this one in Two Litre Media’s Flikr, over the years it has stayed true and been tastefully upgraded along the way. I was even happier it was the rarest of the 2Gs, a post face lift Talon. Cars like this remind me why they were so awesome, and cars like this could restore them to thier rightful place in the import* community.

*yes, I know they’re technically not imports, there was no JDM version and they have Chrysler roots, but because of thier Mitsubishi connection and sport compact nature I lump them in there eventhough many people may disagree

Starion Ranch

Before There Was Honda

I was a hardcore DSM freak. I still like them, but never really fit into the whole DSM “scene”, they’re a pretty close minded bunch when it comes to visual mods. I never really see DSMs built to the standards of a lot of the Hondas around, lots of very fast DSMs, but pretty boring visually. Having owned a few of them I have a theory about why that is; you never have the time or money to really build one because you are constantly fixing it and just trying to keep it on the road, you never have a chance to worry about things like tucked bays and the like. There were two signatures I remember from the forums back then that illustrate this point perfectly; “Volkswagen, the joy of driving. DSM, the frustration of fixing” and “DSM, turning everyday people into certified mechanics”. But seeing this one the other day reminded me of their allure, damn they can be sexy when done right.

I can only find this pic of the last one I had from when I was selling it, don’t laugh, I had the Blitz kit before Fast&Furious ruined all the fun. That movie did more damage to the second generation DSM reputation than all their mechanical short comings ever could.

Fast&Furious

With all these ads on TV for the new F&F movie I can’t help but be reminded of my old rice bucket from the late 90s. Yea yea say what you will I still miss that car from time to time. That one movie ruined Blitz bodied 2Gs for the rest of eternity. It’s so hard to look at my old car subjectively without all the F&F baggage now, but back in the pre F&F days and before everything with 2 doors and 4 wheels had a body kit it was actually fairly presentable.

And I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not nearly as bad as this abortion of a Z from HIN a couple weeks ago. How anyone could throw that much money at a car and still come up with something that ugly I’ll never know.

Dear Mitsubishi

You fucked up again. You’re always on the brink of greatness but manage to blow it. For starters you built one of the sexiest recent sport compacts (imo) the 95-99 Eclipse and gave consumers a choice of the Chrysler built 420A that was good for nothing but spinning rod bearings or crankwalk proned 4G63s. Then you waited 5 or 10 years too long to give the US an EVO and now this…..

You give us this bad ass Lancer Sportback. Oh wait, no EVO motor. WTF!?!? If you wait for the Ralliart edition you can get the turbo MIVEC 2.0 worth 237hp. And you lucky europeans get to buy a 1.5 liter version. Seriously, this thing is so sexy, why did you have to pull a Mitsu and fuck it up.

*disclaimer: I’m allowed to bash Mitsubishi all I want, I had a ’93 and a ’95 Talon