Funny, there were a lot more Cortina in Canada -- they really didn't get entrenched in U.S. That's probably why Grey Cortina tune (Tom Robinson) wasn't a hit here.
My first car was a red Plymouth Arrow with white interior. It was a 4-speed, 4 cylinder with chrome wheels, straight chrome side-pipes that would literally throw fire, and that thing was actually quite fast. I lived in Fort Lauderdale Florida and drove up and down "The Strip" with it. Since it was rear wheel drive, you could spin out with it and do donuts and stuff. Lots of fun to drive. I ended up totally it when I tried to drive home for a weekend after pulling guard duty all night in the Army and fell asleep at the wheel going down I-95. Another strange thing is my last name is Osborn.
A friend of mine had a '78 (same car) with the 2000 cc engine. That car drove great and had good power. It was the first 5 spd. I'd seen as 5 spd. manuals were coming into popularity. 3 & 4 spd. had been the norm.
@@anibalbabilonia1867 You read my comment wrong. I didn't state it was the first car to have a 5 speed. I stated that the Plymouth Arrow was the first 5 speed car that I had seen.
My girlfriend bought one because she couldn’t wait for a Honda Accord that were hard to get . Smallish on the inside and not at Honda’s level but very reliable and unusual. They didn’t sell very many. Haven’t seen one for many years but it’s over 40 years old
Man those where everywhere in the mid 70s! My cousin actually had one of those! That car was actually a Mitsubishi made in Japan imported to the states for sale as a Plymouth. Man did they disappear from the face of the earth! I haven’t seen one since the 80s! Is like finding a needle in haystack!
by and large, all Japanese Cars had poor quality steel versus the USA or German Cars and they did indeed rust out quickly. They drove great and had great engines, but boy, they rust
Thanks for the blast from the past mate. Chrysler Australia imported them and called it the Lancer hatchback. Chrysler here had much success with Mitsubishi products, locally assembled or imported. Around 1970 they had the choice to go with the new Hillman Avenger from Rootes or the Colt (Galant) from Mitsubishi. Luckily for their good fortune they went with the Galant, they sold like hotcakes while unsold Hillman Hunters and Hillman Arrows sat around in showrooms for about twelve months.
Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL), the successor to Chrysler Australia, built the KE/KF/KH/KJ/KL Verada that was sold in the U.S. by MMSA as the Mitsubishi Diamante from 1996-2004 at the former Chrysler plant in Tonsley Park, South Australia.
Known as the Mitsubishi Celeste here in Germany. According to wikipedia they came from early 1977. Didn't see many then. My dad had a 1978 Celica Liftback for 3 years and 112.000 miles for a family of 6! Different times 😉
My first car 76 gt arrow. Purple 4spd 2000 engine. And an AM radio to keep me company 😂 got it in 79' at 16 years old. $875. Dollars worth of fun just before the gas crunch. So I was prepared but still and all I went from 56 cents a gallon to $1.40 a gallon. Big ouch back then. Figure for inflation about $7.50 in today's money 😊
IIRC Rootes didn't make a single model called Arrow but referred to the entire platform as that. The Rapier wasn't a hatchback but its' profile was really similar.
I fully agree, especially in what looks like Tahoe country. That would call for a THIRD 50-lb. bag of sandbox sand obtained from Grossman's, effectively cancelling any gas mileage advantage (especially on those hills) the rear-wheel drive Arrow might've initially had, and we won't even go into what the road salt quickly did to the one sold in my area. In fairness though, that same salt was also busy destroying all the American cars from that era with their dismal "recycled" metal!
One winter those 70 Japanese cars rusted really bad. The early Hondas and Subuarus were the worst. I was a body man for nearly 30 years. In the 80s when I just started out of high school we worked on may of the 70s cars repairing rust and repainting. We once got in a 73 or 4 Honda. The man wanted some floorboards put in it cause it would not pass inspection. We stuck a floor jack under the the front end wand when it was lifted up it literally broke in two at the firewall and engine compartment because of rust. The owner was luckily he wasnt going down the road and hit a pot hole and the car snap in two on him. Of course American cars rusted badly too but the thin Japanese light weight sheet metal made them rust a little faster.
