Mitsubishi 3000GT Twin Turbo / GTO VR-4 Review

Mitsubishi's halo car from 1990-2001 and successor to the Mitsubishi Starion, the 3000GT was one of the 90's Japanese "super coupes". High performance, high concept, high luxury...low price.

Other entrants in this highly regarded category were the Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo, Mazda RX-7 FD, Toyota Supra Twin Turbo and of course the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Any one of these would have, and still would, clean the clocks of most cars twice or even three times their price. All were cheap to maintain (if you had the know how), and all were cheap to tune. The 3000GT will always be special in my mind though, not in the least because I used to own one.

General

The GTO (which is easier to type than 3000GT), was essentially a Mitsubishi Galant on steroids. Not brown bag in the gym from the shady guy with the small nads steroids. No, these were the kind produced in secret by communist super powers, derived from extensive human trials on enemies of the state, designed to give their athletes the edge at the expense of a couple of decades of time on earth.

Basically you take the Galant...the top of the line Galant VR-4, you take off two doors and streamline the body work. You fit a front and rear spoiler and connect them to a computer. You plug the suspension into the same computer. You make it so the steering wheel controls all four wheels. You switch out the transmission for a Getrag 6 speed box with an inline viscous coupling. Then....then you start to get really serious...

Power

Mitsubishi opted to give this fat man the heart of a bionically enhanced super athlete. The 6G72 "cyclone" engine, boosted by twin turbochargers, each with its own air intercooler. 12psi boost was standard on early models but this was increased to 14psi in the mid 90's to give 325bhp right off the showroom floor.

It didn't stop there either; sodium filled valves (for charge cooling), an oil cooler, adaptive ECU, solenoid boost control, 4 wheel steering, permanent 4 wheel drive via viscous coupling differential, 4 wheel LSD, computer controlled active suspension, active aerodynamics and a plethora of other technologies, Mitsubishi really kitted this motor out with every trick in the book.

The end results was good and bad. Yes, the car had MASSIVE power, and it could shift off the line like nothing else. I actually had the boost dialed up another few psi on mine, and it was difficult to even reach for the gear shifter under hard acceleration. The trouble was the sheer weight of the car. At 1725kg without the driver, this was a heavyweight. The springs did what they could, and the engine certainly didn't notice much, but when you went around a corner the tires and the suspension were feeling the pain.

I admit have always been a "spirited" driver, but I've never had a car eat track rod ends like this one. That and the tires. Suffice to say, once you have forced your track rods into submission, your brand new tires will be running on cords within 4000miles or so....trust me.

That said, if you drive in town, most of the time all you need is to beat the other guy off the line, and to be able to overtake easily. That and some high speed cruising. In those departments, I have never had another car like this one. 0-60 was 4.5s, and that was because I had spent £350 on a minor electronic intervention. It was 4.5s in sunshine, 4.5s in rain, even in the snow this thing could find grip and charge off the lights like an incensed rhino. It was a good feeling, to drive around knowing you could never be in the wrong lane, and never lose on the lights. I once (legally) had her up to 150mph, and in 6th gear I put my foot down hard. The acceleration from 150mph to 165 was absolutely mind blowing. At 30mph in perfect conditions, you could drop it into second, slam down the loud pedal and your tyres would be shredded in seconds. This was most certainly a car that could put a smile on your face!

Handling

Not the strong suit of the GTO. Not to say it handled badly, but it was certainly no ballerina on the corners. It's a big old car, and it lurched into the bends when you took them hard. Traction was amazing, but eventually the tires would run out of generosity and give way. Thankfully this was very hard to do most of the time. I found that the lack of turning circle meant it was difficult to manoeuvre in tight spaces. In fact there were certain car parks that I simply dare not enter should I get blocked in and be unable to perform a 3 point escape.

Grip wise the GTO was strong. Four wheel drive meant you could always rely on getting traction, but this came at the expense of some understeer. The rear wheels were steered to compensate for this, and sometimes it compensated perfectly. My experience though was that unless you were going all out balls to the wall, the rear wheel steering wasn't dramatic enough to make much of a difference.

All in all the handling was more in line with what you would expect from a large executive saloon rather than a GT car. The GTO was ideologically somewhere between a sports car and a GT, and a lot of that ambiguity seems to have come from it's handling. I think if the techs at Mitsubishi just trimmed a few kgs and tightened up the right screws this could have really been a world beater, instead of the cult phenomenon it came to be.

Looks

Here is one category where I would objectively say the GTO has the edge on its opposition. It actually looks like a true supercar. Something about the sweeping lines and curves and pinched waist sets it apart from its Japanese competitors. The spoilers always looked cool when they popped up, made me feel like I was Michael Knight activating super pursuit mode. Though, I actually nearly tore the front spoiler off going over a speed bump the first time it ever came on.

Wherever I went people used to tell me how hot the car looked. Sometimes I even saw people taking pictures of themselves with it when I popped into shops. I even found myself looking at it sometimes when I stepped out after a long drive. Something about the styling just reminded me of the kind of car I always wanted when I was 8 years old. There was something very satisfying about that. 

If I think of the word supercar, there is really only two images that come to mind. Something about that word just evokes images of exotic machines in flash colours. For me specifically I always think of the silhouette of a Lotus Esprit, and these days; the look of my old GTO, from any angle!

Reliability

Well, what can I say. I drove it like I stole it every day for 4 years. I put over 50,000 miles on it and it never let me down once. The only trouble I ever had was a couple of blown fuses and the bearings on the AC compressor pump. Admittedly the AC pump was declared NS by the garage (a part I had chosen not to try and repair myself) so I elected to remove the entire AC system rather than pay the £1000 for the replacement part. A potential weak point however was the cambelt. The 60,000 mile cambelt change really needs to be honored  as a good friend of mine found out very soon after I sold him my car. (Sorry about that!). That aside, it never burnt a drop of oil, nor missed a spark nor failed to start. A real soldier. 

Overall

On reflection, the best car I ever owned. I felt I had got value for every penny I had spent buying it by the time I had brought it home for the first time. It was just that much fun to drive! Every day after that was just a gift. Faster than 99.9% of the cars on the road, cost me nothing to maintain except a few tires and track rods (and an occasional oil change), it got me around in safety in 1ft of snow and up the mountain roads of the lake district. All in all I can't say I noticed its shortcomings very much at all. It drank petrol, 17mpg on average, though that never bothered me too much. It was also a little too big for a standard UK parking space, which occasionally caused problems. As well as that the turning circle could be measured in miles, which meant you really had to think twice before going down a narrow road. None of that really mattered though, because this car was meant to do one thing, and that is let poor kids like me smoke £150k Ferrari's, and it did that very well indeed.