Junkyard Find: 1979 Dodge Colt With Twin-Stick Transmission
Chrysler’s run of selling rebadged Mitsubishis began way back in 1970, when the rear-wheel-drive Colt Galant arrived here for the 1971 model year. Those cars sold very well in North America, with sales continuing through 1978. After that, Colt badges went onto the front-wheel-drive Lancer Fiore (later sold here as the Mirage). Here’s one of those first-year FWD Colts, found in a Denver-area yard in nice condition and equipped with the extremely cool Twin-Stick dual-range transmission.
Mitsubishi built the Twin-Stick for Dodge/Plymouth Colts, Plymouth Champs, Mitsubishi Cordias, and Mitsubishi Tredias in the North American market from the late 1970s through the middle 1980s.
The Twin-Stick (known as the Super Shift in Japan) was an overdrive unit inside a four-speed manual transmission, giving the driver eight forward and two reverse speeds. In practice, most Twin-Stick pilots would keep the car in the low range until the top of fourth gear on the highway, then switch to the high range. Various names were used for the Twin-Stick ranges over the years; this car has the POWER/ECONOMY labels, while others might have had P/E or even E and a star. I still find Twin-Sticks in junkyards, but the numbers are dwindling.
Last year, I harvested a Twin-Stick lever from an ’84 Colt and used it as the basis for a beer tap handle, which I donated to a South Denver burger joint. That’s how cool the Twin-Stick is (to car geeks).
The 1.6-liter 4G32 engine in the ’79 Colt made 80 horsepower, which was decent for an econobox of the time.
MCA-Jet was an emission-control system with a small second intake valve for each cylinder, causing more swirl of the fuel/air mix in the combustion chambers and more complete fuel burning. It didn’t work as well as Honda’s more advanced CVCC system, but it was a lot less complex.
The Bordello Red interior still looks pretty good at age 41.
Do you think modern car audio systems are too complicated? Check out the simplicity of this Mitsubishi AM-only radio.
The Malaise is strong in this yard, with a Granada right next door to the Colt.
For links to 2,000+ additional Junkyard Finds, head over to the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Liked - "Last year, I harvested a Twin-Stick lever from an ’84 Colt and used it as the basis for a beer tap handle, which I donated to a South Denver burger joint. That’s how cool the Twin-Stick is (to car geeks)."
This could very well be my Dad's old car. Identical in every way, not sure if the Red strip trim was factory or after market and the glue reside on the back glass ? He had the aluminum mirror tint on the back glass ( 1980 ) and a few Scuba dive stickers. As a kid I have many memories in this car - sitting on his lap while he let me "Drive" on the highway, removing the sunroof with me up top like a Tank Commander ( out on logging roads. LOL. He drove that thing to Idaho and back to Montana every weekend with it never breaking down. He still says today it was the most reliable car he's owned.