This 1980 Dodge Colt is a bit rougher around the edges than I originally thought when I saw it listed here on eBay yesterday. I love these little cars, and if rust isn’t an issue, this one could be worthy of a one-car-garage refresh. Plus, this one has the famous Twin-Stick manual shifters! It’s located in Mullins, South Carolina, and they’re asking $1,999.
I believe this faded, dinged-up paint color is Maroon Metallic, according to this paint chart. It sure looks like it’s seen better days; it’s faded, scratched, and there are many dings and little dents all over this little car. It’s a shame, I don’t know how a car can end up looking like this without being purposely treated harshly. You can see that even the driver’s side mirror is missing, dang. There is no passenger side mirror, but it’s because it didn’t come with one as standard equipment.
The weird part is that I don’t see any rust anywhere, do you? If that’s the case, the rest of the body can be fixed and straightened, and this car can be brought back to life again. Dodge offered the Colt (a rebadged Mitsubishi) here from 1971 through 1994, and this is a fourth-generation car, made from 1979 through 1984.
The dash is as wacky as McHale’s Navy (what kind of ancient reference is that, SG?!), the steering wheel is cracked, and the seats look generally, well, not good. The back seat doesn’t look horrible, or at least the bottom part. The rear cargo area shows what the top of the back seat looks like. I’d strip this interior out to the floorboards and start over. Is it worth spending a couple of grand on a dash rebuild from JustDashes.com? Maybe not, but good luck finding one in a junk yard. The cool part here, of course, would be the unusual twin shift levers known as “Twin-Stick,” or what Dodge referred to as the world’s first eight-speed manual transmission for cars (page 10 of this brochure). It was standard on the hatchback, and Mitsubishi called it “Super Shift.” It is basically a four-speed with a high/low shifter, or one for economy and one for power. I know a few of you have had cars with this shifter, so hopefully you’ll fill in the blanks.
The engine has a lot of surface rust, but hey, this car is in South Carolina. This is Mitsubishi’s 4G12, a 1.4-liter SOHC inline-four with just 70 horsepower and 78 lb-ft of torque when new. Passing through the unique Twin-Stick manual to the front wheels, but sadly, this engine cranks but doesn’t start. Ouch. Drop a ____in it! Is this car worth a gamble at two-grand?
FINALLY, leave it to the master to bring us back to reality, even if it is a lowly Dodge Colt/Plymouth Champ. To be clear on the authors statement, McHales Navy show was based directly on the movie “The Wackiest Ship in the Army”, so there’s merit there.
The old 2 stick, by gar, that takes me “back to the old Mack”. Not sure of the “split-shift” capabilities, like the other “multi-stick” contraptions, GM Lightning Rods or Ramblers rendition, merely a fancy O/D is all it was. I can just see the job interview, “can you handle a Mack twin stick, boy? Well, I had a Dodge Colt once,,,YOU’RE HIRED”!!! Believe it or not, I got several trucking jobs that way. I believe these got outstanding mileage, but many just left it in “high range”. Nobody wants it, the 1 stick would throw most off, but 2?? $500 bucks tops, and I have a spare headlight from my Jeep for this. I never drive at night anyway I’d be willing to sell,,, $400 BUCKS,,,that’s right, who’s stupid now,,,sorry, haul it away, Joe,,
FWIU most buyers split-shift it exactly once before leaving it in POWER through the four gears and shifting it into ECON after 4th. The next generation had a shifter that looked and worked like a normal 5-speed but the Twin-Stick splitter box was still there, it just only worked on 5th.
Had one of these little cars new 1980 and it was a good small car. I did opt for the dressed up version? It had the aluminum wheels and larger tires. Bright yellow paint with stripes with a hound’s tooth fabric in the interior. Got good gas mileage and the twin stick was great on a mountain road. Low range kept the engine in its happy zone, high range it was quite content on the highway. You could have 8 speeds but not really quickly. If I remember correctly they did have a turbocharged version and it was a rocket. These were uncommon then and I can’t remember when I saw one on the road.
I had the Turbo. Fantastic little car. Went from a Chevette. Like going from a riding lawnmower to a Ferrari.
The Twin-Stick was really just a cheap and easy stopgap for Mitsubishi to add an effective overdrive ratio to their existing 4-speed transaxle until they could develop a proper 5-speed transaxle.
Their FWD packaging already used an intermediate idler shaft between the clutch output and the transmission input below it, so they realized it would be fairly simple to have two different idler gears with a selector to choose which one was engaged.
In actual practice, most owners drove around town in Power range, and only switched to Economy range in 4th gear on the highway for better mileage and a more relaxed cruising RPM.
Turbo Colt – “Don’t Step On The Gas Unless You Mean It” – said a sticker on the back glass.
Neat cars. Two levers is cool. Great write up SG.. and the brochure 🤌
Real secret to the good mileage probably not so much the twin stick, but the approx 1800lbs curb weight 🪶
Scotty, any car that spent time street parked in the city or on a college campus has the potential to end up looking like a golf ball, and cars like this were frequently used in those environments. I, myself, knocked the side mirror off a car in my college days riding my bicycle to class. I circled back to leave a note and discovered that the mirror had been held on with tape, so I turned back around and continued on my way.
My sister had a Plymouth Champ (with nicer trim inside), and for a teenager who learned to drive with the family land yachts, the quick, go-kart reflexes of her Champ were a revelation. It had no power, but it was a blast to drive!
There’s something about a sub-compact hatchback that really appeals to the functional side of me. 2-box design & FWD, about as simple as it gets.
This one looks pretty well-used, that front bumper looks like it’s taken at least one thumping. Probably the kinda vehicle you just get running, then continue to run it into the ground.
Nice one, Scotty. I bought an ’84 Colt GTS Turbo in the early ’90s for $700 “as is,” hoping that it was just the timing belt. That turned out to be true and $35 later I was tearing up the streets of Pittsburgh. In low range it would roast the original (not so great) tires all the way through first and second and they would squeal and grab in third. Eagle eyes will recognize my favorite tire by the tread pattern: BFG Comp T/A HR4s. Torque steer? You could easily change lanes by flooring it with the wheel held straight. My friend Tim christened it the “Turbo Death Trap.” At about 10 feet long, it made it a potent traffic squirter. It became my wife’s DD and she put 30,000 miles on it in one year, averaging about 30 MPG. Thanks for the memories!
Had an ’81, got t-boned, and I still have the drivetrain I pulled from it waiting for a project.
I had a new 1984 Plymouth Colt turbo with the twin sticks. What a fun little car. I was a Mitsubishi fan by then and I bought a new 1986 Mirage turbo. Both red. Hard to find these days.
I had it’s twin, the Plymouth Champ (same year and trans) and I think this color is “ballast sand”. Great car. At the risk of sound like the old man I am – “they don’t make ’em like this anymore”.
Always wanted one of these to turn into a pocket rocket, swap in a Mitsubishi 4G63, upgrade the suspension and away we go looking for unsuspecting victims ;)
Looks like a Japanese-made pseudo-Chrysler Yugo! (hee, hee, heeee…)
One more note: Almost anything on this car can be repaired with a 10mm wrench. We used to joke about the “Mitsubishi Tool Kit” being a 10mm wrench in a velvet box.
Had one for years! It made a 140 mile roundtrip daily commute for several months! great gas mileage and perky in low range! Sold it and guy ran it for many more miles!
I’d buy this a lot sooner than I’d buy some of the Rustangs listed here. My friend had a Champ he drove for work, and it was a decent little car, very fuel stingy.
A reminder of how much I miss the small hatchbacks of this era. They were cars that didn’t have to have huge engines to be fun to drive. My GLC is still my favorite car I ever owned.
Bought a 79 Champ new. Had the bigger 1.6L engine, dual trans, and AC. Purchased for the wife’s daily driver. I borrowed it on weekends to autocross. Did well as there weren’t many entries in the FWD class. Unfortunately, the engine gave it up at 30K miles. Traded it in on an 81 Colt that the wife forbid me to race. Purchased a 76 Fiat X1/9 and I was racing again. I will say that I’d like to find another Champ/Colt but not this one. It’s been abused and neglected. I’ll keep looking.
These are fun to drive!! Drove them when they were brand new!!
Had the Champ… Thought that this one was my old one.. The no mirror on the driver’s side look, eh?
Mirror fell off. Went to the recycling yard, actually found my old VW Bug and got the mirror off. Took it up to the office to pay for it and told the counter man that it was off my old Bug ( that my ex wife let get burned up after we split) He let me have it for nothing. Went to a friend and got the right sized drill bit, ran the hole and screwed it in. Mitsubishi had an engineering problem with the mirrors on these.
The twin stick! Every manual transmission needs it! …most awesome way to drive in traffic. Creep in the lower range in first gear in stop and go. Buzz up through the gears always in the right range at about 1,600 rpms. Effortless. Silky smooth clutch. Back and forth up and down through all the gears as needed. High range in fourth on the Interstate and near 40 mpg all the time. Drove 240 miles in a blizzard and steady as she goes, made it to work rather than go home. Front wheel drive pulling me through the drifts and nobody on the road most of the trip on I-64. Had to wait at the entrance to the bridge tunnel entrance while the Payloaders dumped snow into the river and get it clear enough to enter the tunnel. Twin stick. Oh, yeah. Nothing stopped my Champ. Before I set out for the coast I had been off-roading in the snow in the mountains all day. A trip that usually took 4 hrs and 20 minutes took about 6 hours. I never felt safer in the conditions that evening… Just the original all weather tires, too.
That’s my twin stick story and I’m sticking to it.
I messaged the seller on eBay to ask if they had spark and fire if they used starter fluid. Seller stated that it is a non-running project, I countered by saying I wouldn’t pay $1000 if I didn’t know it at least would fire and sputter.
Wifey had one, her first car and only new car purchase between the two of us. It’s a great little car, good mileage, decent fit and finish, as I recall we had to replace the clutch but that was because wifey sorta rode the clutch at inclined stop signs and that eventually caught up at about 110K miles. But we got another 40K before I, yes me, wrecked it. It really was a nice car, my bad. Looks like this project has replacement seats, those don’t look original to the car, not just the seat covers, the whole seats look bigger than what I recall and the color of the plastic parts is a mis-match. But I may be wrong about theses being from a different vehicle. I love it, glad to see so many here have good things to say. We drove that Colt on our honeymoon, one leg was from Cades Cove to Robbinsville using the Parson’s Branch Road that was closed for many years but appear now to be reopened. Go check out the map on Google, that was an incredible drive up and over the Smoky Mountains and the Colt delivered.
One of my sisters co-workers had one of these. They were actually a fun little car. Strangely I saw someone use the body off of one of these on a northeastern asphalt modified up at Lancaster Speedway outside of Buffalo back in the day. It looked… Interesting.
Flew into Albuquerque in about 1983 or 84, had one of these as a rental car. (a) surprised that a rental car had a manual transmission (b) Had never heard of or seen one of the twin-sticks. Had a ball driving it around town. Never seen another one anywhere.
I had an old “76 Dodge Colt wagon back in the day in Houston, TX with an aftermarket hang-on AC unit that would vibrate when on high speed to the point it was separating from the dash. I loved that car otherwise as it drove like a charm. Two-tone blue and gray. Ah, back in the day.
My wife and I bought an 81 Plymouth Champ with the twin stick in it. Ours was red with a silver pinstripe and the 1.6 engine. This little car was so much fun to drive! My brother said it reminded him of his old MGB (how it ran, handled and sounded). We always drove it in Power mode through the gears, then Economy in fourth, but had to run it through the gears a few times using both P and E. The second shift lever had P and E on it with a little arrow showing which way to move it for those two options. We drove it to Ohio, from Connecticut, to visit my brother and got 44 mile per gallon with it! Growing family meant bigger car so our little Champ had to go. Very hard to find a nice one anymore! It was our first brand new car too. $5900 brand new!