Pity the turbocharger. Today, nobody seems to care about it; it’s as ubiquitous as tire valve stem caps. Virtually any car or truck you buy comes standard with some sub-two-liter engine packing at least one if not two blowers and pumps out over 200 horses and gets 35mpg.
That wasn’t always the case. Once it was the magic cure-all for performance during the dark days of the malaise era, offering extra power for seemingly little pain at the pump. Just the world TURBO took on a magical power that transcended the automotive world.
Any of you own a hairdryer or room fan with those letters emblazoned on it? You aren’t alone.
The exhaust-driven blower was an innovation to be celebrated on any car that featured it under the hood. It was almost illegal to produce an early eighties car with such aspiration and not put at least a few TURBO logos on it somewhere. However, some cars were more TURBO festooned than others.
In much of the talk of classic Japanese sports coupes, the poor Mitsubishi Starion (and rebadged Chrysler Conquest) gets forgotten. This slick replacement for the Sapporo (also controversially branded as a Dodge Challenger) only came with a four cylinder, which seemed on paper to put it at a disadvantage next to its better-known competitors like the straight-six Toyota Supra and Datsun Z (which was later a V6) or the twin rotor Mazda RX-7. Ah, but the Starion had the magic power of TURBO, and it was going to let you know that, though it did so in rather subtle and odd ways. One version of the Mitsubishi coupe had nearly fifty TURBO logos that, surprisingly, many people might have missed.
When it debuted in 1982, the forced induction version of the Starion had your typical-for-the-eighties rocker panel area logo on the side to tell the world that you was about to hit the boost:
By 1984, Mitsubishi became shy for some reason backed off on the Turbo broadcasting…
…and relegated the TURBO logo to the door handles (as you can see in this Collecting Cars listing), where only the driver and passengers would know about your secret performance weapon.
They even put in what has to be the most subdued TURBO markings ever on a car; you can barely read the ones on these headrest supports.
For 1986, the Starion sprouted big Porsche 944-style fender extensions for a much more aggressive look. By now, seemingly none of the external TURBO markings remained, but on the inside the logos went viral. The question was, where did they appear?
No, it’s not the seat upholstery. That’s just unmarked black leather.
No, Mitsubishi chose to put TURBO insignias on the seats belts. That’s right; you can throw your turbo Z-cars and Supras out there all day, but did THEY have TURBO on a reel that appeared every time you buckled up? I think not.
How many logos could there be? Well, up front I can see like five there (plus one TUR), so assuming that this thing would need to retract to around twice that length we’re talking about ten logos, times two sides of each belt, times passenger’s belt for a total of at least forty TURBOs.
That’s not fifty though, right? No, but you’re forgetting about the BACK SEAT. That’s right, the pitiful 2+2 rear perches also give you TURBO branding which has to push that total TURBO count way past the fifty mark. Regardless, it has the competition left in the dust as far as Turboness goes. Hands down.
Am I wrong? Is there a car out there that packs more pure TURBO logo power than this mighty Mitsu? Let me know.
topshot source: Bring A Trailer
It’s articles like these that make me question whether Torch and the Bishop are two different people, as opposed to Jason on vs off half his meds.
I read this ENTIRE article, thinking it was Torch, until this comment. OY!
Love a box-flare Starion.
Just came across a manual turbo Starion in the junkyard, and body wise it looked pretty clean. Hadn’t been registered since 1998. Sometimes, the junkyard is a very sad place.
From the writing, it feels JT is the Bishop’s brother. Also, each ‘Turbo’ sign meant about 20hp, so that Starion had roughly 1’000 additional hp.