American fans of Mitsubishi horse carriage The family enjoyed a satisfying range of badge options for their cars in the mid-1990s, with the stripped-down three-door version available here with Mitsubishi, Dodge, Plymouth and Eagle badges. Among them, a Sold as the Eagle Summit Wagon is the hardest to find these days. I was able to document this scrapped ’93 at a Denver junkyard recently.
The Eagle brand was created by Chrysler in 1987 after its acquisition of American Motors Corporation, as a means of selling older AMC products that did not belong to the Jeep banner. For the 1988 model year, the Eagle line included Renault-sourced models. Premier Eaglethe Eagle Medal (Renault 21) And Eagle Eagle (formerly known as AMC Eagle (and the origin of the new brand name). Mitsubishi products soon joined the Eagle team, followed by an Eagle-badged Chrysler LH version called the Vision. Eagle was dissolved after 1998, replaced by… Nothingbecause few car buyers knew what the brand stood for. Plymouth followed Eagle into the graveyard soon after.
When Mitsubishi Mirage third generation appeared in the United States as a 1989 model, the same car was sold here as the Dodge Colt And Plymouth Mare. To keep Eagle dealers small, they have a version called the Summit. That’s right, American car buyers can buy Mirages from four different brands at the same time, and at very similar prices. In fact, they tend to buy the version with the best financing and/or warranty offers at any given time.
The Summit Wagon is the sibling of the Mitsubishi Expo, which itself is a Dodge/Plymouth based Colt Vista. For the second generation of Summit Wagons, sold for the 1993 through 1996 model years, the Summit Wagon was based on the Mitsubishi RVR, known as the Expo LRV in North America. By this time, the confusion caused by all the nearly identical Chryslerbishi minivans was no longer important, as American car buyers rush to the truck mass and don’t care.
1993-1996 RVR/Expo/Summit Wagon/Colt Vista models have one driver’s side door and two passenger side doors, one of which is a sliding door (in right-hand drive areas, the sliding door is on the left side of the vehicle, while the fuel tank remains on the right side).
The engine is the popular Mitsubishi 4G64 SOHC 1.8-liter four-cylinder.
A five-speed manual transmission is standard; an automatic is optional.
Only 135,000 miles at the end of the journey.
These are useful machines, but they are not as sturdy as trucks and cannot carry as much stuff as a minivan.
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Sadly, Bugs Bunny does not appear in TV commercials in the US market, and the Open Gear two-door retractable targa model is also not available at US dealerships.
