LASER TX3

IN ITS DAY THE TX3 TURBO 4WD PROVED TO BE A GIANT KILLER. GOOD ONES ARE NOW GETTING HARD TO FIND

Australians can be endemically slow at adopting technologies that in other parts of the world underpin automotive advancement.

We haven’t been big fans of the diesel car (possibly a good thing) and while our roads and outback tracks are now brimming with all-wheel driven ‘SUVs’ we really never became enchanted by the concept of a 4WD passenger or performance car.

Subaru, Mazda and Mitsubishi in the late 1980s all had a go at getting the buying public interested in all-wheel drive chassis and boosted engines. In there as well from 1987 was a 4WD version of Ford’s Laser but it didn’t attract much interest until the bigger-engined KF version arrived in 1990.

The KF and later KH Lasers shared their entire structure and most mechanical innards with Mazda’s well-loved 323. A nose job and tail-tuck managed to create a shape that was sufficiently different from the Mazda and the TX3 was sold only in three-door form.

The 1840cc engine with its IHI turbocharger and conservative 8psi of boost did a decent job and left plenty of scope for enhancement. Output in standard trim was 117kW, torque a paltry 206kW developed at 3000rpm.

However, with Goldilocks gear ratios and only 1180 kilograms to move, the TX3’s mid-range acceleration was impressive. From there on it was up to the owner and just how tempting of Fate they wanted to be. Cars with intercoolers, uprated internals and adjustable boost can deliver 220-250kW while maintaining reasonable reliability.

Helping keep the weight – and the list price

– down was an almost complete absence of