Used Car Focus: Mitsubishi Colt

The Z30 was a much stronger contender than its predecessor, and the first Colt to have a truly European flavour. But how does the Japanese hatch stack up as a used buy? Craig Cheetham finds out.

Looking at the 2002-2013 models.

It’s a little-known fact, but the 20022013 Mitsubishi Colt actually has a rather grand provenance. It was the first all-new Mitsubishi to be styled by French designer Olivier Boulay, who took on the role of the Japanese firm’s head of design while it was still part of Daimlerchrysler, which also owned Mercedes-benz. It was with Mercedesbenz that Boulay began his career – his three best-known designs before the upright hatchback being the Mercedes W140 S-class and W202 C-class. He was also the lead stylist on the Maybach 62, so to design a Japanese supermini was quite a contrast to his previous dalliances with premium and prestige.

Revealed in European specification at the 2003 Paris Motor Show, the Colt arrived at quite a revolutionary time for the supermini market. Small cars were quickly taking over from those in the segment above as the European market’s best-sellers. The best-known of the lot, the Ford Fiesta, was entering a new generation, while other newcomers included the Volkswagen Polo, Citroën C3 and Honda Jazz.

Of those, while the Fiesta very quickly became the nation’s favourite, it was the Jazz that got the lion’s share of media plaudits thanks to its brilliantly simple but amazingly practical interior layout, with a flat floor and neat, flat-folding load bay that would easily accommodate a tumble drier, should you ever feel the need to drive around with one in the back.

In design terms, the Colt was more of the same. It was developed alongside the smart forfour, which used the same engines, transmissions and running gear but was very different from the floor upwards. Whereas the smart was a fourseater that placed style over substance, the Colt went very much the other way, aiming to beat the Jazz in the practicality stakes with a similar seat-folding arrangement and upright bodywork.

It was a clever piece of design and one that won it a lot of praise, not least because it was hugely more advanced than the rather ordinary Colt that it replaced. Unlike the Jazz, the Colt was also offered as a three-door as well as the five-door model that accounted for the lion’s share of sales.

While the car was manufactured for many countries in Japan, all European models were constructed at the independent Nedcar plant in Börn, Netherlands – the former Volvo facility that started working for Mitsubishi when it collaborated with the Swedish manufacturer on the Carisma and S40, both of which shared the same platform and were built at the factory.

With the next-gen S40 moving to Sweden, though, and the Carisma