£1000 Challenge
Mitsubishi Galant
JON BURGESS The Galant is still racking up the miles despite its list of woes.
Aged 28, it’s covered just over 8400 miles a year; judged that way, its near moon-shot odometer reading seems more than reasonable. Looked after, Nineties cars have a good chance of going the distance without rot or major mechanical failure curtailing things prematurely, which is why I always find banger rally-forced jeopardies ludicrous. Like it or loathe it, that’s how most people perceive cars like our Galant: cheap wheels to run into the ground.
It may or may not need a new cylinder head gasket (and its coolant consumption may still suggest this), but engines the age of the Galant’s 4G63 tend to exist in their own microcosm, appetite for fluids included. Radwood UK – a new event at Goodwood, celebrating Eighties and Nineties cars and culture (see page 13) – then, was its chance to shine.
Leaks or otherwise, that 2.0-litre engine remains sweet; thank the twin balancer shafts for that, together with the inevitable tenuous link between our Galant and the Lancer Evolution rally replica series. The Galant’s bottom end may be the same as an Evo’s, but only in the same way that a 2.0-litre Transit’s is analogous to a Sierra Cosworth.
The Galant’s motor started instantly on the damp morning I headed for Radwood. The trip to my first stop – Fareham in Hampshire, where friend Sam Mace was waiting – comprised mostly motorway miles. As expected, MILES FROM OUR TARGET the Galant wasn’t particularly interested in doing anything other than plodding along, twirling its twin trip meters in harmony. It ticked over to 235,000 miles on the M3, so if anything had gone bang, it would have died doing what it loved. It then made light work of local routes to Goodwood.
Directed up a gravel perimeter road around the entirety of the track, the car was less than sparkling when it rolled into the paddock housing at Radwood UK. Arriving at any event in the Galant normally prompts confusion (and direction to modern parking); not so here. CEO and co-founder, Art Cervantes, needed a lift across the track to the main staging area – and the Galant obliged. ‘This is exactly the sort of car we wanted – it’ll fit right in,’ he said. Where else outside the Festival of The Unexceptional would we hear a statement like that?
Nowhere did the Galant look stranger than it did on Goodwood’s grid, in fact, parked adjacent to Fiat Motor Club GB’s Tipo 1600 DGT – a local asked why we were bothering.
That the Galant is pushing 30 was utterly lost on him – and shows that a great deal of 1980s and ’90s cars are still regarded as disposable.
Filling the Galant in Chichester caused the trip’s only major problem. The tank is allegedly 60 litres in capacity, but getting it past 40 was a chore; spit back from the pressure in the tank kept clicking the pump trigger off. Fuel exploded out of the nozzle and all over me and the forecourt. Given that it felt like most of Chichester was in the process of brimming their tanks for the coming week, it didn’t help anyone’s mood.
A 33mpg average really isn’t bad; I was hoping premium fuel might up the ante, but the Galant supped at the same rate regardless.
A quick tour of Portsmouth’s sights got the radiator fans working long enough for an ignorant cab driver to test the ABS brakes under the watchful eye of Southsea’s Esplanade Naval Memorial.
Driving rain tested the wipers and door seals on the way home, but, unlike Charlie’s last outing, nothing leaked – even in the boot. Despite a dead cruise control unit, the Galant trudged on unbothered, leaving us with nothing but the radio and whistling door seal for company.
Given enough fuel and care, J768 BAL would probably continue its motorway duties indefinitely; as it approaches 250k miles, we see no reason for it not to continue
doing so.