MY FEEDLY

A Forgotten Retro Classic – The Dodge Conquest TSI

The Dodge Conquest TSI is an oft-forgotten Rad-era classic with a combination of good looks and a long list of motorsport victories in the USA, Australia, Europe, Britain, Europe, and across Asia. A 4×4 version even won its class in the 1983 Paris-Dakar Rally.

Though it’s badged as a Dodge the car is actually a Mitsubishi Starion, it was offered as a Dodge, Chrysler, or Plymouth in the US market thanks to a partnership between the Japanese and American automakers.

Fast Facts – Dodge Conquest TSI

The Dodge Conquest TSI is a badge-engineered version of the wide body, turbocharged Mitsubishi Starion.
The Starion was a period sales competitor of the Mazda RX-7, Toyota Supra, and the Nissan Z cars. The Mitsubishi never quite achieved the fame or notoriety of its rivals, but it regularly beat them on race tracks around the world.
The Conquest TSI was sold under the Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth badges in the USA from 1984 to 1989.
The “TSI” designation was for the fuel-injected, turbocharged 2.6 liter, rear wheel drive version of the car with the wide body, producing 188 bhp in factory trim.

The Mighty Mitsubishi Starion

The Mitsubishi Starion is one of the largely unsung GT car heroes of the 1980s, it was one of the first turbocharged performance cars with electronic fuel injection out of Japan, and it proved almost unstoppable on race tracks from Japan and Macau, to Australia and the USA.

The Starion (and Conquest TSI) has a drag coefficient of 0.32, slightly better than the Mazda RX-7 and the Nissan 300ZX.

There can be little argument that the Starion is one of the best looking Japanese sports GT cars of its age, the wide body version in particular looks every bit the Japanese challenger to the Porsche 944.

The name “Starion” is a contraction of “Star of Arion,” Mitsubishi have explained that it refers to both a star and the mythical Greek horse of the same name. The horse was said to have been the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, it was ridden by the hero Heracles into battle during his expedition to Elis.

The four-wheeled version of the Starion had slightly less divine breeding, the steel unibody chassis was a modified version of that used on the earlier Mitsubishi Sapporo and the Mitsubishi Galant Lambda.

Though a four-wheel drive version was developed the vast majority of Starions were rear-wheel drive, with the engine up front in a longitudinal position sending power back through either a 5-speed manual transmission or an optional automatic.

Above Video: This vintage Motor Week review compares the Porsche 944 Turbo, Mitsubishi Starion ESI-R, Mazda RX-7 Turbo, and the Nissan 300ZX Turbo.

A small number of engines were offered however the most common two were the 2.0 liter Mitsubishi G63B engine (offered in both turbo and non-turbo versions) and the 2.6 liter G54B engine with a TD05-12A MHI turbocharger.

It would be this 2.6 liter engine that was used in the North American cars that would receive Dodge, Chrysler, or Plymouth badges.

Ultimately the Starion and its Conquest TSI equivalent would never achieve the legendary fame of cars like the RX-7 or the Supra, but on the bright side this means they’re also typically more affordable when they do come up for sale.

The car is powered by the turbocharged 2.6 liter G54B Mitsubishi engine producing 188 bhp.

The 1986 Dodge Conquest TSI Shown Here

The car you see here is a 1986 example of the Dodge Conquest TSI, it’s in largely original condition throughout – a rare thing in cars like this that were favored by generations of teenagers due to the lure of the turbo.

As you would expect this car is fitted with the turbocharged 2.6 liter G54B engine which is mated to the 5-speed manual transmission. This car has a red exterior with a black exterior, arguably the best color combination, and it’s riding on restored original staggered 16 inch cast aluminum wheels.

Elsewhere on the car you’ll find an original radio with EQ, dual power mirrors, a power antenna and windows, air conditioning, and a sport steering wheel with stereo controls.

The listing notes that this car has had a recent major service, and it’s due to be offered by Mecum with no reserve in January at the Kissimmee Auction in Florida. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Dodge Conquest TSI Mitsubishi Starion 13

Dodge Conquest TSI Mitsubishi Starion 11

Dodge Conquest TSI Mitsubishi Starion 10

Dodge Conquest TSI Mitsubishi Starion 12

Images courtesy of Mecum

The post A Forgotten Retro Classic – The Dodge Conquest TSI appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/dodge-conquest-tsi/
via gqrds

(via 1964 Porsche 904 GTS - SILODROME)

from Tumblr https://somar78.tumblr.com/post/671381187892264960

1 Of 100 Ever Made: The Rare Gordon-Keeble – A Corvette-Powered British GT Car

The Gordon-Keeble was the fastest four-seat car in Britain when it was released in 1964, with a top speed of 160 mph and a 0 – 60 mph time of just 6 seconds.

The car wasn’t just a straight-line performer either, thanks to its tubular steel space frame chassis, race-bred suspension, and lightweight fiberglass body it cornered as well or better than many of the high-end sports cars of its day.

Fast Facts – The Gordon-Keeble

The Gordon-Keeble was developed when John Gordon and Jim Keeble got together to develop a car. They had designed the one-off Gordon GT in 1959 for a USAF pilot named Rick Nielsen, and this led to the beginnings of their own marque.
The Gordon GT had been based on a Peerless chassis and running gear, the Gordon Keeble was a unique design powered by a Corvette V8 engine with a body designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro who was then working at Bertone.
Much like the Peerless that had come before it, the Gordon-Keeble could comfortably seat four adults, it had ample trunk space, and it had excellent performance by the standards of the day.
Just 100 examples of the Gordon-Keeble are believed to have been made, astonishingly 90 of them are known to still exist. Some say 99 were made, however one was built from parts after production technically ended.

The Peerless GT And An American Pilot

There has been more than one automaker named Peerless, however the British Peerless was founded in 1957 by John Gordon and James Byrnes.

The Gordon-Keeble has classic Giugiaro styling cues, he penned it relatively early in his career and you can see some styling cues used on some his later designs.

The British Peerless would be short-lived, they released a single car named the Peerless GT which had been designed by Bernie Rodger, the company ceased trading in 1960 after 325 examples had been built.

The Peerless GT had shown much promise, it was a handsome four-seat coupe with solid sporting credentials – it even took a class win at the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans. Peerless co-founder John Gordon partnered with engineer and racing driver Jim Keeble in 1959 at the behest of USAF pilot Rick Nielsen, who wanted a Chevrolet Corvette V8 swapped into a Peerless GT.

Once this car was built it was a revelation, vastly more powerful than the original car which had used the 2.0 liter inline-four cylinder engine from the Triumph TR3.

It was this Corvette-powered Peerless GT that set the wheels in motion for a new, small-scale automaker named after its two founders – Gordon and Keeble.

Gordon-Keeble – The Fastest Four-Seat Car In Britain

Though some structural design elements and concepts from the earlier Peerless GT made it into the Gordon-Keeble production car, it was a mostly new design with a stronger spaceframe chassis, uprated suspension and brakes, and of course, that much more powerful Corvette V8 under the hood.

The interior is beautifully appointed, the car is a sporting grand tourer and it has all the switch gear and gauges you’d hope for.

Company founders John Gordon and Jim Keeble didn’t cut any corners with the development of the car, they paid a not-insignificant sum to have it designed in Italy by an up and coming automobile stylist named Giorgetto Giugiaro. A man now widely regarded as the greatest automobile designer of the 20th century.

Giugiaro was working at Bertone at this time, so Gordon and Keeble shipped their chassis off to Italy to have the newly designed steel body fitted ready for its debut at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show on the official Bertone display stand.

With its sleek lines, unusual slanted quad headlights, spacious interior, and prodigious power output, the Gordon-Keeble attracted plenty of attention in Geneva. This steel-bodied prototype was then shipped off to the United States to be shown to executives at Chevrolet, who gave it the green light to receive Corvette V8s.

Once the prototype had been built and given approval by Chevrolet to receive engines the company still hadn’t created a logo. This was a problem that solved itself when a pet tortoise from a neighboring industrial unit escaped and paid an impromptu visit to the Gordon-Keeble facility one day.

This tortoise was picked up and placed on the hood of the car at which point it understandably wet itself. The British sense of humor being what it is, the company logo immediately became a tortoise standing in a puddle of yellow urine.

Production was delayed due to a shortage of critical parts from suppliers. When it did enter production in 1964 some modifications had been made, the body was now made from fiberglass as it was both much less expensive to build and significantly lighter.

The 5.4 liter Corvette V8 produces 300 bhp, enough to make the Gordon-Keeble the fastest four-seat production car in Britain at the time of its release.

The original 4.6 liter Corvette V8 had been upgraded to the 5.4 liter version with 300 bhp, giving the car a top speed of 160 mph and a 0 – 60 mph time of just 6.0 seconds – stats that are fast even by today’s standards.

As with many small-scale automakers, Gordon-Keeble would survive just a few short years from 1964 until 1967. There were attempts made to resurrect the car later in the 1960s, but just a handful of additional cars were made.

Today the surviving examples of the Gordon-Keeble are prized by their owners and sought after by collectors. The cars have never become well-known in the mainstream classic car world, but their owners tend to like the obscurity of the cars, and the fact that they’re still affordable compared with their peers from the era.

The Gordon-Keeble you see here is a 1964 model from the first year of production, it’s chassis number 28 of the 100 that were made.

This car is currently being auctioned live online by Car and Classic in the UK, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.