SOTW: Mitsubishi 3000GT

In celebration of GT5, Shed picks out a 90s gizmo feast

In honour of this week's release of Gran Turismo 5, Shed has decided to head east for a bit of a techno fest. The mission? To find the car with as much technical wizardry crammed into it as humanly possible for just £1000. The SOTW, in other words, that most represents the good ol' Playstation generation.

The problem is that most of the gizmo-heavy cars synonymous with that most famous of driving games are way out of Shed's £1k league. Skyline GT-R? Forget it. Fast Subarus and Lancer Evos? Not likely. Mazda RX-7? Not the curvy 1990s Polyphony Digital sort. And the Honda Prelude? Well... maybe, but it's got just a bit too much of an old-man cloth-cap image for our purposes.

Which is why we've plumped for the (slightly tatty) black beauty you see here. Now, the Mitsubishi 3000GT has come in for a bit of stick in the past on these pixellated pages (have a looky at our 'PH Zeroes' feature on the big Mitsubishi and you'll see what we mean), but it has its good points, too - not to mention a deeply loyal fan base.

The techno trickery on the top-spec, 280bhp-plus VR4 models is - for an early 90s car - immense. There is a tuneable exhaust, pop-up headlights, four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering and four-wheel ABS, electrically deploying spoilers at both ends, and even something called an 'Electronic Time and Alarm Control System' (no, we're not sure either).

Unfortunately, the more powerful turbocharged version is beyond our meagre Shed of the Week budget, so we've had to settle for the 24-valve, naturally aspirated V6, which produces a steady 220bhp. But if that sounds punchy, it isn't - because the 3000GT weighs in at a frankly lardy 1700kg.

It's also worth mentioning that Shed's spec knowledge doesn't drill down into the finer points of the 3000GT model range, but we would be surprised if some of the gadgetry we mentioned just now doesn't feature on lower-spec models.

Even so, this imported GTO (the 3000GT was called the GTO in Japan, but renamed for Europe and North America so as not to offend the sensibilities of fans of Ferraris and Pontiacs) IS four-wheel drive and DOES have a V6 - you just might have to pretend about some of the the rest of the tech fest.

This 1992 found its way to the UK in 1998 and, since then, has gathered some history. It is currently replete with MOT and an odometer reading a not-too-ridiculous 102,000 miles and, although it looks as if it needs a spot of TLC, it seems basically to be sound.

Of course, buying anything this old, with this much complicated technology squeezed in and around the bodywork, is potentially going to be an expensive horror story, but we can't think of a better way to celebrate those halcyon days when neither the words PlayStation nor Gran Turismo came with any numbers attached to them...

Advert is reproduced below

Mitsubishi GTO 3000GT - auto - V6 (1992)
102,000 miles £995

This is a Mitsubishi 3.0 GTO, Auto,Non Turbo . Its a 1992 model finished in Black with a Grey Interior, it is in good condition. This GTO was imported in 1998 it is the Auto - non turbo model, with great performance.
1992 MITSUBISHI GTO 3.0 V6 AUTO BLACK
MOT - HISTORY

* Finished in Black
* Grey Cloth Interior & Carpets
* Boot Spoiler
* Tinted Windows
* Twin Exhaust System
* Low Profile Tyres
* Upgraded Alloys
* Auto Box
* JVC CD/radio player
* Air Conditioning/Temperature Control
* Electric Windows
* Electric Mirrors
* 102,000 Miles
* Full MOT
* Cat 1 Alarm System
* Cruise Control
* Remote locking

All in all a great car for very little money, the bodywork is in good condition but it could do with a good clean and a polish to make it sparkle like it used to.

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