Good morning! I seem to have inadvertently turned this into a theme week. Today’s choices both have east-west-oriented V6 engines backed by five-speed manuals. In fact, they’re almost the same V6 engine, though the cars look nothing alike.
Yesterday’s choices had their pistons all in a line, like oily Rockettes. Six in a row may make them go, but not too quickly, with their automatic transmissions. I expected the BMW to put up more of a fight, but the pride of the Badger State simply ran away with the votes. It was the plaid interior, wasn’t it? Gets ’em every time.
I realize that the results could have been very different if the BMW were in better shape, but there actually was a point to putting these two cars together. For the same price, you could have a tired example of an overplayed classic, with both the wrong engine and wrong transmission, or you could have a left-field choice in far better shape, and lean into the unusualness of it. I’m glad the majority of you chose the Hornet.
Now let’s turn our attention to an engine you probably don’t think about too often. It’s never on any “Ten Best” lists, and you won’t hear anyone singing its praises, but for twenty years, it powered minivans, family sedans, luxury sedans, sports coupes, SUVs, and even pickups. It’s the Mitsubishi 6G72, and both of today’s cars are powered by different versions of it. They’re both five-speed manuals, both two-door liftbacks, and both the top of their respective model ranges. Let’s check them out.
1994 Dodge Shadow ES – $2,500
Engine/drivetrain: 3.0 liter overhead cam V6, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Ararat, NC
Odometer reading: 181,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
First off, I want to give credit where credit is due: Hat-tip to Opposite Lock user HFV_Junkyardin for bringing this car to my attention. The Dodge Shadow, and its twin the Plymouth Sundance, is a car with which I am quite familiar, but only in its base-model “America” trim, with Chrysler’s sturdy but low-powered 2.2 liter K engine. This top-of-the-line ES model has two more cylinders, forty more horsepower, and probably a lot more standard features.
The Mitsubishi V6 replaced Chrysler’s turbocharged four-cylinder starting in 1992. It’s down a little on both power and torque from the turbo, but it’s still plenty for the little Shadow. This one runs well, and has a new clutch and exhaust, but suffers from a few oil leaks, namely the camshaft seals and the rear main seal. The cam seals are easy; they’re just little rubber plugs at the ends of the valve covers, but the rear main seal is behind the flywheel, and that means the transmission has to come out. Actually, now that I think about it, they should have noticed the leak and replaced the rear main seal while replacing the clutch. Unless it started leaking afterwards? Curious.
The rest of the car looks like it’s in fine shape. The dash cover would be a red flag, if there were any other signs of trouble, but I don’t see any. Even the headliner looks all right. My guess is that the cover has been on there since 1994. This car does have one annoying feature inside: being a final-year ’94 model, it has an airbag for the driver, but a motorized seatbelt for the passenger. Apparently Chrysler was too cheap (or too broke) to engineer a passenger-side airbag for one model year, when the Shadow and Sundance were about to be replaced by the Neon anyway.
Outside, it’s nice and straight, and I don’t see any signs of rust. I’m not a huge fan of the monochromatic white look on these – the blue and silver ones look a lot better to me – but at least it still has all its paint, unlike a lot of white cars from the ’90s.
2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: 3.0 liter overhead cam V6, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Kirkland, WA
Odometer reading: 136,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Mitsubishi’s Eclipse was a performance bargain from day one. Sure, you could get a bare-bones base model with a 92 horsepower four, but that’s not the version anyone daydreamed about. For two generations, the top-dog Eclipse had all-wheel-drive, a peaky turbocharged engine, and sharp handling. But the third generation Eclipse grew up, and got bigger and softer, more of a grand tourer than a sports car. All-wheel-drive was out, and the turbo four gave way to a hopped-up 24-valve version of the 6G72 V6, making 210 horsepower in this GTS model.
Like the Shadow, the Eclipse is a liftback, even though it doesn’t look like one. I don’t know why this feature has disappeared from modern cars; my cynical side says it’s because automakers don’t want sporty coupes to be too practical, lest buyers realize that they don’t need a big SUV to haul stuff, but it probably has more to do with crash safety or structural integrity. Whatever the reason, a hatchback on a car this shape makes a hell of a lot more sense than a mail-slot trunk lid.
This Eclipse runs and drives well, and like the Shadow, has a new clutch. It also has two new tires, presumably on the front. The interior is in nice condition, and I really like the two-tone effect. The GTS package includes leather seats and a bunch of power stuff in addition to the horsepower bump.
Outside, things aren’t quite as pretty: the clearcoat is peeling, and it’s plastered with mildly worrying stickers. I hate to generalize and say that any car with more than one Hoonigan sticker has suffered at the hands of a ham-fisted Ken Block wannabe driving too fast, but cheap powerful cars do seem to attract trouble. I can’t see what the stickers on the rear quarter window are, but the other one on the front says “Cars Are Pain,” which makes me think the seller is, to some degree anyway, one of us.
A relatively big engine in a small car has been a recipe for cheap fun for a long time now. It used to mean midsize coupes with big V8s, but by the ’90s and 2000s it meant taking the engine from Mom’s minivan and sticking it in an economy car or small swoopy coupe. Throw in a five-speed stick, and you’ve got a practical, fun car for not much money. Which one of these fits that bill better?
(Image credits: Shadow – Facebook Marketplace seller; Eclipse – Craigslist seller)
I prefer the Eclipse, it’s way better
Used to ride share in a turbo 4 automatic version of the shadow., could have been some chryco variant too, memory is foggy. I fit in the back seat which was something of an eye opener to me. I couldn’t fit in the front seat of an Eclipse without surgery. I’d go with the non-descript shadow and drive it until it died.
That shadow looks pretty fresh imho, very 90s vibe. Needs some teal accent stripes
this is the rare stealthy version. I remember all of those crazy colors of swooshy stripes from that era. Sporty truck? Getting swooshy stripes. Sporty model coupe? Getting swooshy stripes. Special edition model? Getting swooshy stripes, and so on and so on!
Swiggity swooty
Hatches disappeared because they cost more than trunks, and the majority of people don’t really care. If you want a hatch you have to buy a CUV (is the theory).
I completely agree they should make a comeback, but for that we’d have to transition back to sedans first. Also not helping is that China prefers sedans as well, so now the global designs are all sedans.
When did they fix the mitsu 3.0 v-6 oil burning issue? I had an 89 grand caravan that trailed a blue cloud behind it everywhere.
They never did. If you look online, most say it was due to valve stem seals hardening, which is true and did happen (once they got brittle enough they would break into pieces), but the real issue was the cast valve guides would wear and even if you replaced the seals, with the valve movement it would just wear the seals out and start burning oil again. I had a Dodge Spirit that the (used) car dealer replaced the seals on because it was smoking so bad within a week of purchasing it that cars would literally move out of the lane on the highway that I was on to avoid the smoke and burning oil smell. Within 3,000 km it was burning oil again. The only true fix was to remove the heads, machine the valve guides and install liners. I know some people knurled them which was cheaper and better than nothing but only a short term fix. I was lucky on ours because a branch came off a tree next door and totaled the car so I didn’t have to get into the engine again.
I swear, Mr adjuster, that branch fell onto the car out of the blue!
Oh it hit the house as well and tore the hydro lines off the connection to the house. The tree was a maple with a diameter of about 3 feet, and the branch was about a foot and a half in diameter. Damage to the car was actually minimal but due to the engine issue I took it to the Dodge dealer for a repair quote.
Oh no 🙁
The transmission went out on the van and we replaced it and sold it for a few hundred more than the repair. We did not do well owning that van.
My very first car was a ’93 Plymouth Sundance Duster with the V6, and that thing will always have a special place in my heart. Maybe I should go buy this one.
Same here exactly and I’m always on the lookout despite having no need for one or a place to put it.
I’m not really into either of these cars, but if I had to choose, I guess the Eclipse. At least it looks better standing still, and I feel like the exterior issues are more straightforward to deal with than the mechanicals.
I had a Black Cherry over grey mouse fur, ’91 5-sp Plymouth Sundance. I loved that car. It was so light that the milage, power and braking were wonderful. I would buy one if I found one in good shape.
I had a Dodge Shadow when I was in Uni…not a fancy spec. Just the 2.2, but that engine was pretty stout. It stood up to complete neglect from a family member before I took it on and somehow lived. The hatch itself was perfect for a university student that tends to move semester to semester – I even moved some friends around as well. Nostalgic pick for me.
I strongly suspect the Eclipse is a much nicer vehicle to drive because it’s a more modern design. So that one gets my vote.
K-car is the anti-Miata; never the answer.
The Shadow is a P-car. The successor to the K-car.
Close enough.
I’m tons of fun at parties.
I hold this Mitsubishi single-handedly responsible for the beginning of Mitsubishi’s decline in the US, as well as for usurping a name which its predecessor proudly carried in a wonderful car.
I know, I know, the Lancer Evo and the nice looking Lancers that came with it came to the US after that one, so the decline had some bright patches on it, but this along with Olivier Boulay’s redesign of the Diamante’s face were the things that waxed the downhill path which the 9th gen Galant/380 used to roll down at cannonball speeds taking every other model with it, and that has been ongong for 20+ years (latest nice Outlander not being enough on its own to pull the company back to shore).
Inhale.
The above one-liner is the expression of my chagrin on the subject.
Even if this Eclipse was single-handedly responsible for drug-resistant gonorheea it’s still miles better than the old Dodge POS with a leaky rear main seal.
Agreed…also:
“Well, I got gonorrhea”
-Kramer
“Like the Shadow, the Eclipse is a liftback, even though it doesn’t look like one. I don’t know why this feature has disappeared from modern cars”
I’m going to go out on a limb using a sample size of one. I often borrowed a friend’s then pretty new 1990ish Mustang liftback. A big motor in a wet noodle. At every slightest change of direction, that hatch would creak and moan and rattle it’s opinion. It could have been the build quality of the day, but it probably had something to do with cutting such big opening into the back.
That’s why anyone who was serious about drag (or street) racing bought the notchback Mustang. Stiffer and lighter and cheaper – win win win.
How well does blue devil work? 😀
The Shadow. These were new around the time I got my driver’s license, and I remember a few in the school parking lot. It wasn’t the kind of car I was interested in back then; I drove a lifted Chevy squarebody with a 350 and 35’s in HS, but I DID think they were clean looking. That monochromatic look was the SHIT back in that era. I remember the Berreta GTZ offered it too, and you could get it in TEAL as well.
I thought those Eclipses were piles even when new, so back then the only use I’d have for it would be to see if I could get a 35″ tire up on the hood.
i’m a fan of the shitbox Mopars of the 80s/early 90s. My first car was an 85 Plymouth Turismo, which the Shadow/Sundance replaced. Given that this has the V6 along with the 5-spd, this definitely would be my choice.
both are interesting, neither are really more than winter beaters for me though. I guess the 2 door with an OBD2 port for diagnostics would likely be the more desirable choice here in my opinion. go back a few years and make it an AWD eclipse with a turbo 4 and there would be zero wishy washiness on my part.
The Shadow seems like something I would have chosen while playing Gran Turismo 2 (no clue if it was in there or not, but still) so… It gets my vote.
I hate wrenching on a transverse mounted V6 so I’m not playing. Picking up my 10 mm sockets and going home
I have an irrational love for the Shadow/Sundance and that chiseled aero body. Never had one, never been in one, never known someone who owned one.
I had a 1989 Shadow ES Turbo for a couple years as a company car. It was black with the rear spoiler and power bulge hood, 5-spoke aluminum wheels, 2.5L turbo with 5-speed. I really liked it as it was an honest, reliable, straight-forward, fun to drive car built on the H-Body platform built at SHAP. At that time my wife drove our 1986 GLH Turbo that I ordered new, before eventually selling it to a co-worker in 1994. Good times.
Oops, it’s been a while. The Shadow was a P-Body; the H-Bodies were the Lancer /LeBaron siblings also built at SHAP.
The Sundance version of this was my first car. I’m sure my love of it is tied to that, but it was truly a fun car that got no respect. I will always love the profile of this car.
Nearly twenty years ago I dated a girl with one of those Eclipses, and even though it was only a couple years old, it was absolute turd of a car. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t nimble, and its reliability would make a Land Rover blush. It ran so poorly I assumed it must have had 200,000+ miles on it, but nope, only 46,000. I worked on that stupid car so often I started to think she was only dating me to save on auto repairs. Needless to say, I’m going with the Shadow.
Hooned vs. needs a new rear seal. I’ve done the latter. It… kind of sucks. I don’t want the former.
Tough choice. I’ll go rear seal.
Come on Salami, let’s jump in the white Shadow and head to the court for some roundball.
Half price on the Shadow might’ve swayed me, but I went with the Eclipse. I actually like the styling of the Eclipse; kinda wanted one as a youth. This one might be a little beat, but it’d be worth working on to me. Rather have a 3000 GT, but they’re probably even more worn out.
Vintage Motorweek on the Sundance (functionally identical to this Shadow): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT3fNqNaHuY