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Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:54 am
by IncorpoRatedX
Around three months ago this 79 Wagon was found sitting, left to bake in the desert sun. A once operable daily driven car had been parked because it had gotten old. It sat with almost full tread on it's tires. Freshly replaced in months before the car was parked, 2006. After roughly ten years of being parked in the same spot without protection in the 115F/46C degree summers, it got a paid of jumper cables and some water in the battery and started right up. It was in pretty rough shape and admittedly still is. But It's come a long way in the two months that's I've had it.

Here's pretty much how it looked when I brought it home;
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After two months I've managed to wet sand a decent amount of the oxidation off and have gotten down to the original gold paint in a lot of areas, burned through to the primer in others and have found bare metal in some. The attempt at wet sanding was stopped and what was left of the paint was buffed. It will get a full repaint on the car once the dings are worked out. It's a 2.6 with weber carb and 5 speed, has AC and all it needed was a charge. It's been working great since the fill.

Recently Mitsubishi of North America put on the annual "Mitsubishi Owners Day" for the west coast in Cypress CA at MMNA's R&D facility. The wagon made the 6 hour journey across the desert and up the mountains at 75mph(120kph) the whole way with the AC blasting. It was an enjoyable ride for three people, while carrying a cooler, camping gear, camping chairs, tools, supplies, spare parts and packed bags for overnight stay. Once arrived a good parking spot was secured, the back seat of the wagon folded down with a matress topper laid out, it was the perfect bed to catch a rest for 6 hours before the show started. Once it started the Wagon was one of only 3 older mitsubishi's present. Next year should have more considering the coverage the only three got this year.

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Coverage by Japanese Nostalgic Car (photos and article by Ben Hsu)
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/events- ... -day-2016/

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My friend Mo also made the 6 hour trek out in his 2.6 starion powered lancer celeste. It's tough.

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and Most noteably Matt made it out in his beautiful Galant GTO GSR
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Super Street also covered the event and got a photo of the three older mitsubishi's present.
http://www.superstreetonline.com/event- ... west-2016/

Caught with my rocking chair out
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There's still a lot of work to do to the Sigma and I'll update as things progress.

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 11:08 pm
by Fingers
Wow, didn't know there were Sigma's in the USA

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:00 am
by Sigmaproject
Me either.. I thought mitsubishi in the USA were rebadged as Chrysler...

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 8:14 pm
by Fingers
Yeah, I knew they had Scorpions badged as Plymouth and Dodge, but didn't have a clue about the Sigma

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:52 am
by IncorpoRatedX
Fingers wrote:Wow, didn't know there were Sigma's in the USA

The only sigma to make it to the states was the wagon, sold in 1978, 1979 and, 1980. Along side the Sigma wagon was the previous generation of the coupe and sedan, then in 1980 the FWD version popped into the list, by 81 the RWD colts were gone.

They were all badged as Dodge Colt in the US, I have re-badged mine to a mitsu and generally only refer to it by it's origin.

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:15 pm
by A112H
Awesome work as usual Tim, looking forward to seeing the progress mate :thumpsup:

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:39 am
by IncorpoRatedX
Thanks dude, my name's Josh though. :)

Re: Stateside Sigma, from abandonment to car shows.

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:13 pm
by Scorpma82
Sounds like the type of car and background story that immediatley developes a personality, has it's own name and is treated like its part of the family :thumpsup:

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