1981 Plymouth Sapporo from North America - Comments

The carburetor was glitchy, kept wanting to stall at stoplights. I revved it and peeled out a few times because of it. Great car to take apart in auto-shop.

My father bought this car brand new from the dealer right at the time Honda was starting to gain momentum on the small passenger car market, making most car makers compete for best power vs. gas economy.

My step-mother was stuck in the driveway for I don't know how long trying to figure out how to get it into reverse when we first got it. It was one of the first cars with the push-down lockout, little letters on the shift-knob read: push for R.

I literally grew up riding in the passenger seat. My father would have me change gears for him when I was 11 or so.

It was Black with Black and Red interior, so it reminded me of KITT. I couldn't wait to have it for my own.

I acquired the Sapporo when I was 16 and just started my second year of auto-shop class. I took most of it apart, being the only one in my 3 man group to have his own car. I stripped the engine down to the block the second year, only to find no wear!! I was planning to re-bore the cylinders, so I just kept it the way it was and changed the piston rings and bearings and whatnot. It was pretty easy to get to all the bolts that held everything together, I had plenty of room to maneuver in the engine compartment compared to other cars in shop.

I loved this car for how many races to school I won because of the great handling, medium/good suspension, and lowend torque to weight.

This car also had a high-rev redline at around 7500 or so, and in 5th gear it scooted around at like 115 mph. It just took a long stretch of straight road. So 85 mph was easy to get to.

I had a wreck after high school was out, and that is what made me decide to make it into a dirt road warrior! I was driving on what seemed to be a straight road for quite a while and suddenly came to a switchback like I've never seen, it looked at first like a lazy turn, but when I rounded the first part it switched direction and I flew right over a creek Dukes of Hazzard style and landed it. All that happened was I de-beaded all 4 tires and scraped an oak tree. It took some A-Team type McGuyvering to make a bridge to get back over the creek, and after a long time of grounding by my father, I set to beefing up the suspension and knuckling in a turbocharger.

What fun that car was, I wish to find one again, but probably never will get the opportunity.

The Dodge Challenger/Plymouth Sapporo's are very rare cars and you sure don't see many around at all, I wish those cars would get more recognition, I thought those cars were way ahead of its time and it's a shame that they have to be so underappreciated.

I had a 1983 Plymouth Sapporo which I had purchased new at the time. It was black with gold stripes and the interior was black with gray. It was a great car, had a lot of pep, was easy to work on and had cool quarter windows in the rear. Those windows reminded me of the American cars from the 1960's (Nova, Mustang) with the quarter windows.

It was junked after 13 years. The engine still ran, and the AC was ice cold, but it was to unsafe to drive. If you made a right turn the right door would open, if you made a left turn the left door would open. This was due to the extreme body rot that afflicted a lot of Japanese imports (as well as Ford in the 70's when they decided to use recycled steel in their cars).

I knew it was time to say good-bye when the rear shock housings turned into two massive holes in the trunk, and the right rear shock fell off since it had no place to be attached.

Great memories since we brought our older son home in it after he was born in 1990. A great car from Plymouth/Mitsubishi (like the Arrow and the Cricket) that had the great Japanese quality that all Japanese products have. An underrated car at the time, but a great product. I wish I still had mine.

After that I bought a Toyota Corolla which lasted over 14 years, but that's a story for another day...

Uh, yeah, the Arrow was made by Mitsubishi but the Cricket was not. It was made by Chrysler-owned Hillman in Great Britain, where is was known as the Hillman Avenger. Not one of their most memorable models.