The Mitsubishi Starion is an icon of the 1980s, and one of the great Japanese sport coupes of the pop-up headlight era. That’s why it’s odd that there have been surprisingly few models of it in any scale. Here are the first images of the model that will fill that gap.
Like the 1:18-scale A60 Toyota Supra, LS Collectibles’ next project has been missing from the model car world for far too long. The designer who worked on this model and shared these first-look images with JNC, David Houston, agrees. “Since I am a model car collector, I’d always wanted a 1:18-scale model of the car that sat inside our local Mitsubishi dealership when I was a in junior high, but it was always missing,” he told us.
“For me this car was huge in the Japanese mainstream movement into serious GT cars,” David continued. “It possessed Japanese tech and reliability but with American boulevard street cred, and was so popular that a lot of them were stolen.”
“It had the looks to not only rival cars like the 300ZX and RX-7 of that era but was butch-looking enough to brawl it up with the Mustang GT & IROC-Zs of the day,” David recalls. “Basically, if you watched enough karate flicks, like I had done back in the 80s, the flared-fender, facelifted Starion was the good guy that walked into a village or bar and defeated the thugs, with help from his American twin the Conquest. It was just a truly bad-ass looking car. Still is.”
The Starion was actually the car David wanted to make first, but the prototypers completed the Supra first. “It proved to be a part of motoring history that needed to be done in a sizable scale for feel good memories of the 1980s and Japanese cars alike.”
These are just preliminary renderings and there is still work to be done. David will make more revisions before its release in the first quarter of 2018. The first two colors released will be Rio Red and the very beautiful and rare Fiji Blue. With this one-two punch of 1980s Japanese awesomeness, we can’t wait to see what LS Collectibles comes up with next.
Bonus Images:
Hello, and greetings from the east coast of the USA! I just saw this article about uou making the beautiful Starion in 1/18th scale! I am so excited! Do u think you will make it in ‘selbia black’? When will these be available? Please keep me on your mailing list! Im very excited! Thanks for making this car in 1/18th scale! Can’t wait!
Looks awesome, maybe someone will make a model of a second gen Galant hardtop.
I have never, ever seen a single one of any size or shape 🙁
@jas dude can’t believe you SOLD your car
Sad but true. After 14 years I was never as happy with it as I am with the Scorpion though 🙂
There are so many cars out there that have not a single scale-model done….
Super cool! Diggin’ it. That GTO too!
Very appropriate that some one should do this model… I have said before that for all the world this is a Japanese version of the Alfa Montreal… and a very significant car…
Very much looking forward to this and the Supra…
Very nice ! Will be a shame to have a sunroof cut out though :/ Clean hard top look would be better imo
Yes! Agreed! NO SUNROOF!
Aw, this was an incredibly good post. Taking the time and actual effort to produce a good article… but what can I say… I put things off a lot and never manage to get anything done.
some details for nerds: this model has the 88-89 airdam, but the 86-87 seats and steering wheel. also (i think) 1983 australian market taillights?
(protruding bottom lip on the airdam, seats with built-in headrests, two-spoke wheel, taillights with little grid marks molded in)
beautiful model! and i think they picked out the parts that give us the starion’s personality in the strongest way. what a nice choice of details and a faithful reproduction.
ps thanks for not sticking an 83 hood on a widebody starion ::]
Sorry David, but sunroof=No Sale for me.
Great model . Will get one when available . But I would also love to see 1986 Mirage sedan and 3 door turbo.