If Lord Humungus had been motoring through New South Wales in the mid 1980s, he would have encountered the Australian Federal Police in one of these babies — a Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo! We already know it makes great sci-fi artwork, but these front-wheel-drive hot hatches were apparently mean enough for the Main Force Patrol too!
According to CordiaTurbo.com, most of these highway pursuit vehicles used two versions of an Aussie-built 1.8L mill good for either 121 or 148 horsepower. However, a select few got 200hp Japanese Sirius motors to really mow down the warlords.
It was up to the speeder to guess what lurked under the hood. Apparently the 4G63BT-powered versions could pull 14-second quarter-mile times. Imagine this in your rear view.
Images courtesy of InTheJob and TurboCreations.com via Jalopnik, who is having a Cordia love-fest today.
So your still pissed at Jalopnik for that who Skyline thingy and this is how your reacting to that Down in the Junkyard segment about that old Mitsu?
Haha, we’re not pissed. Murilee Martin is a friend of mine and I was inspired by his Jalopnik post. I linked to it at the end.
@cesariojpn- I don’t think that anyone who posts for the JNC blog was upset about the Skyline at, someone else made a thread about that. and that was from Speedhunters, not Jalopnik anyways.
A mate of mine had a 1800 turbo cordia and was a real weapon!
with my fresh license, I bought a cordia turbo after wheels magazine splashed it all over the cover, doing something lairy, with a sub-headline that said something like “0-60 in 7.9 seconds! 0-400m 15.9s! 198 kph!” (or something). At the time it was quite the pocket rocket, particularly in 3rd gear, but the brakes were absolutely not up to hauling it down from speed. Well. you could do so once. Then after that it got dangerous. I hope the cop cars got better brakes otherwise they would be doing unintended pitt maneuvers on the pursued. There was also bags of torque steer. I never saw a police pursuit cordia on the road, I think it was more about the highway patrol getting new toys in return for newspaper space.
Blue Light Intimidation.
Sounds like a movie title, do hear me Bronze !!
200hp and 14 second quarter times may be cool, but Lord Humungus has a jet car!
justin,
lol, Nothing kills the pleasure of driving like torque steer. Torque steer PLUS brake fade? Now that’s the devils work.
If I’d seen that in my rear view mirror, I’d laugh. 🙂
Look out TOECUTTER !!
Just saw this exact car (well atleast the same plates) at Bathurst a couple of cops cruising the track in it.
I own a relatively heavily modded N/A 1600 SR cordia myself currently pumping out 170hp which is quite a lot for a car that weighs only 910 kilos and has now clocked 270k miles!
They rolled on the pacific h’way between grafton and port macquarie. I lived in Coffs in the 80’s and saw them here and there on the highway. And they were quick!