being a resent new owner (2 weeks) of a 1990 lwb i have to say i really like this truck. i came over from an 80 series and all the toyota guys said " it wont compare to an 80, you will hate it because you are used to the awesome of your 80" i like it more then the 80, its way more fun to drive as it feels nimble and doesn't lumber around town. i took it my mechanic and he put it up on the rack and said the only way i would lose on this is if some thing catastrophic was to fail, then said " there nothing catastrophic on it. 5sp 2wd till i shift it into 4wd and manual windows...it totally great.

I had an fj55. The combo of 4.11 gears and the stove bolt chevy F1 motor would not live with Atlanta freeways, and I wiped out the bottom end - rod knock. Found a guy who could turn the crank in the truck, didn't last 10k miles. Dropped in a 350 4bolt I had sitting around from a 71 work truck 3/4 ton that some fool pulled out in front off. WIth a 700r4 behind it adapted to the toy tcase, it was a horse, until I cut a 12" pine tree in two with it. It wouldn't hold a candle to a mitsu offroad, and was probably not as strong in the chassis. I wish they still made the 3 way locking hubs I had on it, though...

LOL .. Its funny I think theres three or four 'Mountain Division' members of the AZ Crew up here in the Arizona highlands never have met them ..But it seems I'm 90 miles from the 'Valley' AZ Crew but can run across them in strange places ..LOL..

This is one of the better forums on the web realy ...

And on recognition ....LOL.. Mitsu's are a POS realy LOL.. Not a POS persay... Just not for the fante heart .. You ask any mechanic to work on your Mitsu and see him go white ..LOL..Pro mechanics just seem to hate Mitus.. Very miss understood vehicles realy ... They realy are good vehicles if you fix the few bad points...And I've had my hands on alot of vehicles.. I drive Mitsu's do to the fact that in my part of the world there laying around died and misunderstood and are free ... Mitsu's are a trick vehicles once you look at it ...

Haztoys, PM inbound.

We definitely have a good crowd, I think every time i've needed help with something one of you guys has stepped up and helped out even from the far side of the county. It says a lot about this group.

As for Gen 1 recognition, I get a lot of recognition in my Gen 1 but it's very obviously a diesel and i think that's part of it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Personally, when it came time to finally get my 4WD, I looked around and found I wanted a Gen I. They just have a cool look to them.

And since I painted Rocinante, I seem to get complimented (or someone asking if it's for sale) at least monthly. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

It's the slowest, noisiest, least comfortable vehicle I have ever owned, but I'll be danmed if it isn't the most fun. Few vehicles remind you of the freedom they represent every time you get behind the wheel. Rocinante makes me want to explore the world.

I think people just don't understand these vehicles. On our LV Craigslist there is one 2 door with 160k going for $7500. WTF ? Same page, $2000. I agree that the motors are misunderstood, (even by me) and they are not popular here in LV. Besides mine I have seen one other gen 1. I do get comments on mine, also being I am originally from AZ, I wish that LV had more of a following, like northern AZ and the phx area. I guess its road trip time. Any LV guys out there ????

Here's a different way of looking at Monteros, in the US. Ebay had 7 listing right now, and five are Sports. This number is a bit low from the usual 20-30.

Ebay AU has 191 Pajeros, which is way down from ~500+ that I have seen at times in the past.

Ebay UK has combined Pajero+Shogun at 835!

Which brings us full circle to one of the standard Groundhog Day threads, "Mitsubishi doesn't have a clue on how to market to the US."

How can the be given recognition (in the US), when there are so few to recognize...?

I guess I'm crazy (at least my wife thinks I am) but I absolutely love my Gen I. Even when I bought it new in 1990 it was already a throwback vehicle: the round headlights, the triangle window-vents and the flip-up vents that just let air from the outside right into the vehicle. (How come nobody makes those any more?) I love the clean look of the instrument panel at night. You could basically take it apart with a screwdriver and a socket wrench. But it had also enough creature comforts (A/C, comfortable seats, power steering, etc.) to be an huge improvement over my previous outdoor/camping vehicles (an IH Scout II and a '73 VW camper bus). But I had no idea I would still be driving it some 23 years later ;-)

Thinking back on it, even as a kid when I played with matchbox cars, I always found myself drawn to the square military-looking trucks over the sleek, shiny sports cars. Loved that Unimog toy I had...

I'm not a super modifier like a lot of the people here. I run the truck almost completely stock, I want something that I can throw four people and all of their camping gear into and just go. Pretty much anywhere. It's a little bit loud on those long highway drives and the gas mileage isn't exactly great, but I love going places in it.

I about killed it in the mid 2000s. Not sure what happened but it was running low oil pressure (overheated I'm sure). That's when I decided that if I wanted to justify keeping it I had to start doing all of the maintenance myself. So eventually I pulled the engine and rebuilt it. I made a lot of mistakes but I learned a lot along the way too. Now it's running as well as it ever did and it's just as much fun to drive as ever.

We also had a Gen II for several years. I think that my wife liked that better and it was more comfortable and quieter and definitely had more power. But somehow it never had quite the charm of my old one. I would love an excuse to buy a Gen III someday and see what that's like. I wasn't crazy about the look of them when they first came out, but now I think that they've aged gracefully. Or maybe it's me who's done the aging (though not so gracefully).

This forum and community has been a great place to feed my curiosity and calm my anxieties. And cater to my obsession too, I guess <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

steve

stevec, how many miles have you compiled on her in 23 years ?