MOD2016 - Mitsubishi Owners Day at Mitsubishi R&D, Cypress CA

IncorpoRatedX

Explorer
West Coast MOD2016 had a huge attendance this year (and other years likely, but i've never been before). It was a very exciting event in my opinion and I enjoyed the environment. There was a major lack of diversity. The space was available and even my mid-restoration 1979 Galant Sigma Wagon ended up with a front row seat. It's important to come the night before, around 9pm and park your car, it's your choice to stay and camp or go and stay in a hotel room. security is on hand and the enthusiasts that do camp were all very chill. I put a sleeping set up in my wagon so I was able to park and sleep until breakfast is served (starts at 5am but lasted all morning, all for free). Then around 8am the sea of Evo's begin rolling in. The entire crowd was very interested in the older cars, it was a lot of fun talking to people about the cars and history surrounding the brand. Seems like every evo owner wants a montero as a weekend camping rig. I think at least 10 different people told me they had no idea how capable a montero was, i made sure to show everyone i talked to expedition portal and some of the rigs on here. It would be awesome to gather up all the montero's and park them all flexed out on each other.

wagon colt lancer.jpg


My 1979 Galant Sigma wagon is powered by the same 4G54 the gen 1 montero uses, with a weber carb, it's a 5 speed manual that shifts like butter and the car is equipped with power steering, cruise control and air conditioning. two months ago this car was found baked in the desert sun up in prescott, left parked for a number of years in the blazing sun. I've been working through all the maintenance and trying to balance the mundane work with adding modifications that I want in the end. The car runs excellent and cruised up the mountains on I10 across the desert in 100 degree temps at 75 mph with the air con running at full speed, still managed to average 24.5 MPG! It's a stout little work horse but it's got a long way to go before it's resto-modded to my liking. This car will be the more subtle replacement for my beloved 1973 (titled, body is a 74) Galant wagon with turbo 4G63 swap.

73.jpg

I recently sold this to a friend in florida so that it can get the restoration and love that it needs.

Last year I helped Adam (Toasty) drop a 2.6 turbo into this 78 Lancer Celeste, then it went down to Tucson to Mo, he stylized the car and did a lot of work to the interior, though it's not yet finished, it's still very rad. here's some pictures:

1978 Lancer Celeste Turbo 2.jpg

He's on Appliance Mesh wheels, I think that girls' name might have been Celeste, she took about 30 photos of the car. Next to it you can see my friend Steve's colt, the only colt of that generation that I saw and one of the only early 90s cars that was not a dsm, 3k or gvr4. The other guys standing solo were an early 90's mighty max and an 80's mighty max. Of course there was a pack of Starion and a single 90's gen 1 montero, one of each generation was there. I think the enthusiasts could do better considering Arizona, california and the PNW has the largest concentration of very well built gen 1, 2, and 3 Monteros. I know it's not a rock crawling adventure, but it's a lot of fun to talk to like-minded enthusiasts, made a ton of parts connections and just met great people all around. Oh and the free stuff, thats nice.

1978 Lancer Celeste Turbo.jpg
Mo and the rear of his Lancer. I think he has more plans for the rear end, im excited to see where the car goes.

When things died down and the sun was high in the sky, the star of the show, Matt's 73 Galant GTO GS-R was ready to stretch it's legs and a small group of us piled into some old mitsu's and cruised around LA.

1973 Galant GTO GSR.jpg

We ended up in Laguna Hills and stopped for a photo break that turned into lunch at Wahoos for tacos and burritos to fuel our 6 hour drive home. If you think that GTO looks like an attention grabber, you'd be right. If it's stopped for more than a second people begin to remark, stare or approach and ask questions. If you add a few more oddities to the mix like my old wagon and one really aggressive looking lancer; you end up with crowds at gas stations when you stop to fuel and mall goers gawking as you cruise through to get lunch. It was a lot of fun and next year I plan to bring my Gen 1 turbo diesel 4x4 mighty max and my girlfriend's 75 wagon among as many AZ owners as I can wrangle up.

gto wagon lancer.jpg


Sorry for the lack of Montero coverage, since you guys didnt bring your monteros, i wasnt able to take photos of them. :)

Who's in for MOD 2017 if nissan doesnt shut 'em down?
 

Marutuk

KK6WFB
Yeah we were at MOD2016 with our monteros, if you went for the food trucks/stage/etc you had to pass us :) We had all gens represented with people from the Mitsubishi USA facebook groups and/or here on ExPo. :)

We had (on the lot) a Gen 1, a Gen 2.5 and two Gen 3's (and there was another Gen 3 on the lot, but that was an employee's). Igor had his Gen 3 parked on an overflow lot.
 

IncorpoRatedX

Explorer
Yeah we were at MOD2016 with our monteros, if you went for the food trucks/stage/etc you had to pass us :) We had all gens represented with people from the Mitsubishi USA facebook groups and/or here on ExPo. :)

We had (on the lot) a Gen 1, a Gen 2.5 and two Gen 3's (and there was another Gen 3 on the lot, but that was an employee's). Igor had his Gen 3 parked on an overflow lot.


I did see your trucks! I didn't know who the trucks belonged to so I didn't get to chat with you guys I guess. Good to hear some people from here went.
 

FullMonte

Adventurer
Hey, Incorporatedx thanks for the write up! Always interested in MOD but I didn't know what to expect. I would like to go with some fellow Monteros and do some off-road trails while I'm there too!

Sent from my SM-T377P using Tapatalk
 

IncorpoRatedX

Explorer
Next year I plan to stay at an Airbnb near the event for the entire weekend. I could probably find one that would house a large group... use it for base camp and go do some trails around the LA area.
 

IncorpoRatedX

Explorer
If you haven't heard, mitsu recently reached out to us about MOD2017 - The pilgrimage there and the events surrounding. There's threads on forums about this, pages on facebook pertaining to this and a running dialogue among a lot of the montero owners to make the trek for 2017. here's the dates:

July 8, 2017
MMNA HQ
6400 Katella Ave
Cypress CA 90630

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/owners/events

Hope to see you guys there.
 

PajEvo

JDM Journeys
There will be some unique examples from Mitsu's 4WD past there this year, and we will be contributing to this nostalgia. Some JDM's from Canada are making the trek...
 

Toasty

Looking for that thing i just had in my hand...
We all need to talk them into giving us the new Montero Sport.
 

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