I haven’t seen one of these 4WD wagons in years, maybe decades. This is a 1986 Dodge Colt Vista and it’s on Craigslist with an asking price of $2,700. A lot of money has gone into maintaining this vehicle. Now, about that exterior…

These were great vehicles, no really! Just talk to almost anyone who owned one. Of course, as always, there will have been bad experiences with them just like with any other vehicle on earth. Chrysler was in a long-term-relationship (as they say) with Mitsubishi and this is one of their offspring. It’s a rebadged and tweaked Mitsubishi Chariot, a first-generation model and Dodge offered them in the model years between 1984 and 1991. This is considered one of the first crossover vehicles due to it’s “tall-wagon” proportions and available 4WD system. This was normally a front-drive vehicle but with the 4WD option the driver could press a button on the shifter and the rear wheels would engage.

There’s the red button on the shifter to engage the 4WD. This is also a 5-speed which is even more unusual and desirable, at least for myself and a few thousand (hundred?) others who like to shift for him/herself. The interior has a medley of configuration options and this is a seven-passenger vehicle, sort of like a minivan and sort of like a big wagon. This Colt Vista only had two owners previously, the original owner and his brother who, unfortunately, sanded the exterior to get it ready for paint. You can see that the painting project never went farther than making the exterior look like heck.

This is Mitsubishi’s 4G63, 2.0L with around 88 hp. It’s not a lot of power but with that 5-speed manual and this vehicle weighing “only” 2900 pounds, it shouldn’t feel like you’re holding everyone else up on the road. The seller has done a lot of maintenance on this Colt with the only thing being left being that pesky, dull exterior. I’m not sure if I would do anything to the exterior, but that’s just me. Have any of you owned a 4WD Colt Vista? Would you restore the exterior or just drive it as is? I think this would make a heck of a winter vehicle for those of us in the snow belt.