New member with too many daughters

Hi all.  Well up until last December the only Mitsubishi that I had owned was a Triton Dual Cab 4x4 2.8 NA Manual Diesel.  I had always liked the (full) Pajero's with their larger capacity 4 (3200 diesel) and had forgotted about the existance of the little IO's (only saw one or two back in the day) - but largely they had flown under the radar.  Besides I was a farmer back then and a diesel man so if it didn't soot then it didn't exist in my world.

One exception was a VL Commodore Turbo with a few mods which pumped out 225Kw all day every day for the 320,000 kms that I put on it from new - back in 1987 when the Aussie 5L (308) engine was only good for 112Kw because of all of the anti-polution gear of the day (unleaded fuel and cats had just come out).  I thought I was King of the West !

Well after finding that sensible modding of a car could reap rewards I set about owning many different 4x4 Diesel Utes / Dual Cabs (Landcruiser cab-chasss with 1HZ, Navara D22 with 3.0, Hilux KUN26 SR5 with 3.0) - all with aftermarket suspension, chips, exhausts, snorkels, tyres/rims etc etc (all sold now).  My current daily driver is a D40 Navara ST-X 550 with the Nissan/Renault built 3.0 V6 Turbo Diesel and 7 sp auto - 170Kw & 550Nm from the factory - which is now over 200Kw and 650Nm with simple mods.  It rarely sees the front axle engaged but as you can imagine it tows boats pretty bloody well.

So I met my current girlfriend 18 months ago and popped a more serious question only a few weeks ago - silly cow said yes!  This is behind me joining this forum (she has 4 daughters between 9 and 19) and the ex doesn't want to pay a cent and certainly not toward something as extravagent as a first car.  Well I can't do things by halves and we live in a rural town near the beach.  So what can I buy that is a cheap 4x4, reliable, not too much power, economical, easy to insure and it has to have that cool factor that their teenage friends will like?

Bugger me - Mitsi turned out this thing called an IO !

So I read reviews, forums, more reviews, looked at pictures of modded IO's and talked to my mechanic who looks after 13 other cars for my business.  Turns out his wife drives something called an IO and she won't shut up about how much she loves it.

OK - Gumtree here we come.

This was always going to be a mistake as looking for cheap Mitsi 4x4's I come across an imported red 1992 Pajero NJ J-Top SWB 5sp 2.5 Diesel.  Images of sooting around in this thing take over and ........  well that's another story in parallel to this one - and another build alltogether!

Can you believe within another few days I find a local IO (1999 LWB Blue over Silver 1.8 5sp) at $1500 not registered.  I leave work early with jumper leads and a compressor - it starts and idles rough, the tyres hold air and so I drive it home constantly looking for constanstable plod in the rear view mirror (luckily it is only 10kms and he makes no appearance).  It goes to my mechanic for some TLC.  Weeks go by as my mechaic is chasing down a second hand ECU and the matching anti-theft module.  All I can remember is that I loved the way it drove and I have more adopted daughters to worry about anyway.

So I find another one (2000 LWB Green over Silver 1.8 5sp) at $6,500 in "perfect condition" - owned by a mechanic in Brisbane and purchased for his son 3 years back who grew like a bean stalk and now at 20 years of age and 6' 6" is driving Dad's Colorado way too often.  After a 6 hour trip home I still have a smile on my face and can not believe what a handy car they are (this one is near perfect) and renews my faith in my choice of transport for the girls.  Actually bugger the girls - I love this thing myself !!!

So I still don't know whether it was fate or just good (or bad) luck but my saved Gumtree search turned up another interesting IO.  The guy (just South of Sydney) had only just purchased it a few months before - but he had fallen upon tough times and already wanted to unload it.  I believe that he had only driven it once or twice.  This one was a 2002 ZR SWB 2.0 5sp in the colour of silver and with many many mods already done.  It turns out that this one has featured heavily on this forum and was owned by a crazy Frenchman called Claude (anyone know this mad bugger)?

Hello Claude - I now have your baby

12 hours of driving this little rocket and I am finally home.  Wow this is one nice unit !  I see what it has done on all of the vids on this forum but let me tell you - it still sounds like an angry rally car, it handles beautifully, it didn't use a drop of oil and I reckon it has hundreds of 4x4 battles left to fight.  Claude this thing is the bomb and I love it.  There is no way that any learner driver is going to get to drive this.  This is my car and it will only be pulled from my cold dead hands when I go to another world.

While all of this is happening my mechanic was correct about the electronics on the blue/silver IO and it is now on the road and running sweet as.

So I now own 3 IO's and because I want to be a greedy twat and keep the SWB to myself I still need more.  Good old Gumtree reveals a 2002 LWB Solid Dark Blue 2.0 5sp at a wholesaler in Sydney that is again - in 'perfect' condition.  $5000 later and I am again driving an IO home.  It turns out to have been meticulously looked after by a North Coast nurse and I doubt that 4x4 was ever enguaged.  Now I am seeing that the 2.0 motors do have significantly more mojo than the 1.8's and I do like the solid colours more than the 2 tone so I do rate them as highly collectable.

Anyway it tuns out that today as I write this post, I have purchased my last IO (hopefully) for some time as a 2002 LWB Solid Red 2.0 5sp has also fallen to my favour and I will pick it up in another week or so.  But owning 5 IO's is simply too much of a good thing (and I have my J-Top) so I have already sold the original blue/silver one to one of my adopted daughters best friends - another girl.  And you have not heard about the list of upgrades that it and the green/silver one have already had - and the upgrades that Claude's Paji has also had.  Apparently all of the 50 teenagers (16-18 yo's) we had to a party last weekend thought the IO's were the 'perfect car for them' !  Who said IO's don't have the cool factor ?

So stay tuned for next weeks' post from a complete IO convert (nut).