This 1,000HP AWD Dodge Colt Gives ‘Hot Hatch’ a New Meaning
If you’ve forgotten about the Dodge Colt, here’s a healthy reminder.
You haven’t forgotten about the Dodge Colt already, have you? The Dodge/Plymouth Colt was an American captive import of the Mitsubishi Mirage from 1979-1994. This badge-engineered car was Dodge and Plymouth’s only subcompact in the early 1990s after the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon were put out to pasture.
A well-kept secret in Dodge’s catalog is the 1989 Dodge Colt GT Turbo. It was a one-year-only performance variant of the three-door hatch that got sporty ground effects and a Mitsubishi 1.6-liter 4G61T inline-four making 135 horsepower. That doesn’t sound like much, but it only had to move 2,491 lbs of car making the Colt GT Turbo a respectably hot hatch in its day.
Daniel Hyden of That Racing Channel on YouTube has not forgotten the Dodge Colt. His 1989 Colt race car has been heavily modified to make far more power than a diminutive hatch like this was ever supposed to. The engine in this Colt isn’t original, but it stays in the Mitsubishi family tree. It has a 4G63T which was most famously used in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution from 1992 all the way through 2007.
The engine was built by AG Autosport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with Wiseco HD pistons, GRP aluminum rods, eight Siemens 2433 injectors, and the star of the show, a Precision 7685 Gen 2 turbocharger mounted right in front of the engine bay for all to see.
This engine likes ethanol. It runs on E98 fuel and the turbo makes a whopping 60 psi of boost. That Racing Channel believes this car can make over 1,000 horsepower at the wheels. They’re confident about that because the previous engine in this Colt had less boost and half the injectors, yet managed to hit 991 hp on the dyno.
Oh, and did we mention it’s all-wheel drive? Bringing all of that power to the wheels requires some backup with the assistance of a PPG four-speed dog box transmission and an all-wheel-drive system from a first-gen Mitsubishi Eclipse.
How do you think this Colt would do in a drag race against the Section 8 Honda Civic?
