Japanese car culture's expansion to the proverbial West continues to grow and grow, with an exponentially increasing amount of stories of cars like this beautiful Mitsubishi Colt Galant GSR, which now calls America home, popping up all over the World Wide Web.

In stark contrast to the high-tech Mitsubishi GTO from the early ’90s that NZ Performance Car staffer René gallivants all around the greater North Island in, the Colt Galant GTO and GSR were much simpler beasts from a much simpler time. While René's GTO features four-wheel steering, seats that mould to your body, and a twin-turbo six-cylinder 6G72 power plant; the Colt Galant GTO is your perennial battler, making do with an enthusiastic two-litre twin-carb engine paired with a five-speed manual. Simple thrills.

But enough of our talk (did we mention that René owns a GTO?) — find a quiet spot, put your feet up, and check out this stunning Petrolicious video on the Colt Galant below:

"This car reflects me, my personality, being unconventional," says Matt De Mangos. "I mean, seriously, who imports one of these, and who spends eight years fixing one of these up? It's not an exotic, there's no cult following..." From Mitsubishi's golden era, De Mangos says that nobody expected the company to show up with the car at the 1970 Tokyo Motor Show.

Header image: Petrolicious / Jeremy Heslup