Junkyard Find: 1990 Eagle Summit
When Chrysler took over the tattered remnants of AMC in 1987, they created the “Jeep-Eagle” division in order to sell Kenosha-ized Renaults such as the Medallion and the Premier. Chrysler back then wasn’t content unless Mitsubishi got involved, and so they slapped Eagle badges on a Mitsubishi Mirage built by DSM in Illinois. This was very similar to the Geo-ization GM applied to Toyota, Isuzu, Suzuki, and Daewoo products sold in North America. You don’t see many Summits these days (you also didn’t see many of them 20 years ago) so this find in a Denver junkyard was a rare event.
Pretty generic early-90s interior here.
By 1990, most car companies had found a way to integrate the “ Libby Light” into the decklid or rear package shelf, but the Summit still had the 1985-style “Oh, crap, the Americans require a center brake light— quick, take this 100,000 yen budget and make something!” afterthought light.
Will there be Eagle Summit clubs meeting for cruise nights in 2049?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I own a 1990neagle summit it had 84,000 + when i got it and now has 92,000+. Its a good running car ive never had any complaints till recently when the car was going down the road and just died, i replaced the fuel filter thinking that would solve the problem,and is still down after 1 1/2 weeks with a search for the fuel pump really which is going no where. Wondering if anyone can help?
I looked at these when they were new. The Eagle Summit was available in a higher trim level than the otherwise identical Mitsubishi Mirage or Dodge/Plymouth Colt sedans, with extra equipment, plush upholstery in real colors like red or blue, and the more powerful engine otherwise only available on the sporty 3-door hatch model. It was a solid competitor to the better-known Japanese brands, but the marketing was terrible as was dealer support at any of the four brands that sold these.