Dream time (avec Galant)

“Streets I ran in this whole town - backstreets and all, I wanted to leave there...”

Mundanity breeds creativity like nothing else. It’s the same kind of mundanity that led me to start this page - among generations of the same roads, houses and streetscapes, the only thing that really changes is what people drive.

Unless, of course, you keep a 1998 Mitsubishi Galant in the middle of your driveway. I’ve tried to spot this one for several years now, only for my camera to let me down each and every time. In the end, a hurriedly-snapped photograph taken through my car window proved to be the winner.

I like Galants, especially the Mk8. Upon its release in 1996, Mitsubishi had it right -  refining the somewhat cross-eyed look of the previous model and offering an estate version for the first time since 1987.

What resulted was a rakish, low-slung and understated executive cruiser. While it lacked the Teutonic prestige of the 3 Series and C-Class, the likes of the Mondeo, Laguna and the all-new Vectra were surely within its grasp.

You'd think so, anyway - but it wasn't to be. In 2000, 70,000 Vectras were sold in the UK, while Galant sales stalled at 1,900 in the same year. Perhaps it's no surprise that its next generation - the final edition - wasn't sold in Europe at all.

Thankfully, this one remains, and probably will for quite a while. Compared to the above image (taken circa 2022), the greenery has really taken hold - the Galant is now surrounded by weeds, and looks a good deal dirtier than it did three years ago.

Mind you, it had been out of use for some time before that, too. A quick search shows it's been out of NCT since early 2016. Whichever way you cut it, that's a hard stretch to come back from, even for a Japanese car.

That's all. I'm trying to make these a bit shorter, anyway. Less metaphors, you dig?