1996 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 Spyder

We'd been with Joe "Cabo" Privitier and his pearl white 3000GT VR-4 Spyder for almost a day when editor Oldham finally noticed the car's license plate.

"Joe," he said, knowing of course he was playing right into Cabo's hands, "Why does your license plate say 'leg lover'?" (technically, it's LEGLUVR.)

Privitier's eyes lit up. "Because I am," he shot back.

Oldham seemed satisfied with the answer, but not surprised. On Cabo's USCC entry form, he wrote, "With the turbos spoolin' out 650 hp, I can easily leave a 360 Modena at 170 mph. By activating the hardtop convertible, all of the women, including yours, become anxious for some extreme fun 'n' sun!!"

That's two exclamation points.

Clearly, Cabo's droptop cruiser can be considered the odd man out in this group of uncompromised performance machines, but for that moment you could actually see a thought go through Oldham's mind, "Maybe it's the rest of us who don't get it."

Maybe.

The 3000GT VR-4 has always been the odd car out. In the battle of the Japanese supercars, the VR-4 packed all the hardware and then some: twin turbos, all-wheel drive, electronically controlled shocks, four-wheel steering. It also tied the Supra for the most rated power of the genre (320hp). But take a Supra, RX-7, 300ZX TT and a 3000GT VR-4 out to a curving racetrack and, like a linebacker in a triathlon, it quickly becomes clear the Mitsubishi is out of place.

What we're trying to say here is the 3000GT is heavy. With the elaborate retractable hardtop and a bevy of chassis reinforcements intended to make up for its rooflessness, the VR-4 Spyder weighs in at 4,100 lbs. That's as much as Jerry Fink's Laminar Viking and James Chen's MR2 Spyder combined.

Convertible or not, claiming 650 hp to go with your all-wheel drive makes people notice. But being able to claim 650 hp takes a lot of work. Like tearing apart the already beefy V6 and re-building it with a cryo-treated block, Arias forged pistons that keep the stock, 8.0:1 compression ratio, and forged chrome-moly Pauter rods. Like going through the heads with a grinder and the abrasive putty of Extrude Hone, then adding a 1mm larger Ferrea intake and exhaust valves. Like replacing the tiny stock turbos with something bigger. He says they're TD04-17G turbos, but since there's no such thing, we're really not sure what they are. If he's going to back up his smack, they must be something serious.

He does, at least, have enough fuel to feed that power, with six 660 cc/min RC Engineering injectors, a Denso fuel pump and a Unichip piggyback ECU.

That was a lot of work. So was squeezing twin HKS intercoolers, HKS' hard-pipe kit, and two HKS Super Sequential blow-off valves under the VR-4's very crowded hood. Somehow, he also found time to polish or chrome every visible piece of metal.

And those fancy cockpit-adjustable shocks are long gone, replaced with 16-way adjustable Tein HA coil-overs.

That's all serious equipment, but like the stock 3000GT, you have to wonder what it will add up to. And like the original, it's the things that don't get mentioned you have to worry about. Like stock brakes (though cross-drilled and fitted with EBC pads) that will have to dissipate all the energy 650 hp and 4,100 lbs. can create. Or the sensible Toyo T1-S tires that will have to compete with the gummy Hoosiers worn by most of the competition.

Six hundred and fifty hp will go a long way in a lot of the contests, but sheer mass, small brakes and street tires make this car a long shot. If it doesn't work out in the performance tests, we've got a feeling ol' Cabo won't be too distressed. After all, he's still got that convertible thing planned with your woman.