- A body shop in Laos gave a facelift to the long-discontinued Mitsubishi Galant sedan.
- The midsize Galant received a front end borrowed from a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport SUV.
- At the rear, the Galant now features LED taillights sourced from a Toyota Fortuner.
Mitsubishi hasn’t made the Galant in years, but apparently, one owner in Southeast Asia wasn’t quite ready to let go of the midsize sedan. Instead of leaving it in the past, they decided to give the Galant a glow-up. It’s a quirky, unofficial facelift that reimagines the long-dead sedan with the modern design language of Mitsubishi, a brand that’s now known for churning out SUVs.
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At first glance, this sedan feels like a déjà vu moment, a kind of “wait, what is that?” experience. It doesn’t immediately scream Galant, largely because Mitsubishi hasn’t touched the nameplate since axing the ninth generation back in 2012. However, a closer look at its profile reveals its roots: the ninth-gen Galant, which was sold between 2003 and 2012, before Mitsubishi unceremoniously kicked it to the curb without offering a successor.
A Mash-Up of SUV and Sedan Design
The front end of this Franken-Galant is where things get interesting. Borrowing parts from the pre-facelifted Mitsubishi Pajero Sport that debuted in 2015, the sedan now wears the face of a ladder-frame SUV. And while this sounds like a ridiculous mismatch on paper, the execution is surprisingly well done.
The hood, grille, headlights, and those chrome-heavy “Dynamic Shield” features from the Pajero Sport have all been grafted onto the Galant’s bodywork. Sure, the bumper had to be trimmed down to make it fit, but the result feels oddly cohesive, like it could almost be a factory prototype, if Mitsubishi hadn’t decided to ghost the sedan market.
Mixing and Matching the Rear
Moving over at the back, the builder swapped out the Galant’s old-school boxy taillights for a pair pulled straight from the Toyota Fortuner SUV. And yet, the taillights don’t look out of place. Some custom bodywork was clearly required to fit them onto the rear fenders and trunk, but the end result is surprisingly seamless.
Unlike the exterior, the wood-trimmed interior of the Galant shows its age. The only concession to modernity is a small aftermarket display stuck onto the center console.
There’s no mention of performance upgrades either, so this Galant likely still runs on the standard 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, which powered most models in the region. Like its Eclipse and Endeavor platform-mates, the Galant was front-wheel-drive only, so don’t expect any surprises under the hood.
The Build and the Price Tag
The modernized Mitsubishi Galant comes to us from Laos, a country tucked between Vietnam and Thailand, where it was brought back to life by a local body shop called Keng Car-Modify.
The shop listed the car for sale on Facebook, so yes, this custom build could technically be yours—if you’re willing to part with 200,000 baht (around $5,800) and travel halfway around the world. The seller’s description is as straightforward as the build is creative: “Selling my family car. Normal use, complete documents, good engine, air conditioner, no crash, no climb.”