Another sad reality it that many of these cars saw duty in the rust belt of New England and the Upper Mid-West. They aren't particular good at avoiding frame rail rot, so I'm sure plenty of the cars delivered to their original owners in that area have simply succumbed to rust. 53/1000 was very rusty when I sold it to Compact Tuner, who then re-sold it pretty quickly himself and I'd be surprised if it hasn't been parted out and crushed yet. 1432/2000 got a lot of love and abuse from me, but it had a bad case of rail rot and I sent it off to the recycler (after stripping it clean of parts of course) about 2 months ago.
If you could get the sales data numbers from Mitsu, I bet close to 25% of those sold in VT/NH/ME/MA and MI/MN/WI have "died" this way and only a slighty lower percentage in places like RI/CT/NY/PA/IN/OH/IL. Pretty much any Honda/Toyota/Mitsu/Mazda that's lived it's life in VT lasts 12-13 years tops if it's driven every winter and doesn't get the underside cleaned and re-coated regularly. Salt > metal over the long haul.
My guess for total number of USDM GVR4s still on the road out of the original 3009 is ~1,200.
-Jim B.
280/1000
