Anyone paying attention to the current activities of major Japanese auto manufacturers may have noticed that there has been something of a revival of the sports coupe, at least from the likes of Toyota and Subaru.

Disappointingly, it seems that domestic rival, Mitsubishi, will not be following suit, perhaps as a result of the fierce competition that any product it might produce would face.

In the past, Mitsubishi has been responsible for a number of classic sports cars, which have started off available as imports and eventually found their way to foreign markets in official forms.

The Mitsubishi GTO, which was in production between 1990 and 2001, is perhaps the best loved of the bunch. It was even sold in the US as the Dodge Stealth, albeit with plenty of revisions to the basic formula.

However, the Mitsubishi FTO also received lots of attention during its brief time on the market from 1994 to 2000, so it was hoped that the company might be planning something in this vein to compete with Toyota and Subaru today.

Unfortunately, company president, Osamu Masuko, said that the likelihood of low sales meant that taking such a route was untenable for Mitsubishi at the moment. That means you will have to look for classic cars for sale.