sapphire remaster
1983-1987 Sapphire Zenith
The sensible choice for any cost-conscious senior accountant or pretentious executive who didn’t want to buy European. Equipped with a 2.5L NA V6 producing a very modest 140HP, paired to either a 5 speed transmission, either manual or automatic, its the car for the person who wants cut-price comfort and class. Sure, you don’t have the badge prestige your colleagues have with their European luxury cars, but you’re the one with a credit score that begins with a 7. You can make sensible financial choices, so you buy a sensible car.
1984-1987 Diadem GLX (JDM)
The pinnacle of mid 1980’s Japanese executive luxury, a testament to keeping the good stuff for your home market and shipping the swill abroad, read: North America. The Sapphire Diadem is only sold in Japan, while using white people in the advertisements, and is the cream of the crop, with heated leather upholstered seats, heated steering wheel, tape deck, air conditioning, wood interior trim, electric sunroof, two tone paint and three spoke alloy rims steered with a new 4 wheel steering system. Only the electric sunroof, the air conditioning and the tape deck made it to USDM Sapphires as expensive optional extras (Air conditioning was a $1500 option from the dealer). Under the hood sits a smooth as butter 3.0L V6 with 170HP, paired to a 5 speed automatic transmission, or for the executive who prefers stick, a 6 speed manual. Nowadays, Diadem trim Sapphires are quite the collector’s item, especially for those with a taste for obscure JDM-only cars.
1984-1989 Sapphire LE (USDM)
The Sapphire LE is the Japanese answer to an American problem, what’s the better for an executive than a homegrown land-aircraft carrier? Although it didn’t get nearly all the options available to Japanese customers, the North American Sapphire, produced at a new factory in Illinois, did get a respectable amount of trims (S, L, LS, LE, SE and GLE), and it was still able to be optioned relatively comfortably, and expensively. Equipped with a range of engines from the fuel conscious 1.8L NA I4 with just over 120HP to a US-exclusive 2.7L NA V6 producing just about 142HP, all paired to either a 5 speed manual or 5 speed automatic, its nothing to write home about, but its also nothing to scoff at either. But you probably should think about importing one of the Japanese ones instead of buying a used American one.
1984-1987 Sapphire Ascent 4WD (AUDM)
Basically a Sapphire Zenith estate with four wheel drive, slightly lifted suspension, a chromed bullbar, outdoorsy graphics, a roof rack and a two tone paintjob as seen on the Japanese Diadem. Built at Springvale in the southeast of Melbourne, Australia, the Ascent is equipped with a 3.0L NA V6 with 155HP paired to a 5 speed manual, its not buckets of power, but its more than enough to take you around town and on the backroads of the bushland. Sure the piston rings might suck just a little, and the exhaust might belch slightly blue smoke, but thats what makes the Sapphire an Australian cult classic. The Ascent also had many starrings in Australian film and TV during the 1980s and 1990s, where it appeared as the main car of Dazza Taylor in You Dog! (1986-1999), as Vinnie Fucci’s car in King’s Cross (1995-2000) and as a getaway car in The Job in St. Kilda (1987)
1984-1987 Sapphire Turbo RS V6 and 1987 Sapphire Turbo RS V6 Black Edition
The highly coveted turbo Sapphire with, as the name suggests, a turbocharged 3.0L V6 producing 227HP paired to a 6 speed manual, pushing a 0-100 just over 7 seconds, it also gets the full Turbo RS treatment with a red paintjob, paint matched trim, a spoiler, hood scoop and spoked wheels. Sounds good to you? Good luck finding a good condition one for under $45,000.
And if you want a Black Edition Sapphire Turbo, well, its comparable to trying to square a circle, with only 895 examples produced, you’d be hard pressed finding one for under $90,000, equipped with a slightly tuned engine from the regular Turbo RS, it pushes nearly 240HP with a 5 speed manual, inching the 0-100 time to about 6.7 seconds, and unlike the Turbo RS, the Black Edition comes in just one colour combo, Midnight Black on red trim, it also gets wire wheels, a sunroof and black and red interior, all of this might seem familiar, and thats because the very last Black Edition Sapphire Turbo was eventually used as the main inspiration car by Ryo Fujimitsu, the man behind the Sapphire Sportara.
2003 Jinghai Xiamao CA4660UA pictured in Fuzhou in April 2011
An unlicensed Chinese copy of the Sapphire, its basically an Ascent with the windows filled in, most of the taillights and rear seat removed, and tailgate cut in half to make room for two cargo doors. Equipped with a Chinese-made 1.3L 4 cylinder making just shy of 90HP. Little is known about the copy other than it was produced between 2000 and 2005, with very few examples built by Jinghai Motors, although a few other unlicensed Sapphire van conversions have been built by other companies.
From Autopedia user carsinchina:
This is a Sapphire van I saw parked outside a metal shop in Fuzhou, I spoke to the owner, Wang Zhaoyi, a metal shop owner who says that he’s owned the van for about five years and considers it very reliable, the 1.3L 4 cylinder under the bonnet is made by Jinghai, not Akamatsu, and Wang says its a 5 speed manual, also probably not from Akamatsu. I haven’t seen many, but I did see one in Shenzhen back in July 2009, although it was wearing different badges and called a Mengxiang or something like that, guess the tooling got passed around to a few Chinese companies. You can see where they didn’t do a very good job filling in the side windows, the seams are still visible, its like they just painted over the glass instead of using metal panels.
