Colt Car Company, the UK Mitsubishi importer, is to sell cars bought in Japan through its Red Zebra approved used car outlets.

The move completes a U-turn for Colt after financing a costly ad campaign to highlight the “dangers” of unofficial imports. It has since announced plans to train its dealer network in the repair and servicing of grey vehicles.(p) Colt is testing the market through its Ralliart subsidiary, which prepares Mitsubishi rally cars and limited imports of new cars produced for the Japanese market. These include the Evolution VI Extreme and Galant VR4.

Paul Williams, Colt sales and marketing director, said: “These semi-grey imports have sold in their hundreds, which prompted us to reverse our attitude to grey imports last autumn. “Our dealers had been losing money through following official policy and turning their backs on service and repair work on grey imports, which was damaging to the brand.”