COMPANY

Mitsubishi Motors is a relatively young vehicle manufacturer when you consider the long history of the family of firms from which it was formed. In fact it was created back in 1970, exactly 100 years after the shipping firm from which it takes its name was founded. In recent years it has been ranked as the 17th largest car company in the world and is the 5th biggest in its native Japan.

Although the Mitsubishi Motors brand has only been around for about 40 years, there have been vehicles bearing its name since the early days of the industry. In 1917, the Model A was built by the Mitsubishi Shipping Company, a vehicle which became known for being the first series-production car to roll out of a factory on Japanese soil. Sadly, just a handful Model As were built because it could not compete with rivals from overseas that used the mass production technique of manufacture and thus were priced more competitively and available in larger numbers.

By the 1930s, a series of mergers and acquisitions saw the Mitsubishi PX33 emerge as a prototype. The Japanese authorities picked up this vehicle for use by military personnel and notably it had permanent four wheel drive. This setup would come to be a hallmark of future Mitsubishi cars, with models like the Shogun now known for their off-road capabilities and prowess in the world of motorsport. In fact the modern marketing branch of Mitsubishi alluded to the PX33 during the process of promoting its most recent iteration of the Pajero SUV.

Mitsubishi's motoring endeavours continued to flourish in the 1950s thanks to its success with importing vehicles from the US and then releasing licensed editions for the Japanese market. The Jeep CJ-3B was one of its most popular adaptations and in fact this model endured until 1998 under Mitsubishi's stewardship, even though it had fallen out of favour decades ago in its country of origin.

Mitsubishi Motors was born in April 1970 and headed up by Tomio Kubo. A deal with US manufacturer Chrysler saw Mitsubishi shipping its Galant model over to America where it was sold as the Dodge Colt, beginning a long relationship that would help increase the portion of the market open to the company. By 1978, Mitsubishi was selling nearly a million vehicles a year and by 1982, it managed to get its brand onto the US market in its own right. It was not until the mid-1990s that Mitsubishi was able to take total independent control of its overseas ventures as partner firms like Chrysler sold their remaining shares, although most remained closely allied for future projects. Many more firms have invested in Mitsubishi in the interim, although it is now predominantly owned by Japanese investors.

What really put Mitsubishi on the map in the minds of motoring enthusiasts was its emergence as a real power in the world of motorsport back in the 1970s. The World Rally Championship was championed by the Mitsubishi Lancer 1600 GSR in this decade, while the 1980s saw the birth of the Lancer EX2000 Turbo. The Lancer name is still applied to Mitsubishi's top performing off-road rally vehicles to this day and 34 events in the World Rally Championship have been won in Mitsubishis over the past 38 years.

Movie star Jackie Chan has been a real celebrity supporter of Mitsubishi during the course of his career on the silver screen. He even has an annual racing event named after him and the incredible stunts pulled off in a Mitsubishi Evo IV during 1998's Who Am I? show the enduring nature of this relationship.