Manufacturer

Mitsubishi Motors

section:manufacturer

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation is a Japanese automobile manufacturer incorporated on 22 April 1970 as a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Since October 2016 it has been 34% owned by Nissan and is part of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance. Mitsubishi's motorsport subsidiary was Ralliart, later renamed Mitsubishi Motors Motor Sports, which ceased formal competition in 2010.

Mitsubishi's motorsport debut was in touring car racing at the 1962 Macau Grand Prix, where it entered its Mitsubishi 500 Super DeLuxe. The car swept the top four places in the under-750 cc category, with Kazuo Togawa taking class honours. In 1963 the company returned with the Mitsubishi Colt 600 and achieved a 1–2–3 in the under-600 cc class. In its final year of touring car competition in 1966, it swept the podium in the 750–1000 cc class of the Japanese Grand Prix with the Colt 1000, its first front-engined competition car.

From 1966 Mitsubishi concentrated on open-wheel formula categories at the Japanese Grand Prix, winning the Exhibition class and achieving class 1–2 results in 1967 and 1968. The programme concluded with an overall 1–2 in the 1971 Japan GP, the two-litre DOHC F2000 driven by Kuniomi Nagamatsu.

The East African Safari Rally was Mitsubishi's proving ground in the 1970s. The company developed the Lancer 1600 GSR specifically for the event and won on its first attempt in 1974. In 1976 Mitsubishi achieved a podium clean sweep in the Safari, an event where only around 20% of starters typically finish. The company also recorded a 1–2–3–4 in the 1973 Southern Cross Rally, the first of four consecutive victories there, with drivers Andrew Cowan and Kenjiro Shinozuka.

During the 1980s Mitsubishi continued in the World Rally Championship with the Lancer EX2000 Turbo and the Starion, before scoring its first outright Group A victories with the Galant VR-4 in the late 1980s. Mitsubishi then homologated the Lancer Evolution and, in the hands of Finland's Tommi Mäkinen, won the WRC drivers' title for four consecutive years from 1996 to 1999 and the manufacturers' championship in 1998. The company has won 34 WRC events since 1973. The Lancer Evolution dominated the FIA Group N championship, winning seven consecutive titles with four different drivers from 1995 to 2001.

Mitsubishi is the most successful manufacturer in the history of the Dakar Rally. Its maiden entry came in 1983 with the Pajero. After three attempts the company found a winning formula, taking victories in 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, and then an unprecedented seven consecutive victories from 2001 to 2007, for 12 overall wins with nine different drivers. Mitsubishi also won the 2003 FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup alongside Carlos Sousa.

Mitsubishi maintained a 30-year association with actor Jackie Chan, who used its vehicles in his films. The Jackie Chan Cup, first held in 1984, is an annual celebrity race involving international motor journalists and Asian starlets driving Mitsubishis with professional touring car drivers alongside. The event was held before the Macau GP until 2004, when it moved to Shanghai. In September 2005 Ralliart produced 50 Jackie Chan Special Edition versions of the Lancer Evo IX; Chan acts as honorary director of Team Ralliart China.

In 2005 Mitsubishi entered the Stock Car Brasil series with the Lancer Evolution, ending Chevrolet's status as sole manufacturer. Mitsubishi won the championship twice before withdrawing in 2009. In 2025 the company returned to the series with the Eclipse Cross as part of the series' switch to a Crossover SUV-based formula.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.