The motorsport programme that would become the Dakar team traces its roots to Andrew Cowan Motorsports (ACMS) Ltd, established in 1983 by Andrew Cowan in Rugby, Warwickshire. Cowan had driven for Mitsubishi since the early 1970s, scoring the company's first international victory at the 1972 Southern Cross Rally. His operation evolved into Ralliart Europe, serving as the primary European base for Mitsubishi's off-road and rally activities. A parallel operation, Ralliart Australia, was set up in 1988 by Doug Stewart — Cowan's team-mate at the 1975 and 1976 Southern Cross Rally — and served as the regional licensee for the Asia-Pacific region.
Both arms were eventually brought under one roof when Mitsubishi formed Mitsubishi Motors Motor Sports (MMSP) GmbH in Trebur, Germany in November 2002, subsequently acquiring ACMS Ltd from Cowan and consolidating the previously independent licensees in 2003.
The centrepiece of Mitsubishi's off-road ambitions was the Dakar Rally, where the Pajero became synonymous with four-wheel success across two decades. The team recorded its first Dakar win in 1982 and continued to accumulate victories across the following years, eventually reaching twelve overall wins — a record in the event's history.
The most sustained run of dominance came between 2004 and 2007, when the Mitsubishi Pajero won four consecutive car class victories. That sequence was achieved under the MMSP SAS banner after the French operation — originally known as SBM, based in Pont-de-Vaux and responsible for Mitsubishi's cross-country rallying activities — was acquired in 2003.
The 2008 Dakar Rally was cancelled due to security concerns, disrupting the team's momentum. For 2009, Mitsubishi developed a new platform, the Mitsubishi Racing Lancer, to replace the ageing Pajero. However, the switch proved poorly timed: Volkswagen's purpose-built Race Touareg programme had matured into a dominant force, and Mitsubishi could not match its pace. That year's result proved to be the team's last serious Dakar campaign; Mitsubishi formally withdrew from cross-country competition in 2009.
Alongside its off-road work, Ralliart Europe ran Mitsubishi's World Rally Championship programme through the late 1980s and 1990s. The team entered the WRC full-time in 1989 with the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, winning in Finland with Mikael Ericsson and in Great Britain with Pentti Airikkala, finishing fourth in the manufacturers' standings.
The programme's defining chapter came with the signing of Tommi Mäkinen and the introduction of the Lancer Evolution series. Mäkinen won five of nine rounds in 1996 to claim the Drivers' Championship, then repeated the feat in 1997, 1998, and 1999 — four consecutive titles that remain one of the most remarkable runs in WRC history. The 1998 season also delivered Mitsubishi's sole WRC Manufacturers' Championship, aided by Richard Burns winning the final four rounds of the season.
The team continued into the 2000s but struggled as rivals switched to World Rally Car regulations, a transition Mitsubishi delayed. Mäkinen departed for Subaru after 2001; the replacement pairing of François Delecour and Alister McRae failed to score consistently, and Mitsubishi finished last in the 2002 manufacturers' standings. The company restructured its motorsport activities and did not compete in the 2003 WRC season.
A return under the MMSP banner in 2005 with the Lancer WRC05 showed improvement — Harri Rovanperä finished second at Rally Australia and seventh in the Drivers' Championship — but Mitsubishi suspended its WRC participation at the end of that year. MMSP Ltd supported limited further entries in 2006 and 2007 before the operation was sold, with John Easton completing a management buy-out in February 2009 to form MML Sports Ltd.
After Mitsubishi's withdrawal, the French cross-country arm MMSP SAS was acquired by Nicolas Misslin in late 2009 and renamed JMB Stradale Off Road. The Ralliart brand itself was scaled down in April 2010, though Mitsubishi retained the name for high-performance road car variants and aftermarket components, with regional licensees continuing in various markets.
Mitsubishi's record of twelve Dakar Rally victories remains the benchmark against which subsequent manufacturer campaigns are measured. The four-year Dakar winning streak from 2004 to 2007 and the Tommi Mäkinen era in the WRC together define the company's standing as one of the significant factory rally teams of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.