by: Peter Nunn
Let's hear it for the Mitsuoka, Japan's ever-inventive number one replicar maker. A builder of offbeat cars that are consummately weird, wacky and for some, it seems, really quite wonderful, Mitsuoka occupies a space on the Japanese automotive map about the size of Rutland.
If you've never heard of Mitsuoka, the first thing you need to know is that it's the brains behind the Viewt, a Nissan Micra dressed up to look like a classic Jaguar Mk II from the 60s. No kidding: brilliant or bonkers, gauche or genius, the Viewt is now a small car legend in Japan where it's a big money earner and more than 10,000 have now been sold.
Then there's the Zero-1, Mitsuoka's tribute to the Caterham Seven. Mitsuoka offers 50cc single-seaters that come in a crate and you build up yourself (one of the best ones is an inspired take on the corrugated Citroen H van) but there are several others out there to tickle your fancy.
What else? In Japan, Mitsuoka has found a niche converting big Nissans to look like Daimlers, Daihatsus to resemble Rileys, Honda Accords to look like, er, well... think of a Ford Edsel, shorthand for the biggest automotive dud of all time and you're getting close. It's the big horseshoe grille on the front, you see.
Behind closed doors, Mitsuoka is working on the Orochi (meaning serpent), a sinfully swoopy mid-engined 'super coupe' with a Toyota 3.3-litre V6 that's been five years in the works and may finally get to make it to market in Japan this summer.
Mitsuoka can also offer you the Le Seyde, a baroque, Liberace-style pimpmobile that may well be the most unfortunate car you can buy in Japan today. Yes, you can smirk - in fact many do, just a bit, when the Mitsuoka name crops up.
There again, maybe it is Susumu Mitsuoka, company founder, who is having the last laugh: the cars he creates have a market in Japan and go for much stronger money than you'd expect. So Mitsuoka's laughing all the way to the bank.
Some Japanese journalists have a soft spot for Mitsuoka, who comes over as the little guy gamely taking on the giants of the game (Toyota, Nissan, Honda, et al), albeit in his own idiosyncratic - some would say affably misguided - way. He's selling to people who are allegedly 'disgusted' with the designs of Japanese cars, cars that all look the same and have no character, etc.
Some of this may well have been true back in the 90s, when Mitsuoka really got going with his replicar business - how to tell a Starlet from a Micra from a Mirage? Today, it's nostalgia and the appeal of 'something different' that draws buyers to Mitsuoka's showrooms, with the added comfort of knowing that the cars he makes are all Japanese-based, so there are no horror stories with reliability and parts. Or at least there shouldn't be.
Also, for Mitsuoka, the replicar side of things is just one part of his business. He also has a chain of 'normal' imported car dealerships across Japan, selling everything from VWs to Detroit iron to bring in the bread and butter. These dealerships are rather charmingly called Bubu and his latest is an authorised outlet in Yokohama selling Lamborghinis.
Mitsuoka might have started out building curious 50cc specials back in the early 80s, with his own Excalibur-lookalike, the Bubu Classic SSK appearing in 1987 (since the Excalibur is a crib of the 30s Mercedes-Benz SSK, does this make the Mitsuoka a copy of a copy?). But things really started to move in 1991 when he dreamed up the Viewt, a Nissan Micra that unashamedly and hilariously aped the Jaguar Mark II, albeit in miniature.
The Jag is still one of the most beautiful and charismatic saloons of all time. Cheekily transfer its look to a humble Japanese domestic econobox and the end result is one of those things that's so bad, it's good. Then again, Sir William Lyons might well be spinning in his grave right now.
Timing was also on the Viewt's side. It appeared just as a retro boom started in Japan and a flood of tiny 660cc Subarus and Mitsubishis (and more) suddenly started sprouting chrome grilles, bumpers and twee interiors, as if it really was 1963 all over again.
The Viewt is a more elaborate piece of work, however, with its own Mitsuoka-designed front and rear end panels, complete with Lucas-like lights, faithfully cribbing the Jag. Yes, it's a cooking 1.3-1.5-litre Micra underneath, shock horror, but you'd never know. You can doll up the interior with leather seats and a 'woody panel' dash, too. It just depends how far you want to go.
If you were to ask, most Viewt buyers in Japan would probably think of it first as kawaii (cute) as well as harmless bit of fun. The punchline comes at the end, however, when you went to pay.
The base Micra used to kick off at around 900,000 (around 3,900 at 91 prices) but fully optioned up and on the road, most Viewt buyers (most of them 20-30-year-old Japanese women) allegedly didn't mind parting with the thick end of 3m (13,000). It was a nice earner for Mitsuoka, who said he used to shift more than 1,000 new Viewts a year.
Things ticked on until Nissan brought out the latest shape Micra in 2002, when Viewt production wound down. But Mitsuoka came up with another bright idea: buying in and reselling used Viewts. Today, with new Micra underpinnings, we're onto Viewt Mk 2, which starts at 11,800 and comes at you with a choice of 1.2, 1.4 and 1.5 engines and even 4WD.
What's more, being slightly longer, wider and taller, and with a smoother roofline, it could be argued that it aesthetically - if that's the right word - works a bit better than the original. Just how funny would it be to ship one to the UK and take it to a Jaguar Mark II owners' meeting?
When Mitsuoka came up with the Zero-1, his Mazda MX-5 engined Caterham Seven tribute in 1994, building his own chassis meant that he officially qualified as Japan's 10th carmaker. It also gave him entry to his own stand at the Tokyo Motor Show, quite a coup for such a tiny manufacturer.
After the Zero-1, Mitsuoka came up with the more flowery Classic Type F in 1996 - essentially the same car with 1.8-litre MX-5 twin cam, but styled this time after a 40s single-seat racer. Apparently...
Mitsuoka's also imported London taxis and parked big chrome grilles on reworked Mk 1 Nissan Primeras (to create the deliciously named Mitsuoka Ryoga). Performing the same kind of transformation - plus new wings and lights on a trio of Nissan domestic saloons (Crew, Cedric and Fuga, if you must ask) - has given him three generations of ornate, Alvis-like saloons called the Galue. You'd want one, wouldn't you?
And then there's the Le Seyde. The first in 1990 was based off a mid-80s Mustang and, at the height of Japan's bubble economy era, when extravagance was de rigueur, proved an instant sell-out. Mitsuoka's since done a second Le Seyde. Launched in 2000, it's a bit less exotic underneath with 2.0-litre Nissan Silvia coupe bits. Probably quite a bit slower, too.
Nissans have formed the basis of many a Mitsuoka - including the Yuga which vaguely resembled a 50s Standard Vanguard - but there's no commercial link between the two. Mitsuoka buys his Nissans at trade price then goes to work with the cutting torch.
Susumu Mitsuoka, 66, who's now passed on day-to-day running of the company to his brother, is an avuncular, soft-spoken man with an unabashed love of 50s and 60s English cars - which explains all the Alvis lookalikes, the Jaguar tributes and Riley-look recreations that have emerged from his factory in Toyama, in northern central Japan.
Say what you like about Mitsuoka (and many do) but he's obviously found his niche, producing olde worlde cars in Japan with, ahem, 'character'. Now he's in the process of spreading the message to China and other parts of Asia: he may well succeed.
Should England also be on the list? Answers on a postcard to Mitsuoka Motor, Toyama, Japan.
source:http://www.channel4.com/4car/feature/features-2006/mitsuoka/index.html
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