The Mitsubishi Space Star is a car produced by the Japanese manufacturer

Mitsubishi Motors is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.hatchback A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. ...

, a compact

people carrier Minivan (sometimes called simply as van) is a North American car classification for vehicles designed to transport passengers in the rear seating row(s), with reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. The equivalent classification in Europe is ...

, or a micro MPV, it was built at the

NedCar VDL Nedcar is an automotive manufacturing company in Born, Netherlands. Since December 2012 it has been owned by the Dutch industrial conglomerate VDL Groep. Previous owners were Mitsubishi Motors and Volvo Cars. The company had its origins in a ...

factory in the Netherlands and was primarily sold in the European markets. In 2013, Mitsubishi began selling the sixth generation

Mirage A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French ''(se) mirer'', from the Latin ''mirari'', meanin ...

supermini under the Space Star name in parts of Europe, owing to legal rights relating to the use of the Mirage nameplate.

Overview

The Space Star shared its platform with the

Mitsubishi Carisma The Mitsubishi Carisma was a large family car produced for the European market by Mitsubishi Motors from 1995 to 2004.Volvo S40/V40 The Volvo S40 is a series of compact and subcompact executive automobiles marketed and produced by the Swedish manufacturer Volvo Cars from 1995 to 2012. The first generation (1995–2004) was introduced in 1995 with the S40 (S from saloon) ...

. It was first introduced to the market in the autumn of 1998, replacing the Mitsubishi Space Runner. Production of the Space Star stopped in 2005. Since the car's introduction to the market its visual appearance stayed almost identical and it only received a minor facelift in 2002. In 2001, the Space Star was

crash test A crash test is a form of destructive testing usually performed in order to ensure safe design standards in crashworthiness and crash compatibility for various modes of transportation (see automobile safety) or related systems and componen ...

ed by

Euro NCAP The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) is a European voluntary car safety performance assessment programme (i.e. a New Car Assessment Program) based in Leuven (Belgium) formed in 1996, with the first results released in February ...

and received a three-star rating for the safety of its adult passengers, and a two-star rating for the safety of pedestrians. The base Space Stars were equipped with 1.3-litre

petrol engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ''E ...

s with a maximum output of . The other petrol-powered engines were a 1.6-litre with and a 1.8-litre with . A model equipped with a 1.8-litre

GDI GDI may refer to: Science and technology * Gasoline direct injection, a type of fuel injection * Graphics Device Interface, a component of Microsoft Windows * Guanosine nucleotide dissociation inhibitor, a protein Organisations * Gabriel Dumont I ...

engine with was available until its discontinuation in 2002.

Diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s were the 1.9 L DI-D with , introduced in 2002, and the 1.9 L DI-D S version with , released in 2003. All engines are

straight-4 A straight-four engine (also called an inline-four) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The vast majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout (with the ...

engines.

Nameplate reintroduction

The sixth generation

Mitsubishi Mirage The Mitsubishi Mirage is a range of cars produced by the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi from 1978 until 2003 and again since 2012. The hatchback models produced between 1978 and 2003 were classified as subcompact cars, while the sedan and stat ...

, released in 2012, is rebadged as the Mitsubishi Space Star in the European markets. It is a supermini car, in five-door hatchback body style, powered by a three-cylinder petrol engine.

Production and sales figures

''(Production, sales sources
Facts & Figures 2000Facts & Figures 2005Facts & Figures 2007
Mitsubishi Motors website)''

References

External links

{{Mitsubishi Motors timeline (Europe) 1980 to date Space Star Mini MPVs Euro NCAP small MPVs Cars introduced in 1998 2000s cars Front-wheel-drive vehicles VDL Nedcar vehicles