The Mitsubishi Model A is the only car built by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Company, a member of the Mitsubishi

corporate group A corporate group or group of companies is a collection of parent and subsidiary corporations that function as a single economic entity through a common source of control. These types of groups are often managed by an account manager. The concep ...

which would eventually evolve into

Mitsubishi Motors is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

manufactured in Japan. It was the brainchild of Koyata Iwasaki, Mitsubishi's fourth president and the nephew of founder Yataro Iwasaki, who foresaw the vast potential of motorized vehicles and the role they would play in the economic development of Japan. Envisioned as a luxury vehicle for high echelon government officials and top executives, the Model A had to be reliable, comfortable, and a showcase of Japanese craftsmanship. After the war in 1964, Mitsubishi would use this approach again to build an exclusive sedan for government officials and top level executives with the

Mitsubishi Debonair The is a four-door executive sedan introduced by Mitsubishi Motors in 1964 to serve as their flagship passenger vehicle in the Japanese market. The word "debonair" means gentle, courteous, suave, lighthearted, or nonchalant. __TOC__ Overvi ...

. Based on the Fiat Tipo 3, it was a four-door seven-seat sedan using a

town car The Lincoln Town Car is a model line of full-size luxury sedans that was marketed by the Lincoln division of the American automaker Ford Motor Company. Deriving its name from a limousine body style, Lincoln marketed the Town Car from 1981 to ...

body style powered by a front-mounted 2.8-litre straight-4 engine driving the rear wheels, and was capable of speeds up to . 22 were built at the company's Kobe shipyard, including prototypes, between 1917 and 1921. Because it was expensive to produce—it was built entirely by hand, with the interior rear compartment furnished with lacquered white cypress—it could not compete with cheaper American and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an competition, and Mitsubishi halted production after four years. Concentrating instead on its successful Fuso commercial vehicles, the Model A would be the company's last passenger car until the

Mitsubishi 500 The Mitsubishi 500 was the first passenger car produced after the Second World War by Shin Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries, Ltd, one of the companies which would become Mitsubishi Motors. It was built from 1960 until 1962 and formed the basis for Mits ...

of 1960. At Mitsubishi's Auto Gallery (a museum of the company's most historically significant vehicles, established at their R&D Center in Okazaki in 1989) there is a replica on display, assembled in 1972 using materials of the time. It has a slightly shorter wheelbase, and uses a

water-cooled Cooling tower and water discharge of a nuclear power plant Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components and industrial equipment. Evaporative cooling using water is often more efficient than air cooling. Water is inexpensive and no ...

977 cc four-cylinder

OHV An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located bel ...

engine instead of the larger 2.8-litre original.

References and external links

Mitsubishi Motors Web MuseumMitsubishi Model A specifications at Carfolio.com
(these differ slightly from Mitsubishi's own figures)

Michael Frank, Forbes.com, 23 April 2001 {{Mitsubishi Motors vehicles Model A First car made by manufacturer Cars introduced in 1917 1920s cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Sedans