On days when the rest of the car industry is being about as interesting as a documentary about wallpaper paste production, we can always rely on boutique Japanese manufacturer Mitsuoka to inject a bit of fun and creativity into the automotive landscape.
Its products, which tend to take workaday modern Japanese cars and clothe them in copyright-dodging bodies resembling classic British or American metal, aren’t necessarily for everyone, but they’re undoubtedly distinctive and unlike anything else on the market today.
Since the company’s just released a lightly updated version of its Ryugi saloon, we thought it was high time to take a deep dive into its current and recent model range. You won’t find any bland, anonymous crossovers here.
Who is Mitsuoka?
Mitsuoka was founded in 1968 in the city of Toyama but didn’t start building cars until the early 1980s, with its series of insane-looking Bubu microcars. It pretty quickly branched out, however, into the world of retro and ‘neoclassic’ cars, with products like the Nissan Silvia-based Le-Seyde, which vaguely resembled the grand, long-bonneted roadsters of the 1930s, and the Viewt, which turned a Nissan Micra into a baby Mark 2 Jaguar. Sort of.
Mitsuoka Orochi
These retro-styled cars have always been its bread and butter, with one exception: the Orochi, produced between 2006 and 2014, was a mid-engined, Toyota V6-powered sports car of Mitsuoka’s own design. It didn’t necessarily resemble anything else, but its looks were still… an acquired taste.
Buddy
Mitsuoka Buddy
Revealed in 2020, the Mitsuoka Buddy took the Toyota RAV4 and clothed it in a new body that’s pretty clearly inspired by the K5 Chevrolet Blazer. Apparently, you could get it with either the RAV4’s 2.0-litre turbo four or 2.5-litre hybrid setup. Pitched as a sort of retro lifestyle crossover with lots of promo images of people surfing, just 200 were built before production ended in 2022.
Rock Star
Mitsuoka Rock Star
When one of the greatest lyricists of our time, Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, sang ‘I wanna be a rockstar,’ we’re not sure this is what he had in mind. Mitsuoka’s Rock Star was a current-gen Mazda MX-5, in 1.5-litre form, with a retro-styled body resembling the C2 Chevrolet Corvette of the 1960s. Like its fellow Chevy-resembling stablemate, just 200 were produced between 2018 and 2022. What a two-car garage that would have been.
Himiko
Mitsuoka Himiko/Roadster
In production since 2008, the Himiko is a stretched Mazda MX-5 (initially an NC, before switching over to the ND in 2018) with a body quite clearly inspired by the classic Morgan roadster, as well as arguably Morgan’s own Aero series of retro-styled cars. For a while, the Himiko was actually sold officially in the UK as the Mitsuoka Roadster, but with a price tag of over £50,000, it was a deeply niche prospect.
Galue
Mitsuoka Galue
The Galue has been around since 1996, taking ordinary Japanese saloons and giving them square grilles, round headlights and lots of chrome to make them resemble the mid-20th century output of the likes of Bentley and Rolls-Royce. The current generation went into production in 2015 and is based on the Nissan Teana saloon, which North American and Australasian readers will know better as the Altima.
Ryugi
Mitsuoka Ryugi estate
The Ryugi is like the Galue, but smaller. It was introduced in 2014 and is based on the previous-generation Japanese market Toyota Corolla. It keeps the old-school British-influenced styling and can be had as a pure petrol or a hybrid, as well as offering a choice between front- and four-wheel drive. You can even get it as an estate, which is something Bentley or Rolls never thought to offer in the ’50s.
Viewt
Mitsuoka Viewt
Mitsuoka’s smallest and longest-running model, the Viewt has been around (with a small gap or two) since 1993. To create it, Mitsuoka grafted front and rear ends pretty clearly inspired by the iconic Jaguar Mark 2 onto various generations of Nissan Micra. However, for the fourth generation, introduced in 2023, it switched over to using the Toyota Yaris as its base. We’re still holding out for a turbocharged, four-wheel drive GR Viewt.
M55
Mitsuoka M55
This one’s not in production yet, but having debuted in 2023 as a concept, Mitsuoka recently announced it was going to put the M55 on sale. Based on the current Honda Civic, it’s quite clearly inspired by the recently-deceased Dodge Challenger as well as its early ’70s namesake. It’ll hit the market in 2025, but in the meantime, we can’t wait to see what the company does next. Never change, Mitsuoka.
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