This year, Mitsubishi’s luxury sedan celebrates the 60th anniversary of its birth
It was 60 years ago, in 1964, that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (at the time) launched the Debonair as a luxury car. Since then, the car had a long life of 22 years until 1984, and was called “a running coelacanth”.
For a boy in the 1960s, the Debonair was a dream come true
For me, as a boy in the 1960s, the transition of Japanese cars was exciting and fun. I went to the Tokyo Motor Show when the Kachidoki Bridge was still open, and I really enjoyed spending time with cars. At the time, the twin peaks of luxury cars in Japan were the Toyota Crown and the Nissan Cedric (or should I include the Prince Gloria?). In Germany, they were Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Attempting to enter the market as a third force were Isuzu’s Bellel and Mitsubishi’s Debonair.
And it was the Mitsubishi Debonair that made children realize what a luxury car was. Why? The reason is quite simple: whether it was a Crown, Cedric, or Bellel, they all had taxi cars. In the case of the Prince, the Skyline, which was a low-cost version of the Gloria, was used. For the Debonair, however, taxis did not exist as far as I know (they did exist if you read the press release, but I never saw one in Tokyo).
The Crown, Cedric, and Bellel could be taken if you picked up a taxi in town. Of course, I was not yet in a position to pick up a taxi in town, so when my grandfather asked me to “Hey, pick up a yen-taxi”, I bravely took to the road, raised my hand to the car I wanted to drive and enjoyed the ride, even if it was only a short way. But unfortunately, I don’t remember riding in a Debonair because I had never seen one, and its positioning was that it was a luxury car in my mind.
Mitsubishi’s luxury car project was a paper-thin line for storage
The Debonair went on sale in 1964 (the year the Tokyo Olympics were held). However, the background to this history is detailed by the company history, which states that one wrong move and this car would not have been born. What this means is that, at the time, there was a whirlwind of controversy within Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as to whether or not the company should develop a luxury car. It was at this time that talk of a technical tie-up with Italy’s Fiat came up.
Mitsubishi, which had not yet developed the luxury car field, compared the Fiat 2100, which was sent as a sample, with a domestic car of the same class, and as a result, the Fiat 2100 proved to be several levels superior to the domestic cars of the time in terms of handling, acceleration, quietness, etc. The company worked out the conditions of the tie-up with Fiat and even went so far as to apply for approval from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The company even went so far as to apply for approval to MITI. However, MITI was told that only one of the two could be approved because another application for approval had been submitted by the same company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and that they had to choose between the two.
The car had the feel of an American luxury car.
Japanese cars of the time were strongly influenced by American design, and apart from Toyota, which went its own way, both the Cedric and the Debonair, with their wrap-round front windows, had styling reminiscent of the USA. The Debonair, in particular, was designed by Hans Bretzner, a former GM designer, and this made it seem even more so. Styling-wise, it was said to be reminiscent of the 1961 Lincoln ‘Continental’, and indeed, if you look closely, the details are similar. It’s interesting to see the Ford-style Lincoln resemblance, even though he was supposedly a former GM designer.
The second generation was developed jointly with Hyundai and Chrysler
This Debonair was built almost without changing its style for 22 years, from its launch in 1964 until the second generation in 1986. I don’t know of any other car with such longevity, if I may be so forward as to say in the same style. Despite the high aspirations of the first generation, the second generation seems to have been a car that was at the mercy of current trends and the position of the manufacturer. First, the RWD was replaced by the FWD. This was because it was possible to increase interior space without incurring costs.
In the first place, this car was approached by Hyundai (then known as Hyundai, now Hyundai) of Korea for joint development, to which Mitsubishi agreed, and in a sense, it was a godsend for Mitsubishi. In addition, all Mitsubishi vehicles at the time were FWD, so the company had already accumulated the technology for FWD. So the platform itself was based on that of the Galant Sigma.
Mitsubishi’s first car with a V6 engine was also developed jointly with Chrysler, which also allowed them to split the development costs. Incidentally, the Grandeur, produced by Hyundai with badge engineering, was the best-selling car in its class in the Korean market at the time, but this was not the case for the Debonair in the Japanese market.
By the way, an AMG-tuned (but only basic appearance) model based on this car was also offered in this era, but it failed to find any sportiness in it.
The third generation introduced advanced equipment
The partnership with Hyundai continued with the third-generation Debonair, with Mitsubishi developing the powertrain system and Hyundai doing the body design. The system was introduced to measure the distance to the vehicle in front, in line with the current ACC system. However, the system only issued a warning when approaching, and at the time did not go as far as controlling vehicle speed.
Then in 1999, the Debonair came to an end, with the market being taken over by the more senior ‘Proudia’. If it had continued to be made, it would have celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.
translated by DeepL