The story
History
Mitsubishi had made cars before: the Model A of 1917, a copy of the Fiat Zero, and later Henry Js from Kaiser-Frazer and Jeeps, assembled from knocked-down kits.source 3 Its Nagoya aircraft works had turned to civilian products when the occupation authorities banned aircraft building (see aircraft makers).source 3 What set the 500 going, though, was the Ministry of International Trade and Industry’s people’s-car plan of 1955, which called for a cheap four-seater.source 3source 4
The engineers who designed it had designed aircraft during the war. They took European small cars as their models and studied European markets, and a one-fifth-scale model went into Japan’s first wind-tunnel test of a car.source 1source 3source 2 The press saw it in September 1959, and the next day’s newspapers, as the JSAE records them, hailed a new car under ¥400,000 as the opening of the people’s-car era, the first people’s-car candidate completed and a turning point in industrial history.source 1
After the Tokyo Motor Show that autumn, it went on sale in April 1960 at ¥390,000.source 1source 3source 4
A small car, not a kei car
The 500 was a two-door saloon of unit construction with its engine at the back: an air-cooled in-line twin of 493 cc, the NE19A, with overhead valves and one downdraught Solex carburettor, giving 21 PS (15 kW) at 5,000 rpm through a three-speed gearbox.source 1source 3 Every wheel had a trailing arm and a coil spring; it steered by rack and pinion, and the spare wheel and fuel tank lived under the front bonnet.source 1source 3source 2 It weighed 490 kg (1,080 lb) and reached 90 km/h (56 mph).source 1source 3
At 3,140 mm (124 in) long and 1,390 mm (55 in) wide, it was not one of Japan’s kei cars but a small car, 170 mm longer than a Fiat Nuova 500, and it belongs among microcars as Japan’s answer to the people’s-car plan (see what is a microcar?).source 1source 3source 2 The Toyota Automobile Museum judges that cost-cutting left it a plain interior, but that the engineering was practical and efficient.source 4
Quarter lights came with the DX in October 1960.source 3 In August 1961 the Super Deluxe, the A11, brought a 594 cc engine, the NE35A, with 25 PS (18 kW), and better trim; Mitsubishi says it seated five.source 3source 4source 2 The comedy band Hana Hajime and the Crazy Cats advertised the car.source 3
The Colt 600
Sales were poor, and only 13,289 Mitsubishi 500s were built.source 3 In 1962 a heavy facelift turned the car into the Colt 600, with tail fins and an American look, and a column change with an ordinary H pattern in place of the 500’s unusual one; it was the first Mitsubishi to carry the Colt name. The Colt 600 made 13,739 in three years and gave way to the Colt 800 in 1965.source 3source 2
