The Mitsubishi Pajero is a full-size SUV built since 1981 and sold around the world. It is also known as the Mitsubishi Montero in North America, Spain and Latin America and as the Shogun in the United Kingdom, and over its forty-year run it sold more than 3.3 million units and won the Dakar Rally twelve times.
Mitsubishi Pajero at a glance
| Maker | Mitsubishi Motors |
|---|---|
| Production | 1981–2021, then again from late 2026 |
| Other names | Montero, Shogun |
| Name origin | Leopardus pajeros, the Pampas cat |
| First production car | shown at the 1981 Tokyo Motor Show, on sale 1982 |
| Predecessors | PX33 of 1934, Pajero prototypes of 1973 and 1978 |
| Four-wheel drive | Super-Select |
| Dakar wins | 12 overall, plus 150 stage wins |
| Sales | more than 3.3 million |
| Pause | 2021–2026 |
| Fifth generation | late 2026, on the sixth-generation Triton platform |
Based on one source: the English Wikipedia article on the Mitsubishi Pajero. No free photos of the model were found in the material, so the article keeps the earlier picture.
History of the Mitsubishi Pajero
A name from the Pampas cat
The name comes from Leopardus pajeros, the Pampas cat. Mitsubishi sold the SUV as the Montero in North America, Spain and Latin America, except Brazil and Jamaica, because pajero is a derogatory word in Spanish, and in Britain it was the Shogun, after the Japanese word for general. The Pajero was one of four Mitsubishi models, with the Triton, Pajero Sport and Pajero iO, to use the heavy-duty Super-Select four-wheel-drive system rather than the lighter Super All Wheel Control of the passenger cars.
The story begins in 1934 with the PX33 prototype commissioned for the Japanese government. Mitsubishi showed a first Pajero prototype at the Tokyo Motor Show in November 1973 and a Pajero II in 1978, and the first production version appeared at the 1981 Tokyo Motor Show before sales began in 1982. It was marketed as a luxurious but rugged rival to the Range Rover and Toyota Land Cruiser, and in November 2023 the first-generation car was named a Historic Car by the Japan Automotive Hall of Fame.
The Dakar Rally
A Pajero driven by Andrew Cowan won its class on the 1983 Paris-Alger-Dakar, with his team-mate George Debussy second in class and fourteenth overall after more than 11,000 km, and the Pajero’s Dakar history began there. Mitsubishi competed mainly in the T2 modified production class, but also in the Super-Production and T3 prototype categories. T2 cars had to be close to the road-going versions, with modifications largely limited to roll cages, seats, harnesses, navigation equipment and larger fuel tanks, although earlier rules were looser and allowed cars such as the 1995 Pajero Proto with a wider track and a highly tuned engine.
Mitsubishi dominated from 1983 until its final wins in 2007, with 12 overall victories in the car class and 150 stage wins against 78 for the next best, Peugeot, a record recognised by Guinness as the most Dakar Rally wins by a manufacturer. In the late 1990s, wanting a car built to win the T2 class, Mitsubishi added independent rear suspension to the second-generation design and modified the 6G74 engine, then had to build road-going versions for homologation: the result was the Pajero Evolution, of which only 2,693 were made and which is now a collector’s car. From 2002, when rules allowed full prototypes, Mitsubishi ran Evolution vehicles coded MR10 to MR14 with engines built only for the desert, including a 6G7 Di-D quad-turbo diesel and a 4.0-litre V6 based on an overbored 6G75 MIVEC.
Pause and return
The Montero was discontinued in North America in 2006. The Pajero went out of production globally in 2021 after more than 3.3 million sales, and the name lived on with the smaller Triton-based Pajero Sport, which despite its name shares none of the original’s underpinnings. After a five-year pause the nameplate returned in late 2026 with a fifth generation using body-on-frame construction based on the sixth-generation Triton and L200, with Super-Select four-wheel drive and S-AWC.
Design and features
- Super-Select: Mitsubishi’s heavy-duty four-wheel-drive system.
- Dakar record: 12 overall wins and 150 stage wins.
- Pajero Evolution: 2,693 road cars built for T2 homologation.
- Three names: Pajero, Montero and Shogun.
- Return in 2026: a fifth generation on the Triton platform.
Mitsubishi Pajero versions
- First generation (1981): the original three-door and later five-door.
- Pajero Evolution: 2,693 road cars of the late-1990s Dakar design.
- MR10 to MR14: purpose-built Dakar prototypes from 2002.
- Montero and Shogun: export names for North America and Britain.
- Fifth generation (2026): body-on-frame SUV on the Triton base.
The Pajero sits above the Triton-based Pajero Sport, and its ancestor was the PX33. Its pickup relative is the L200, and more cars are in the Mitsubishi collection.
Sources
- Mitsubishi Pajero, English Wikipedia: history, names, Dakar record, generations
