The Mitsubishi PX33 is a prototype passenger car built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the company that later produced Mitsubishi Motors. Commissioned for military use by the Japanese government in 1934, it was the first Japanese-built sedan with full-time four-wheel drive, a technology Mitsubishi returned to fifty years later in motorsport.
Mitsubishi PX33 at a glance
| Maker | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries |
|---|---|
| Year | 1934 |
| Purpose | military passenger car |
| Built | four working prototypes |
| Significance | first Japanese-built sedan with full-time four-wheel drive |
| Planned diesel | 6.7-litre 445AD, 70 PS, Japan’s first direct-injection diesel |
| Project cancelled | 1937 |
| Replacement | Kurogane Type 95, built by Tokyu Kurogane Kogyo |
| Later display | Paris Motor Show, September 2006, beside the fourth-generation Pajero |
Based on one source: the English Wikipedia article on the Mitsubishi PX33, which is short.
History of the Mitsubishi PX33
A military commission
The PX33 was commissioned by the Japanese government in 1934 for military use and built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was the first Japanese-built sedan with full-time four-wheel drive, a layout the company would not use again in a production car until it began chasing motorsport success half a century later.
Four working prototypes were built. A version was also in development with Mitsubishi’s 6.7-litre 445AD engine of 70 PS, Japan’s first direct-injection diesel, but that engine never reached the prototypes in service.
Cancelled and remembered
The whole PX33 project was cancelled in 1937, when the government decided to concentrate Mitsubishi’s manufacturing capacity on the commercial development of trucks and buses. In the same year another Japanese company, Tokyu Kurogane Kogyo, began production of a smaller four-wheel-drive car called the Kurogane Type 95.
The PX33 was rediscovered as a marketing tool when Mitsubishi launched the fourth-generation Pajero. To underline the historical and technological link between the 1934 prototype and its newest sport utility vehicle, the company displayed both cars side by side at the Paris Motor Show in September 2006.
Design and features
- First of its kind: Japan’s first four-wheel-drive sedan.
- Military origin: commissioned by the government in 1934.
- Diesel plan: a 6.7-litre direct-injection engine was under development.
- Four built: only working prototypes, cancelled in 1937.
- Pajero link: shown beside the fourth-generation Pajero in Paris in 2006.
Mitsubishi PX33 versions
- PX33 (1934): four military prototypes.
The PX33 is the ancestor of Mitsubishi’s four-wheel-drive cars, above all the Pajero and its Jeep predecessor. More cars are in the Mitsubishi collection.
Sources
- Mitsubishi PX33, English Wikipedia: origin, prototypes, cancellation
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