Stallion CC, Take Two: I just deleted the first three paragraphs of what I had written. Starting on a new CC is always a bit of a journey into the unknown, but this one had a serious surprise for me, about half-way through. I was pretty much sticking to the facts and a few reminiscences, and planned to either totally avoid, or at the most barely touch upon the urban legend about the origin of the Starion’s odd name. Especially so, since I’d rejected its premise so vigorously in the past. And then I stumbled into an obscure but highly revealing piece of evidence that may solve it once and for all. You be the judge.
The website Snopes.com bills itself as ” the definitive internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors and misinformation”. The specific claim about the Starion is this:
Mitsubishi mistakenly named a model of car “Starion” instead of “Stallion” due to Japanese mispronunciation difficulties.
That assumption is that it was a classic (and extreme) example of “Engrish”, the almost universal pronunciation of the English “l” as “r” by Japanese, since there is no “l” in the Japanese tongue. And that Mitsubishi intended to name their new-for 1983 sporty-coupe the Stallion, since this car was going to be among the first of Mitsubishi’s cars exported to the US under its own name (Mitsubishis were all branded Plymouth or Dodge up to that point). And that Stallion would be a fine name with which to compete with America’s pony cars, like the Mustang. And one more argument was thrown in, that Mitsubishi had used another equine name – Colt – on its popular line of sub-compact cars.
I didn’t buy it. Here’s my list of debating points that I used against it:
Mitsubishi was a very large corporation that did business in many countries by that time. Chrysler owned 15% of Mitsubishi since 1971, so there were obviously many ties established with the US, and large quantities of documents, translations, etc. Mitsubishi was not some little hick cottage industry builder. And sophisticated Japanese had some degree of self-awareness about these kinds of issues, and had many translators on staff.
Mitsubishi also had a tradition of both odd names as well as celestial ones. In addition to the Starion, Mitsubishi’s first foray into the US market was with the Cordia and Tredia. And Mitsubishi’s engine families all had celestial-related names: Sirius, Astron, Orion, and Saturn. Mitsubishi brushed aside the whole question by saying Starion was a contraction of Star and Orion. Not a brilliant defense, especially since the Starion specifically didn’t use the Orion engine, but…
The final argument is that someone obviously would have noticed this “mistake” early on, before the necessary badges and other printed materials went into production, and had it fixed. They would have had advance information for their new American dealer network, right? Or?
Now for the other side:
Mitsubishi made another naming mistake, with their SUV Pajero. That unfortunate name means “masturbator/wanker” or a sexually deficient male in parts of South America, especially Argentina. Which presumably explains why it was changed to Montera for the US. Or was that the reason?
In their defense, Pajero was used initially for a Japanese prototype ten years before it went into production, and the word does have a formal Spanish meaning (carrier of straw). It’s not that uncommon for international companies to stumble upon a local slang or dialect issue with names. And they usually just get over it. It wasn’t on the scale of a botched Stallion.
Anyway, I got into a spirited debate about it with Jonny Lieberman back in the old TTAC days, and he claimed to have heard this story from an ex-Toyota (?) engineer:
Not as simple as that — the story I heard is that the print shop (i.e third party) doing all the marketing materials got it wrong — heard “Starion” and that it was cheaper to change the badges and owners manuals than reprint all of the marketing materials.
Well, I didn’t buy it, and responded with this:
Jonny, Large automobile companies don’t work that way; they don’t send an order to the print shop for all the tooling for numerous badges, etc. etc., pick it up, and, ergo, a new name is born! This story has all the hallmarks of an urban myth (ignorance of actual processes). When Mitsubishi started importing directly to the US in 1982, they had three models: the Tredia, the Cordia, and the Starion. You think Starion is any goofier than the rest??
That was back in 2008, in the comments on a piece about “What Is Your Favorite Urban Myth” And here it is almost four years later, and I’m confronting the same issue again. Well, I was going to just skip it, and talk about the car, and half way into it I decided to visit google and see if I could find any old Starion ads to put in this piece, as is my custom.
What I found was a link to this Starion tv ad on YouTube. I almost didn’t bother, but from the image frozen on it, I could tell it was an old Japanese ad, and I have a serious soft spot for them, having worked at a Japanese language tv station in LA.
So I hit play, and as it neared the end, a brief image came up, for barely a second or so, and it almost didn’t register. But then it hit me! And I played it again, and finally got it paused at the right moment, at exactly 23 seconds in. And in case you it passed you by too quickly, I grabbed a screen shot of it, below.
The profile of a stallion! The smoking gun! I’ve never seen a logo or any material of the Starion with this image of a stallion head. So how’s Mitsubishi going to explain that, given their excuse that the Starion was named after a star? And how is it that this appeared in a tv ad, but no where else to my knowledge?
The Starion premiered in 1982 in Japan, but I don’t know the exact month. It arrived in the US as a 1983 model, the first year for Mitsubishis here. TV ads are often shot early, with pre-production cars. It’s very possible that this was the intended logo for the Stallion Starion, before someone clued them in. The horse head disappeared, but lives on, in the miracle of YouTube.
One more thing: the argument that Mitsubishi was using the other equine word Colt for their small car doesn’t hold any water, since that name was solely used by Chrysler for their captive imports to the US and Canada. Undoubtedly, that was their name, and Mitsubishi had nothing to do with it (it was called the Mirage elsewhere). (Update: Wrong; I forgot that Mitsubishi has used the name Colt for decades in Europe)
My case rests.
Snope’s ruling was: Undetermined You can read their whole assessment here. But I’ve covered most of it already .And they didn’t know about this video. Nobody’s ever mentioned it before.
Now it’s your turn, members of the jury. I’ll accept your judgement, if you can all agree.
This is without a doubt my favorite car that Mitsubishi ever put out and it’s a shame they haven’t made anything like it since. I’ve always loved the angular styling of 1980s Japanese sports cars and the Starion/Conquest is no exception. Personally I prefer the original narrowbody model as it has cleaner styling and isn’t quite as heavy as the more common widebody model.
It would be reminiscent of a first-generation RX7 if the front wheels weren’t so far back on the car.
On the name thing I don’t have any direct info, but I do know that some Japanese companies made efforts to help their people with the English language. I had a friend whose son married a Japanese woman while he was stationed at Yokosuka, and stayed on in Japan after he got out of the Navy. The friend somehow made contact with a Japanese steel company that had a program of sending their executives who would be transferred to the US to stay with a US resident for a couple of weeks. This would help the guy (yes, they were all male) to learn a little bit about life in the US, and some of the English-language idioms people use. I should add that these folks usually had an old Caddy or Lincoln in the driveway, and one of their routines would be a trip to eastern Washington for some fast driving in the open country at speeds near 100 mph, an experience definitely outside the experience of most Japanese. I don’t remember which company it was, but it seems safe to say that it wasn’t Mitsubishi.
I remember reading in Wheels magazine (Australia) when the Starion was released that it was meant to be Stallion, so the debate has raged for a long time! On a side note, considering the Japanese difficulty in saying ‘L’, I’ve always wondered how on earth they pronounced my car, the Nissan Laurel…!
They pronounce it “roh-reh-ru”.
As far as I’m concerned, the single most Japanese-iest car of the 80′s. I always liked ‘em.
How many TURBO badges are on this one? Counting the interior, I’m just going to go ahead and guess 40.
I think the Mazda Cosmo is even more Japanese-y, but that’s the ’60s. This Starion reminds me of my 85 RX7. Bright white with red racing stripes. I miss that car, except for when I get behind the wheel of anything that will start…
Who cares? I’d much rather hear about the car.
Sorry; But I’ll make it up to you. I’ve also shot the Dodge Conquest version, and we’ll talk about the car, not the name.
Even though a Japanese car called Conquest sold by Americans has its own issues…..as in an alternate history.
I’d bet further evidence exists in old Japanese trade publications equivalent to Motor Trend etc that would lend credence to the Stallion thing, or not.
There are plenty of Ls in Japanese car names even double Ls Toyota Allex Corolla Im sure they could spell stallion. That one sure has a stand out paint job I had a crash helmet done in the rising sun many moons back kinda cool seeing it again it goes with the number plate well
Well, at one of my former employers we used Kubota engines that were imported from Japan (fun trivia – they have British Standard Pipe or BSP threads, NOT metric, on their engine sensor ports, since the British brought over their tooling after WWII when Japan was being rebuilt), and it was painfully obvious that they wrote (and didn’t proofread) all of their technical manuals and informational and warning decals over there.
I kid you not, one of the warning decals said “Do Not Use in Brazing Sun” (we threw that decal away, I wish I had kept one of them now).
This was in the late 1990s. I was just dumfounded that they couldn’t have hired just one person who knew enough English to catch those kind of mistakes.
So I can totally believe that they messed up on this one!
I’m unsurprised by this, I worked for Makita in the 90′s and our “Makita Motor Tester” had one of the wires marked as “Brack” instead of Black, a source of minor amusement. The BSP also makes some sense since my metric tap and die set has a BSP pipe tap in it.
:
“One more thing: the argument that Mitsubishi was using the other equine word Colt for their small car doesn’t hold any water, since that name was used solely by Chrysler” Quote
Mitsubishi used the “Colt” name in the UK.
I can’t believe I forgot that. I’ve amended the text.
I would have to check when they used the Colt name in Australia, but it was attached to the 800 – grew into – 1100F model that was brought here. I have a book that has a story of some durability testing done in outback Australia back in the 60′s. The title of the book comes from what one cattle station owner said to the crew – “you can’t get here from there”, the country between here and there was trackless sand-dune proper desert.
A school friends mother had a 68 Mitsi colt it replaced her shockingly unreliable Morris 1800.
Paul,
Just to make things a little more complicated, compact Mitsubishis have been named Colt on European markets for as long as I can remember (at least since the early 80s) and bear that name to this day. Also, I have checked the Swiss online trademark registry and it shows that Mitsubishi owns the Colt trademark for land, air and water vehicles (amphibian Mitsubishi anyone?) since 1988.
OK, I have a new theory for the misnomer:
I just checked the Swiss trademark registry again and it shows that Mitsubishi filed the Starion trademark on 13 March 1981. Given the relative unimportance of the Swiss market, I would assume they registered the trademark in other markets before or at the same time.
Now, here comes my theory:
Sometime in early 1981, the head honcho at Mitsubishi marketing department calls his colleague in the legal department and asks him to register the brilliant name his team has just come up with all over the world. The legal department goes ahead and unleashes its trademark lawyers (usually independent law firms who charge big bucks for their services) who register “Starion” everywhere.
Note: it doesn’t matter whether its the marketing guys who got the name wrong or the legal department who misunderstood.
By the time someone noticed the error, the car was already about to be launched and it was too late/too costly to go back and register “Stallion” instead of “Starion”.
What do you think?
I will propose a variation on your theory. The original proposal was for Stallion. Then someone discovers that the name is locked up in one country or another. So Mitsu comes up with one of those nonsensical names that nobody has ever heard of and which is, of course, available to reserve everywhere that uses the western alphabet. Corolla, Camry, Accord, Starion. One nameplate for use everywhere in the western world. Problem solved.
That sounds very plausible. However, doing a quick Google search I have not found any record of a conflicting Stallion trademark as of today (it could of course have been allowed to lapse since 1981). The only currently registered “Stallion” I have found in class 12 (vehicles) is an Australian trademark for semi-trailers registered since 2005.
After Mustang was a monster hit, somebody somewhere had to have registered a car trademark on Stallion. Presumably lapsed before the online databases start.
This seems plausible to me. I would add that even without a conflicting mark issue, it’s not certainly uncommon for manufacturers to stylize spellings or capitalization for greater distinction.
A very good theory indeed.
I just don’t buy that it could have been a mistake. Maybe Mitsu is not the greatest car company, but they are a very successful conglomerate. If a third party printer makes a mistake, it is on them to fix it. I can’t imagine a large company changing its branding because if a third party’s mistake. I also doubt they made this mistake themselves. As has been pointed out, they had plenty of U.S. ties and had successfully used the letter L in the Colt name. Now the video Paul found is intriguing. I only have one explanation: perhaps they did intend to use horse imagery early on, decided that was too close to the captive import Colt image, and then distanced themselves from it to make it clear that these were Mitsubishi’s and not associated with Chryco.
It’s not a huge stretch to think that Mitsu would try and cover up something as minor as this to save face when for years they actively covered up serious safety defects in their products which resulted in people loosing their lives.
NOBODY remarked on the paint job? The Mitsubishi Zero homage? It’s so. Unbelievably. Offensive.
Yes, perhaps WWII was a long time ago, but not for the people who fought against the Japanese and the atrocities they committed. It’s one thing to buy a Japanese car, and another thing to celebrate the attack on Pearl Harbor and the millions of lives lost to the Japanese in WWII.
It’s to the Nth degree more offensive than today painting Osama bin Laden and Death to America on your car.
You may be reading into it too much, it’s a Japanese car that happens to have been repainted late in it’s life to resemble Japan’s national flag. If one were to roll up on it from behind they could easlly mistake it for a red car with white racing stripes, quite striking.
this is a battle flag – not the national flag which is just white w/ red meatball. It is offensive–but let’s just say the dimwit who conjured it up probably hasn’t got a clue.
Given where I found the car, that would be my guess.
You know, something being offensive is usually determined by someone who is bound and determined to be offended.
Alternate theories on that paintjob:
1. The national flag, painted like that, would look awful boring. A white car with a red circle dead center on the roof.
2. Said owner is a person like me: Picking on the politically correct is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and a hell of a lot of fun. And I live my life that way.
Go back someday and listen to Lenny Bruce’s monolog on offensive terms. As true today as it was in 1956. Except that we don’t have the guts to play it anymore.
Explanation 2 is very possible. And you are so right about Lenny Bruce.
Whoever painted it messes up, though. The lines don’t line up at the rocker panels.
Well- that flag was used only during WWII- and then the flag was changed after wwII to remove the stripes, plus, the vanity plate says, One Zero. The rising sun on the roof cements it- definitely not racing stripes. It’s akin to painting your Mercedes/BMW/VW with swastikas and death’s head symbols and Juden Verboten.
In America, we hear much less nowadays about the Japanese atrocities in WWII than we do about the Holocaust, but the Japanese were just as brutal if not more so.
Please note that any offense taken is at the OWNER of this incredibly offensive design, not Paul- Paul, I love your website, it’s the first thing I look at every day. The writing is top notch.
Absolutely fascinating! This puts the old “Nova = no go” myth into the weeds.
The only civilian WWII casualties in the 48 states were an Oregon mother and five children who found a balloon bomb in the woods.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/six-killed-in-oregon-by-japanese-bomb
My first reaction was wow, what an amazing paint job. Punny plate, playing on binary.
On reflection, yes, it is deeply thoughtless at best. You make a very good point about ignorance and denial of Japanese military atrocities. Japan, China, America and the world paid a very heavy price for that one way or another. It’s history to be remembered, acknowledged, put behind us but not forgotten.
How many of you know that “Animal House” was shot in Eugene? Send that kid to remedial history class!
I’m just grateful we never got the Ecripse.
Shot at U of O no less!
Hey… if we’re gonna bring up ‘Animal House’ on this site, then I want pictures of Flounder’s brother’s suicide door Conty.. — before the ‘eat me’ treatment.
Let’s not forget that this rising sun flag was on a host of things in the early to mid 80s. All sorts of clothing and other pop culture (i’m pretty certain it had nothing to do w/ celebrating WW2 or Japanese atrocities). This person is undoubtedly a child of the 80s so it makes some sense.
Child of the 80s Prince Harry wore a swastika to a party once in a similarly brainless way, and justifiably caught all hell for it. Foolish, but no excuse.
Maybe this car is an art project meant to remind and promote discussion of the history of this symbol, and Mitsubishi’s role in the war machine. Probably not.
“Well- that flag was used only during WWII- and then the flag was changed after wwII to remove the stripes”
Not true. It was never the national flag. It’s the flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy (hence its prominence in the Pearl Harbor attack, since that was a naval operation) Neither the national flag nor the naval flag has ever been changed.
The IJN’s successor entity, the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) still uses the same flag today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Maritime_Self-Defense_Force
At the end of the movie “Tora Tora Tora!” the IJN’s “Battleship March” can be heard over the loudspeakers just before the victory announcement. The JMSDF’s band still plays the march regularly. Videos of that can be found on YouTube.
To be honest, even if I can understand that someone who fought the Japanese during WWll is offended, I don’t think you quite understand how much more offensive the Swastika,( I must admit I have seen Swastikas used on one show car though) or ‘Juden Verboten’ would be on a car than the rising sun. It has allready been a fashion thing for years to decorate custom cars with skulls and Iron Crosses, or fully decorated as a fighter plane, offcourse for it’s obvious shock factor, but they at least limit it to the ‘normal’ military decorations, not the symbol of the atrocities.
And, it has been a while since WWll…
I liked the Conquest name. Less controversy.
As much as I find it hard to believe an Engrish slip up would cause the name change the video really does add a Stallion slant..
I like the Starion name – it somehow fits the car. Over the top 80s and Japan-ish character. I’d love to have one of these. We never got these offically in Canada so it has the forbidden fruit vibe to it.
Good point. Especially after they went to the wide body style. That was really over the top!
Not the only such Japanese battle flag on the road.
http://auto.military.com/roadwarriors/view/motorcycle-showroom/143126.html
I recall walking into a Chrysler dealership on my lunch hour one day and saw one of these for the first time. What a contrast to the steady onslaught of aero-everything styling then coming into vogue. The car stopped me in my tracks, needless to say, and I was impressed. Far more angular than our 1981 Reliant and a world apart form the 1976 Dart Lite I was driving at the time when my wife went back to work. I would be impressed to see a car with creases and angles as sharp as these now – it would be a relief from all the melted gobs of goo rolling around!
With a young family and not much in the way of extra income, this was as much a dream machine as any Corvette or for buying my old avatar again, for that matter. Solid Chrysler Corporation (more-or-less) work-a-day vehicles – read: family cars – was the order of the day.
“I would be impressed to see a car with creases and angles as sharp as these now – it would be a relief from all the melted gobs of goo rolling around!”
Seconded. If there was a new car that had the same styling as this Starion or something like the AE86 or DeLorean, I’d be on it in a heartbeat, especially if it had modern-day safety features and gas mileage (not to mention better performance of course).
My bad, totally missed the tag.
There would be documentation of a car’s proposed name in the USA office, spelling it as “Stallion”. The You Tube video looks home made, no “proof” at all.
I assure you that ad was state-of-the-art for 1982; I was in tv production then. Things have come a long way since then.
Just two short comments: I once heard it mentioned that the Acura RL was so named to confound the Japanese by juxtaposing those notorious letters.
When my wife brought her 1975 Toyota Corolla into our marriage, I noticed in the owner’s manual in the back section where the specifications were listed naming the car as the “Colorra.” I didn’t know about the “L” vs. “R” conundrum back then.
This wasn’t a messup; Mitsubshi had a plethora a wierd names in the 1980s.
Vindi-fucking-cated!
Woah, Jonny Riebelman! Cerebrated auto joulnarist!
I’ll stop now.
Is that some kind of Christmas candy cane paint job?
These translation typos are still with us. When reading the manuals for my 2008 Acura, I noticed several, including a diagram with the word “Grobe” for “Globe”.
As a speaker of Japanese as my first language, maybe I can contribute by translating the audio track to the TV commercial. During the space-y animation with the toga-girl the voiceover says:
“Heracles’ beloved steed Arion returns as a star. Starion.”
Brochure showing the space + Greek mythology motif –> http://www.pri.nir.jp/~yd24gsr/page/starion/gallery/leafret.htm
Arion –> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arion_(mythology)
That space illustration was done by Shusei Nagaoka (http://www.shusei-nagaoka.com), who turns out to have done many album covers for Earth Wind and Fire. Not that anybody asked.
Thank you. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it, “Stallion” returns as a “Starion”??? Hmmm.
Do the Japanese have the right sense of humor to have done this deliberately?
SUPER NAMING POTENTIAL
I just had to get that out of my system
This car is to 80′s Japaneese car sporty coupe styling cliches what the Lincoln Mark V is to 70′s personal luxury coupe styling cliches.
I remember a friend of my mothers had a brand new 1984-85 one of these loaded to the gills, it was 2 tone burgandy over champage with champagne wheels(I know….WTF) with a burgandy “gathered” leather interior with all the wrinkles that scream “luxury”, it has to hold ther record for the most amount of times the word “TURBO” appears on one single vehicle.
I remember hers had the word TURBO on the seat belts even, alternating with Mitsubishi tri-diamond logos, the dashboard had the full Ginza-district digital treatment, and I seem to remember that there even was a little digitial animated TURBO that woud “spool” when you got on the throttle, it had steering wheel radio controls on the center or the wheel, just under another TURBO logo, the air conditioning controls were soft touch digital controls like a microwave and the stereo looked like a high end home unit, it had no knobs, it was a silver faced bank of buttons with an orange digital display, it impressed the hell out of me as a kid, I had never seen so much “digital” in one car, it was like a road going Knight Rider you could buy in real life.
This is what my 1978 Plymouth Arrow (nee Mitsubishi Celeste) wanted to be when it grew up…:)
Im glad you all enjoy my car, its always been a cool car, but the paintjob makes it even more fun. My car is a 1983 (made 12/82), the hood and tail lights are a dead givaway, but lots of folks have put 83 hoods on their non-83 car.
Yes, the rising sun flag is a military flag, Yes the plates refer to the Mitsubishi Zeros that terrorized the south pacific in the early 1940s (No it has nothing to do with perl harbor, or war crimes, osama, or kill all americans.)
While others have called it an “art car” I never considered it an art car, until reading these posts.
This car is the narrowbody (mentioned in an earlier post), I to favor the narrowbody to the wide body. I also have a 1986 widebody.
The turbo badging: Yes, Turbo is printed on the car a lot, back in 1983 turbos were pretty much only on race cars, consumers didnt get turbos, so it was kind of a big deal. I dont know what the most japaneesy car is, but there are lots of good ones. The supra, subaru XT, Skyline, … Many great japaneese cars from the 80s.
The conquest (dodge, chrysler, plymouth, whatever) was a starion, they are the same car, just re-badged. We in the starion community include conquests as part of our community (the clubs are actually called starquest because many of us drive conquests, even though they are really starions)
Skye: #2
Dan, yes, I need to fix the rockers, and a line in the back (and a million chips and misakes and stuff… The paintjob needs a lot of work. When I started painting it, I had the doors off, and had to guess where the lines would meet. I had to rush to finish the paint, and never fixed it up.
Those are not stripes, they are rays Stripes have parallel lines, rays have converging lines.
The Doors on my car are from an 85, which is why the handles say turbo (so do the seatbelts!) All the other turbo badges are stock 1983 decals. I would like to replace them all one day, trying to mask around them is kinda ugly.
The reason behind the paintjob is a long story, but It mostly has to do with visibility. Before the paintjob people would try to change lanes right into my car, it happened almost every day. This paintjob works great, I almost never use my horn.
Thanks for adding your comments. That really helps add to the story. Enjoy your Stallion; I mean Starion!
You are welcome Paul.
I dont drive a lot, but I do enjoy it when I do.
P.S. I hadnt read your post when I made my last post.
*Cricket sounds*
To Zackman,
The Cadillac CTS is the most angular car I can think of in current production. the CTS Coupe is awesome!! The CTS-v is the one to have.
This is the nuttiest article I’ve ever seen here. Brirriant!
I am also pretty sure the Starion was the design basis for what was REALLY the most Japanese car of the 80s, the Inspector Gadget mobile from the syndicated cartoon
I’ve always loved this styling language from the period. In someways, I’d love for it to come back to a degree.
As to this car, I vaguely recall seeing them new back in the day, along with the Cordia and the Tredia. Murilee Martin found both a Cordia and a Tredia in his junkyard finds series recently, the Tredia sported the digital dash in NoCal and had his friend get it for him, I think the next day after he’d flown back to Colorado.
He may rig it up to light up and perhaps get the tach operational and hang it on his home office wall. It’s so 80′s in its design is way cool to be honest.
One very cool car. Have liked the Starions and Conquests ever since they first came out. Always wanted to own one. This one seems to me to be what many would consider an “art car.”