It’s February already and we haven’t had a Mitsuoka post yet. Time to trawl down to the abyssal area of JDM oddity and see what creature we can find, eh? Maybe a cute little kei car with fins or a chrome-nosed family hatchback? No, we can’t have anything that tame. We’ll go nuclear (well, certainly fully-fledged mutant) and examine a genuine veteran Ryoga wagon. Deep breath and let’s dive on in.
Our featured fugly fish here is an early model Royga wagon. This species of Mitsuoka appeared in February 1998 in both notchback saloon and wagon guise, based on the Nissan P11 Primera. The Ryoga thus was available with a choice of a 1.8 or a 2-litre 4-cyl., the latter being the famous SR20DE also used on the Silvia.
The P11 Primera left the JDM in January 2001, but Mitsuoka kept modifying used ones on demand until 2007. Simultaneously, they switched to the B15 Sunny for a second generation of the Ryoga, which we’ve had the dubious pleasure of meeting a couple years back. Those B15 Ryogas were made from new cars until the Sunny went out of production in 2005, and then were made from second-hand B15s until 2001. But these second-gen Ryogas were saloon-only; if you wanted the long-roof, it had to be an older Primera-based car.
The whole point of the Ryoga was its Jaguar-on-acid front end. This was especially true of the Primera-based cars, as those barely bothered with Mitsuokizing the rear end. This is particularly the case with the wagons. Aside from a tacked-on chrome bumper (which is missing its overriders in our feature car) and a suspiciously discreet Mitsuoka badge replacing the Nissan roundel, that’s pretty much it.
The same goes for the interior, which I has unable to capture (the benthic conditions did not allow for a clear enough shot of this beast’s insides): nothing was different in there either. All the big development Yen went to that unmistakable mug.
So what’s a Mitsuoka made of, really? It’s 99% Nissan, essentially, and 1% plastic. This one is old enough that the so-called chrome has peeled off the grille, exposing the white plastic underneath. Yuk.
I guess that means we should “enjoy” these Mitsuokas while we have them, because they sure won’t be aging gracefully. “What, a retro-styled car-crash of a facelifted ‘90s Nissan has lost its mojo? Stop the friggin’ press! You astound us, T87.” I hear you shout (I have sensitive ears, and they just started ringing). Yes, yes, who’d have thunk it and all that. But the point is that Mitsuoka were not above the cheap and easy solutions available to them – and to any other body kit maker. Modern-day coachbuilders they are not.
Our feature car was registered before mid-’99, so it was sold new as a Ryoga and is therefore one of the older ones about. Some of the ones out there are a bit younger and probably will keep their plastichrome intact a bit longer, but judging from the aging Mitsuokas I’ve seen so far, things can get pretty nasty around the edges. And these are all about the edges.
Related post:
Curbside Classic: 2003 Mitsuoka Ryoga – Mid-Range Madness, by T87
That’s an interesting looking front end. It seem to be an amalgamation of several European cars from the 1950s. Too bad about the chromed plastic grille. That really seems out of place on an upmarket Japanese car of that time.
Wow, I had no idea! Baroque retro aftermarket conversions were a thing in the U.S. in the 70’s/80’s, not so much in more recent decades. Cars like this were popular in Japan? How fun! Your articles have shed a lot of light on the delightful quirks of Japanese car culture.
This really might not be a bad looking alteration except for the extreme front overhang. I guess the idea was to take what would otherwise be a very generic car and make it unique. It worked.
In relation to the size of the car, the front and back remind me of a Jaguar X-Type estate which was based on the Ford Mondeo.
That front end is almost ugly enough to be interesting.
NB: there’s some duplicated text starting at “…which weThe whole point…”
Thanks for catching that — fixed it.
That plastic peeling on the front grille somehow sums this car up for me. But YMMV
I bet if you hold a funhouse mirror next to it then it looks normal. Mitsuoka owners probably have to get special funhouse perscription eyeglasses to like these things.
The B15-based car should’ve been Mitsuoka’s entry into the US market, at least as a vendor of parts kits you could bolt onto your own Sentra.
Nice C3 next to it!