When is a Japanese car not a Japanese car?

When it is designed in Australia to meet Australian conditions.

Just such an exercise occured in Australia during the early 1980s. Mitsubishi had taken over the Chysler Australia assets in 1980, including the vehicle assembly plant in Lonsdale, South Australia. This had allowed a spearhead attack staight into the Australian car market, led by the Sigma (Galant). This model became one of the top selling cars in Australia at the time, and presented Mitsubishi with an advantage over its Japanese competition in the Australian market, who themselves were newly setting up auto manufacturing plants in the country.

As the 1980's set in, it became clear that petrol gasolene was not continuing to skyrocket in price and that the Australian market was returning to a demand for large segment vehicles (led in terms of sales volume by the XD-XE series Ford Falcon). Mitusbish Australia responded by developing its own, wide-body edition of the 5th generation Galant, releasing the car in 1985 as the Mitsubishi Magna.

The engineering exercise involved the addition of approximately 4 inches (100mm) of width to the middle of the car, and fitting the largest (2600cc) version of the Astron II 4-cylinder engine. This gave the car the additional width over the Galant, which was configured to fall under the 1695mm width restriction imposed on Japanese cars in their home market. Interestingly, this also made the car nearly 3 inches (75mm) wider than the indigenous Holden Commodore, which claimed itself to be a full-sized car, even though it was significantly narrower than the earlier Holden Kingswood and competitor Ford Falcon.

This exercise was a great success, arning the Magna 'Car of the Year' status in Australia, earned Mitsubishi Australia the engineering development of a Magna wagon (including export deal back to Japan), and allowed the development of two further generations of wide-body Australian Magnas and export deals to the US.

The Magna nameplate was retired in 2005 with the release of the Mitsubishi 380, a significantly less modified 9th Generation Galant. This model was originally to be partnered with a car, code-named PS41L, a long wheelbase premium model intended for export to the US. Severe financial hardship at the Japanese parent company caused this to be cancelled, and the remaining volume of standard cars was no longer enough to maintain manufacturing viability, with the Adelaide factory closing in 2008.

This Lego model has been created in Lego Digital Designer for Flickr LUGNuts 35th build challenge - Big in Japan' celebrating cars, bikes and trucks produced by the Japanese auto manufacturers.

Tags:   Mitsubishi Galant Sigma Magna 380 PS41L Lonsdale Adelaide Lego car model MOC miniland auto Japan Japanese LUGNuts Challenge 'Big In 1980s Australia LDD CAD render foitsop

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