Mitsubishi Motors is about to celebrate 40 years in Europe. It began with its first official new vehicle display at the London motor show in October 1974.
Small numbers of Mitsubishi vehicles had already been imported indpendently into a couple of European countries – Spain (1956) and Greece (1963). Mitsubishi’s own corporate export move to Europe came as a result of a unique agreement in February 1970 between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Chrysler Corporation whereby MHI would spin off its already existing auto division and join forces with Chrysler to create Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC).
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In May 1971, a further deal between MMC and Chrysler International included the distribution of Mitsubishi vehicles through the global Chrysler International dealer network, except for Japan, the United States and Canada.
In a separate move, MMC became a joint company, shared by MHI (85%) and Chrysler Corporation (15%) from September 1971,
Restricted by the terms of this agreement, Mitsubishi sales remained very limited in Europe (4,861 units between 1971 and 1975) at a time sales of other Japanese brands soared, increasing from 16,458 units in 1965 to 126,275 units in 1970, to reach 528,486 units in 1975.
Eventually, in 1974, MMC and Chrysler International reached an agreement allowing MMC to develop its own sales and marketing activities in Europe.
From there, distribution rights were granted to independent companies, first in Belgium and Luxemburg (August 1974), followed within a few weeks by the Netherlands and then the United Kingdom, the country where Mitsubishi officially launched itself in Europe at the London show in October.
The Lancer and Galant were both introduced at that show and then sold from 1975 in the four countries after unveilings at the Brussels and Amsterdam shows.
The rest of Europe followed though some markets restricted volume by quotas (France from 1978) while there was also a ‘voluntary’ cap agreed between Japanese automakers and the SMMT on imports of cars into the UK.
The agreement with Chrysler International ended in August 1982. MMC had established its first European liaison office in Rotterdam in 1977, the forerunner of today’s Mitsubishi Motors Europe (MME), still based in the Netherlands.
Over 40 years, Mitsubishi Motors sales (excluding Canter trucks) have grown from a few thousand in four countries to last fiscal year’s 92,411 units in MME’s 34 markets (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are run separately).
The top three markets last year were Germany: 22,138 units; UK: 12,349 and Norway: 5,697.
Russian sales, in contrast, were 80,000 units. MMC initially developed this market with local partner Rolf Group, starting in August 1991, and it became a standalone region in April 2007. Since 2009, Mitsubishi cars have been sold through a joint venture between Mitsubishi Corporation and Rolf Group, joined in 2012 by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, to form MMC Rus which in turn operates a joint venture – PCMA Rus – which runs the assembly plant in Kaluga.
MMC began manufacturing in western Europe initially in a joint venture with Volvo Cars building both automaker’s models at NedCar, the former DAF car plant, in the Netherlands, from 1995 to 2012. At one time Mitsubishi’s Carisma and Volvo’s S40/V40 were built there on a shared platform and, later, Mitsubishi’s European Colt model was built on a platform shared with Daimler’s short lived Smart ForFour. PCMA Rus production started in April 2010; NedCar, which latterly built the Colt and assembled the Outlander from KD kits shipped from Japan, was closed and sold to to local automaker VDL Groep late in 2012.
MMC also operated design (from 1989 to 2009) and R&D (from 1989 onwards) facilities in Europe. All its cars are now imported from Japan and Thailand; Russian production is only for the local market.
MMC is forecasting a return to profitability in fiscal 2013/4 and predicts sales of around 100,000 units a year in its 34 markets.
