Mitsubishi Model A

The Mitsubishi Model A was the first series-production automobile made in Japan and the only passenger car built by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Company, a forerunner of the Mitsubishi group's later car business. Koyata Iwasaki, the company's fourth president, backed it as a luxury saloon for senior officials and executives. It was a four-door, seven-seat sedan in the town car style, based on the Fiat Tipo 3, with a front-mounted 2.8-litre straight-four engine driving the rear wheels and a top speed of about 60 miles per hour. Twenty-two cars, prototypes included, were assembled by hand at the Kobe shipyard between 1917 and 1921, with a rear compartment trimmed in lacquered white cypress. The cost of hand building left it unable to compete with cheaper imports, so production stopped and Mitsubishi did not sell another passenger car until the Mitsubishi 500 of 1960.