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Big in Japan

By on June 30, 2008

There are no two ways about it: if you are into any kind of outdoor sports and have a family, the most practical vehicle you can own is a minivan. Though you probably want a 4×4 with huge wheels (and correspondingly stratospheric fuel bills), most SUVs, though big on the outside, are disappointingly cramped on the inside. 

 

Trouble is, minivans have all the street credibility of a hospital gown, and as such you really don’t want to be seen in public in one. Mitsubishi spotted this dilemma back in the ‘80s so when they released the third generation of their popular Delica Star Wagon-it appeared to have been perched on stilts. It looked fantastic, precisely like the sort of vehicle we as kids dreamt would be driven around Moon Base Alpha in the year 2000. 

 

Big knobbly tires surrounded by alloy wheels borrowed from the Paris Dakar Rally-winning Mitsubishi Pajeros, a substantial bull-bar held a couple of rally-esque spot lamps up front and the thing could actually go off road as it didn’t just have 4WD, it had differential locks too. The trouble was that with a center of gravity above waist height, the Star Wagon cornered like a racing yacht, heeled right over with half its passengers clinging on for dear life.

 

The fourth generation Delica Space Gear looked a little more subdued, but was actually based on the Pajero 4×4’s chassis and as such remained pretty handy off road, if not on. But then the Delica D:5 hit showrooms early last year. The new car has managed to keep those tough go-anywhere looks, but thankfully has a far lower floor plan and roof line, meaning that you can now drive a mountain road without your kids vomiting every ten minutes. It’s a lot easier to get in and out of too, which your folks might appreciate next time they visit.

 

And critically in these times of surging oil prices, it’s a lot more frugal than its forebears too, thanks to an all new aluminum 2.4 liter four cylinder motor using Mitsubishi’s very latest proprietary valve timing systems. That technology lets the motor develop a healthy 170 horses worth of power which is fed to all four wheels via a continuously variable gear box and a sophisticated All Wheel Control system pinched from Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolution rally cars. The up shot of that is that the D:5 will get you to the remotest of Japan’s ski resorts and across wide beaches without drama, but if you’re planning an overland trip across Borneo, the new Delica’s lowered stance will probably get you in to trouble.

 

Inside, you can seat six adults, or six kids and two adults, comfortably in three rows of seats if you have next to no luggage, but if you’re hauling a cooler, surf boards, ski boots or whatever, one or more of those places will have to be sacrificed. Our test car came fitted with a neat LCD screen that folds out of the ceiling just ahead of the second row of seats. This is wirelessly connected to sets of headphones so the kids can watch Lilo and Stitch in the back while you are listening to your favorite MP3s through the stereo up front. There are even video and audio input jacks and 100v power points for your PlayStation back there too.

 

Unfortunately, the D:5’s interior suffers from Mitsubishi’s perennial double punch of cheap materials and poor build quality. The dashboard is made up of fourteen (I counted) different panels of plastic that had already started to rattle in our six-month-old press car and the seat fabric really doesn’t look like it will put up with more than a few years of familial abuse. That’s not to say the car is uncomfortable, it’s just not somewhere you’d relish spending a lot of your time.

 

More worryingly, when it came time to wash the sand and salt off our nearly new D:5 and return it to the nice folks at Mitsubishi, I discovered surface rust in several spots under the car. A quick comparison with friends’ minivans, made by Toyota and Nissan that spend their summers at the beach and winters on salted roads, suggested that Mitsubishi needs to work on their metallurgy.

 

Mitsubishi is still fighting its way off the ropes following a largely unjustified witch hunt by the Japanese press brought on by poorly maintained Mitsubishi Fuso trucks causing a disproportionate number of accidents, a spate of Pajeros fitted with after market spot lamps spontaneously combusting and the company’s erstwhile habit of ignoring customer complaints by hiding them in a steel locker. That means that the loyal troops who stayed with the firm through the tough times (many jumped ship to resurgent Nissan) are working doubly hard to rebuild the company’s image.

 

On the design front, they’ve done a great job with the D:5. It’s a shame that they can’t build it a little better.

About Justin Gardiner