Greetings and welcome to Forty 3rd which focuses on models within the 1/43 - 1/50 scale.
Having showed you some nice British cars from my previous blog we now hop over to Japan to look at a Willys Jeep wagon or is it? As you look closely, something is not what it seems as instead of the familiar Willys Jeep logo it has the 3 diamond star logo on the front and if you don’t know what that is, that’s the Mitsubishi logo.
Most of us in the States would associate this brand with Galants and Evo Lancers so what is a Mitsubishi logo doing in a Willys Jeep body?
The Jeep somehow was introduced to the Japanese market as the Jeep J3 in July 1953 after Willys agreed to allow Mitsubishi to market the car themselves. The name was not in reference to “CJ3", but rather denoted the fact that 53 “J1"s (CJ-3A with 6-volt electrics) were built for the Japanese regional forest office and approximately 500 “J2"s (CJ-3A with 12-volt electrics) were built for the National Safety Forces. So technically it is still a Jeep.
The Jeeps were in production until 1998. To maximize utility, some models were offered with diesel power and some included Dana axles, but the body and frame were unique to Mitsubishi.
Checking Willyscountry.com, it was indicated if you want a Mitsubishi branded four door wagon, it comes with right hand drive and probably have to import it from Japan as precious few are in the US. They not only had the flat late 40's CJ3B style frontend, they were built on the CJ3B chassis, so are smaller than the US spec models. They had the vertical rear doors like the panel delivery wagon and mostly had diesel engines. These are under the J3x series. I remember seeing these when I was growing up and noted that the hood on these were somehow higher than the other jeeps.
The model shown is a 1961 Mitsubishi J30 manufactured by a company called First:43 from Japan, I have not been able to find out anything about this company.
This model has nice detail as it comes with some separate parts like headlights, taillights, side mirrors, wipers and even mud flaps. I would give this a 3.75 in quality as there is a bit of refinement needed on the front grill and one side of the front and back wheels do not roll. Even though the company managed to copy the likeness of the actual model I would rate this brand below Ebbro.
Here is a 1:1 sample.
I’m expecting a wagon this time by Willys Jeep to arrived soon and I can’t hardly wait to compare them.