Mitsuoka Cars
JDM · 1 model
Mitsuoka: The Japanese Automaker That Reskins Other Companies' Cars
JDMMitsuoka Motor is a small Japanese car company based in Toyama, founded in 1968 by Susumu Mitsuoka. It is known for retro-styled cars built on Nissan, Mazda, Toyota, and Honda models, most of them made to look like American, European, and especially British cars of the 1950s and 1960s.
Mitsuoka models we cover
Mitsuoka works mostly as a coachbuilder. It takes a production car, keeps the mechanical parts, and replaces much of the bodywork. The Viewt has been on sale since 1993 and the Himiko roadster since 2008. Newer models borrow from American and Japanese classics: the Rock Star (2018 to 2022) put C2 Corvette styling on a Mazda MX-5, and the Buddy, launched in 2021, gives a Toyota RAV4 the look of a K5 Chevrolet Blazer.
In 1994 Mitsuoka was recognized as the 10th Japanese auto manufacturer registered in Japan since Honda in 1963. It has built one sports car of its own design, the Orochi, sold from 2007 to 2014 and based on the Honda NSX, and it has a department that builds hearses. Its UK distributor says every step in the factory is carried out by 45 craftsmen, with no automated production line. Mitsuoka launched in Britain in 2015 through T W White & Sons.
The 2025 M55, built for the company's 55th anniversary, sits on an eleventh-generation Honda Civic and takes its look from the 1970s "Kenmeri" Nissan Skyline. Next is the LA1, a current MX-5 wearing bodywork styled after the 1950s C1 Corvette, set to debut on November 26 as a limited Japan-only car. Designer Takanori Aoki drew both the LA1 and the Rock Star.
