Japan's Pioneer of 4WDs

The PX-33 prototype, developed in 1934, was Japan's first domestically produced 4WD passenger vehicle. Commissioned by the Japanese government for evaluation purposes, only four units of this convertible were made. They were tested to the limit and passed with flying colors. In fact, the PX-33's performance went so far beyond everyone's expectations of how a motor vehicle should perform at the time it was said the evaluators were hard put to propose terrain conditions for tests. Simultaneously, a diesel version of the PX-33 was on the drawing board. The plan was to install a 445AD diesel engine in a PX-33 base model and in fact went as far as the prototype production stage when the project was canceled by the government. Like the first PX-33 prototype, the project for the diesel version was canceled not because the performance of the vehicle was in question but rather because the government at the time felt that truck and bus development was of a greater priority to the nation. Although the PX-33 never went into full scale production, and the diesel version never quite made it to a completed prototype, the research and development activities provided invaluable experience for later Mitsubishi 4WD production.