Back In The 1990s, Mitsubishi Was Crazy Enough To Put A Lancer Evolution Powertrain Into A Tiny Minivan: Holy Grails

In the not-too-distant past, if you wanted an affordable sedan with the performance of a supercar, Mitsubishi was one of the brands willing to put you behind the wheel of a rally-inspired speed machine. The Lancer Evolution remains a legendary car, even almost a decade past its expiration date. If you wanted your Mitsubishi roadgoing rally car in any body style other than a sedan, your only choice was the Evolution IX wagon. Then there was this, the Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear R, or the time when Mitsubishi planted an Evo drivetrain into a tiny minivan with a sliding door. Never sold in America, these cars were once forbidden fruit, but you can buy them today.

Like so many of our Japanese Holy Grail nominations, this story originates in the famous Japanese asset price bubble, when asset values in Japan were almost unfathomably high.

You’ve seen the so-called Bubble Era talked about before, even here. Asset values, driven in part by speculation, were so insane that land in Tokyo’s sought-after neighborhoods reportedly became 350 times more expensive than comparable land in Manhattan. Wanted a golf club membership? In some cases, that was $3 million. Businesses also had access to cheap capital, which led to a buying spree so hardcore that there were fears that Japan would take over the world economy. As the New York Times wrote, some people took out loans valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in real estate. They expected healthy returns, only to end up deeply in the red when the bubble burst.

Between 1986 and 1991, Japan’s economy expanded by about France’s gross domestic product, which was then worth about $956 billion. If you were lucky enough to have money during that era, you also got to enjoy breakneck technological innovations. The Bubble Era saw cars getting outfitted with active dampers, active sway bars, GPS navigation, and novel construction techniques.

At the tail end of the Bubble Era, Mitsubishi catered to a growing market of active car buyers by building the RVR, a tiny van with a sliding door and off-road capability. Then, right before the first-generation model ended production in 1997, Mitsubishi lowered in the drivetrain from the Lancer Evolution, making one quick grocery-getter.

Mitsubishi Builds A Tiny Off-Road Van

Mitsubishi was seeing growth in sales of activity vehicles. People were scooping up the company’s off-roaders including the Delica van and the Pajero SUV. Meanwhile, families were piling into the Mitsubishi Chariot MPV. Along the way, Mitsubishi noticed that the desires of its customers were shifting. Those customers still wanted to go off-road, but they wanted something a bit easier to work with than a Pajero.

Development started in the late 1980s with Mitsubishi presenting a concept RVR in 1989. The concept RVR had no roof, no rear windows, and had bars for doors. The RVR concept sported a waterproof interior, four-wheel drive, and a camera screen on the dashboard. This was Mitsubishi’s example of a small, youth-oriented RV.

Now, many of you in the audience will be quick to point out that this is hardly an RV. Well, “RV” had a different meaning in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. These were recreational vehicles, but in Japan, that meant passenger vehicles for outdoor recreation. That meant off-road vehicles, vans, minivans, and wagons. It’s also noted that sometimes, the owners of these RVs did take them camping, and some Japanese RVs had seating that turned into beds. The term is less common today, but you’ll still see it on the Japanese internet from time to time.

For Mitsubishi, the goal was to make a compact easy “RV.” To do this, Mitsubishi took the platform of its larger Chariot MPV and chopped it down. The Mitsubishi RVR shares a lot of the Chariot’s components and is sized like a hatchback. However, unlike a hatchback, the RVR has a small sliding side door like a minivan does. Also like a minivan was the sliding door’s latching mechanism, which secured the door to the vehicle’s B-pillar. The resulting vehicle, which launched in 1991, looked nothing like the snazzy 1989 concept RVR, but it was also something unique, a sort of mini-minivan.

As for the name, it means Recreational Vehicle Runner, and Mitsubishi explains why it tacked Runner onto the end of RV:

The intention behind tagging Runner to RV in the model name was to indicate that it was a RV type model with outstanding and passenger-friendly driving dynamics. Its 2.0 L DOHC engine and fulltime four-wheel driveline delivered solid and comfortable on- and off-road performance. The RVR also boasted a new approach to packaging with its short-nose/tall-cabin minivan proportions providing outstanding space utility. The floor from the rear seat passengers’ feet back is totally flat. In addition, the rear seats have split-back, tumble, and full-recline features which enable a variety of seat arrangements. Together with the 300mm travel long slide rear seats and the sliding leftside rear door, these features create an interior which offers high flexibility in the ways it may be arranged to suit different situations.

The RVR became a hit in Japan, with buyers opting for the little car and its sole sliding door. In Japan, the RVR saw competition from the Honda CR-V, Nissan Rasheen, Subaru Forester, and Toyota RAV4. Some of those may have been better off-roaders, but none of them had a sliding door.

If the RVR looks familiar to you, it could be because this is one of those rare events where the base vehicle was sold in America. Chrysler and Mitsubishi were still friends with each other at the time and as a result, we got the RVR as the Dodge Colt Wagon, Eagle Summit Wagon, and Plymouth Colt Vista Wagon. Mitsubishi also sold it in America as the Expo LRV. In most other parts of the world, the RVR was sold as the Space Runner, which is the coolest name of all of the RVRs.

Sadly, America never got the more spicy variants of the RVR. Our examples came with the 1.8-liter 4G93 four making 113 HP or the 2.4-liter 4G64 four making 136 HP. It wasn’t all a lost cause, though, as our models did come with available four-wheel drive and a manual transmission.

In most markets, the RVR was marketed as a smaller alternative to a minivan. Mitsubishi’s idea was to sell this to young adults and couples who wanted the practicality of a minivan, but didn’t want the size of a minivan. In an effort to relate to the youth, advertisements featured Bugs Bunny and the car chilling near the beach, which I’d definitely trade for snow!

MotorWeek‘s John Davis was impressed, noting “no other affordable vehicle today has the Mitsubishi Expo LRV’s full measure of have fun practicality.” Though, in his review, he feared that American buyers might pass it up for being too unique.

By August 1993, Mitsubishi launched the RVR Open Gear, an RVR without the sliding door, or any rear door at all, but an automatic targa top that made the RVR a bit closer to that 1989 concept. If that’s your jam, perhaps that would be the Grail for you.

There was also the Sports Gear, which added a brush guard, skid plates, fender flares, skirts, a roof rack, and a rear-mounted spare tire for those mini-minivan off-road adventures. We didn’t get the Open Gear, Sports Gear, or the RVR’s available turbodiesel engine. That car had advertisements featuring Bugs Bunny doing outdoorsy things such as visiting waterfalls.

Dealership options for the Sports Gear added more off-road bits from lighting and bug shields to mud flaps. You could also get woodgrain plastic trim if you wanted a dash of luxury.

Another notable variant is the Super Sports Gear, which gets a detuned intercooled 4G63T turbo four from the Lancer Evolution and the Galant VR-4. When paired with a manual transmission, a Mitsubishi RVR Super Sports Gear makes 227 horsepower and 213 lb-ft of torque. Plus, you still get those cool off-road bits. For some, that’ll be their grail. Sadly,  four-wheel drive versions of the RVR did not come with lockers, but I bet the compact 4×4 was still plenty of fun in the sticks, especially with early Evo power!

The Grail

However, if you just want all-out brutality from your tiny minivan, there is only one variant of the RVR you’re looking for. Thomas nominated the Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear R for today’s grail, the one-year-only version of the first-generation RVR with a 4G63T, but with more horses galloping and coupled to a dramatic body kit.

In 1997, the final year for the first-generation RVR, Mitsubishi released the RVR Hyper Sports Gear Z and RVR Hyper Sports Gear R. Visually, both cars were the same, featuring a bold body kit, graphics package, and Recaro sport seats. You were also able to get them with that sweet rear tire carrier.

The big difference between the Z grade and the R grade was under the hood. The Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear Z got a 4G63 2.0-liter four making 158 horsepower and 137 lb-ft of torque. That’s not bad, but the RVR Hyper Sports Gear R blows it out of the water with a 4G63T 2.0-liter four good for 247 horsepower and 227.8 lb-ft of torque. That punched power to all four wheels through a manual transmission.

Opting for the Hyper Sports Gear R also netted you a limited-slip rear differential. In other words, it was more or less a Lancer Evolution III with a sliding door. If you fancy your speed with an automatic, that came with a power penalty that brought you down to 228 HP.

Technology came in the form of a digital climate control system, ABS, and disc brakes on all wheels. The RVR Hyper Sports Gear R wasn’t huge on luxury, but you did get a power sunroof and power mirrors.

Sadly, I could find no professional reviews for the RVR Hyper Sports Gear R and the best YouTube video I found was of a modified example. Check that out below:

I did find a dyno test of a stock Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear R and with a cracked manifold it managed to put 234 HP down to its wheels, which is pretty great!

These do seem to be a rare single-year special trim level. However, I couldn’t find any production data, no recent auction data, and no examples currently for sale either in Japan’s auction systems or common Japanese marketplaces that I know of. I thought Pennsylvania Japstar Imports was selling a Hyper Sports Gear R, but as it turns out, that listing hasn’t been updated in at least two years.

You might have better luck finding the RVR Hyper Sports Gear R’s successor. The RVR entered into its second generation in 1997 and its high-performance variant is the Sports Gear X3, which still had the Evo powertrain but didn’t look nearly as nutty as its predecessor. It’s also notable that while the RVR originally left America in 1996, it made a return in the 2011 model year as the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. Yep, the ancestor of the Outlander Sport is a weird micro van!

If you happen to find a Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear R, it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack, a really fast needle. It’s sort of amazing Mitsubishi even went through the work to make the first-generation RVR. It was the kind of car for the person who wanted a minivan, but didn’t want all of the minivan size. It’s wild enough that Mitsubishi saw a market there, then it’s just plain silly to couple it to a bunch of power, and the world is better for it.

Do you know of or own a car, bus, motorcycle, or something else worthy of being called a ‘holy grail’? Send me an email at mercedes@theautopian.com or drop it down in the comments!

(Images: Mitsubishi, unless otherwise noted.)