These Two Cars Are Like Long Lost Twins: Cold Start

You know how some cars look oddly similar, even though they (most likely) did not share any common styling or development? I don’t just mean generally similar, like how cars of every generation tend to share some broad, common design themes, but like strangely similar? Think the BMW 700 and the Volkswagen Type 3, for example. I just found two cars that meet this criteria, ones I never thought about together before: the 1960-1962 Mitsubishi 500 and the 1960-1969 Zaporozhets ZAZ-965.

These were two cars designed and built in very different circumstances and places, but I think a certain amount of convergent evolution brought them to much the same place. Both were designed to be robust, inexpensive, efficient, and appealing entry-level cars for the masses, and to get there they took the same basic approach, one that had been proven by the likes of Volkswagen and Fiat in the years before: rear engines and air-cooling, little two-door sedans with storage up front and room for at least four, perhaps more if everyone really, really liked each other and were cool with a lot of close, often sweaty, contact.

Just look at these two cars; first, the ZAZ-969:

Affectionately called the “humpback,” this little Ukranian-built car had an air-cooled 750cc V4 making a relaxed 23 horsepower. The car had suicide doors, and a rounded-off three-box design.

Now, the Mitsubishi 500:

The Mitsubishi 500 was strikingly similar in design, down to the sucide doors and the odd grille-replacing panel found at the front of the car, quite similar to ones used by the Zaporozhets. The Mitsubishi used a 493cc air-cooled inline-twin making 21 hp, pretty damn close to the old Eastern Bloc ZAZ which had over 200cc more displacement, spread over two extra cylinders. The Mitsubishi was really quite impressive for its purpose and era.

These cars had more displacement than kei-class vehicles, which were, at the time, limited to 360cc. The Mitsubishi 500 was Mitsubishi’s first passenger car after WWII, and led to Mitsubishi’s later cars like the Colt, which also started life as a rear-engine/rear drive car.

I’m just struck with how similar these cars are, and how you never really see them together. I think the Mitsubishi really isn’t that well-known at all, which is likely a factor why I haven’t really thought about these cars together before.

Here’s a video of a Mitsubishi 500, if that may excite you:

…and I wanted to find a good vintage ZAZ-965 commercial, but I could only find one for its Corvair-looking successor, the ZAZ-969:

I really love little mass-market rear-engined peoples’ cars like these, whether they’re from Japan or the former Soviet Union or wherever. So thanks for indulging me in this noting of similarities of cars that most people never even think about.

But I do, dammit.