Brushes with Mitsubishi
The trip to Mitsubishi Motors production plant was long overdue for myself. My first new car I bought was a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS-T. Since then I have owned four different Galant VR4s and recently making the move into a 2008 Evolution X. To say I have been a Mitsubishi owner would be a mild understatement.
A few years ago, one of the partners in crime (Sean), talked me into buying the complete set of Mitsubishi specialty tools, with all of the matching shadow boards to go with them. Yes I still have them, waiting for a wall big enough to mount the boards. I am pretty sure that makes me the larger Mitsubishi fan in the group, not to mention I founded the Rochester DSM group.
Photo by Ryan Hertz
It figures, while I escaped to check out the rest of the attractions around the site, the One Lap car had a nice visit from the Shiro Futaki “aka Jack”, the CEO of Mitsubishi Motors North America. Apparently Tim had a nice long conversation with him, going over the downfalls of 4 wheel steering while Futaki-san covered how the Galant VR4 was the inspiration behind the modern car and how it really was an Evolution into the current technology and advancements.
I regret not being able to be in on that conversation, and getting a chance to hear about how Mitsubishi has evolved itself over the years. Luckily I can fabricate my own story, to make Tim look bad and to make myself feel better. You see, from what I understand Mitsubishi was so impressed with our One Lap efforts, they were going to supply us a car next year, until Tim botched up the negotiations. Yeah, that sounds more like it.
While that is a slight fabrication, I did manage to score more free Tshirts than Tim, something I hope to rub in whenever I get a chance to wear the shirts in his presence.
It was actually very cool that the CEO was walking around talking to the owners and industry sponsors. While I had seen Futaki-san walking around, it didn’t register as to who he was until later. Hopefully they will continue to put on an Owners Day event and have everybody involved as much as they were.
