Recently, Mitsuoka announced that it would build 10 examples of the Himiko for 2024. The second-generation Himiko is based on the fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 Miata and was first introduced back in 2018, so it isn’t exactly new. But admittedly, since then, we completely forgot that it exists. It’s such a low-volume car, we’d like to think that’s an understandable oversight, but if any car site should be keeping a closer eye on Mitsuoka, it’s Jalopnik.
Looking at the Himiko, it’s hard to miss a whole lot of Morgan in the design, but at the same time, the Miata is surprisingly well-integrated. And that’s saying a lot considering the Himiko is a full 26 inches longer than the Miata that it’s based on. We’re not saying it’s gorgeous, but it could have and probably should have been so much worse.
The illusion that you’re looking at anything other than a Miata quickly falls away the moment you glimpse the near-stock interior, but you’re one of those, “I wish modern cars still looked like classic cars” people, the Himiko is probably right up your alley. We can nit-pick minor issues such as some of the odd proportions all we want, but they had an idea and executed it better than you would expect if you heard someone made a Miata two feet longer and then added a Morgan body.
Which is really where the problem lies. We don’t want “better than expected” or “sort of almost works.” We want weird. We want WTF. We want something no one would ever think of trying. Like the Mitsuoka Buddy, which if you’re not familiar, is a Toyota RAV4 modified to sort of look like a K5 Blazer. Or the Galue, an almost-Bentley based on the Nissan Altima’s Japanese-market cousin the Teana. Those are proper Mitsuokas.
The Himiko, on the other hand, is so close to looking like a real car, it just doesn’t feel like a real Mitsuoka. Where’s the Orochi spirit? A Mazda-based Himiko might be more reliable in the long run, but we’d take a real Morgan instead, thank you very much.