I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I was a huge Peanuts/Snoopy fan as a kid. I think it started because I was handed down a massive pile of old ’50s-’70s Peanuts comic strip compilation paperbacks from a cousin, and I poured over those books like a crazed monk throughout my childhood. As a result, Charles Schulz’ strangely introspective comic strip about a bunch of Minnesotan kids who sucked at baseball and a dog who fantasized about The Great War ended up informing a lot more of my growing inner cultural library than maybe is healthy.
Still, when I meet another person who knows that there was a character in Peanuts named 5, it can make for a pleasing moment of bonding.
The overlap of cars and the Peanuts comic strip wasn’t huge, but as a kid very into both, I sought out what I could. I remember I had a few small toy cars that had Snoopy as a driver, including one somewhat baffling one with Snoopy driving what seemed to be an airport tug. And, of course, there’s the best example of Snoopy/automotive crossing-over, where the noted beagle drove a Citroën 2CV around France.
At the RADwood event we just attended, however, I encountered yet another Snoopy/automotive crossover: the Japan-market-only Snoopy edition Mitsubishi Pajero Mini:
Are you familiar with the Pajero Mini? As the name suggests, this was a sort of ensmallenated version of Mitsu’s Pajero SUV, and made small enough to fit into Japan’s Kei class regulations. That also means you have a pretty good idea of what’s under that hood, as it has to be 660cc or less and make, at most, 64 horsepower. And that’s pretty much what it is, a 659cc inline-4, and you could have these with 2- or 4-wheel drive, though the 4WD ones outsold the 2WD ones buy a huge amount.
Somewhat confusingly, there was also a Pajero Junior, which was longer, had wider tires, flares, and a bigger 1100cc engine, so it was no longer a Kei-class vehicle. But wait, let’s get back to the Pajero Mini, specifically this Snoopy edition one. For example, what makes it a Snoopy Edition?
I mean, not a massive amount, really, but about what you’d expect, which is mostly decals and badges and embroidery on the seat. But there were plenty of those! A hood decal with Snoopy in his WWI flying ace getup, leaping upon his own name. There’s center hub Snoopys, Snoopys on the gauge clusters, door cards with lots of Snoopim, paw-print mudflaps, Snoopy embroidered on the seats, and, most notably, a Snoopy and Woodstock spare tire cover.
Everything is oddly monochrome, but I suppose that’s a design choice. Or just Mitsubishi being cheap.
The embroidered Snoopy on the seats is interesting, in that it’s more of a silhouette:
I thought perhaps a couple of decades ago, when this was still new, maybe there was more detail, but looking at that brochure, I’m not so sure.
So, encountering this Snoopy-based car reminded me of the two other times Schulz agreed to let his kids shill for cars; most famously and early is the Peanuts-based Ford Falcon campaign from the early 1960s:
These ads are especially significant in that they are the first examples of Peanuts characters being animated, appearing even before the famous A Charlie Brown Christmas of 1965.
Then, much more recently, we have the first case of Peanuts shilling for cars after Charles Schulz’ passing in 2000:
Look at that! They’re dancing around a Pacifica in those weird ideosyncratic dances we all remember! I’m not sure how aware of this I was at the time, but I’m very aware now, as it’s part of the Grand Triumvirate of Peanuts-Themed or Shill’d Cars, which includes the Falcon, the Pajero Mini, and the Pacifica.
I wonder if Mazda could be convinced to use 5 as the mascot for the Mazda 5? Or Renault, maybe, for the new 5? A deep cut, sure, but it’d be worth it.
The post This Snoopy-Edition Pajero Mini I Saw At Radwood Increases The Number Of Snoopy-Endorsed Cars I Was Aware Of By 33% appeared first on The Autopian.
