What’s the collective noun for a group of Flying Pugs? Should it be a pack, a fleet, a gaggle? I’m asking because this is the fifth Flying Pug I’ve encountered in just over a year, so if this keeps up, I might have to start tagging these things – perhaps start breeding them. Anything to keep me from going barking mad.
Caught this one last week. This is the first time I’ve seen one in its winter coat. Or is it an albino? Horrendous as the dark ones are, this is somehow even more unsettling.
If you’ve been following my rants on this website, you might recall that I’ve written about these before. Based on the Pajero Junior, the Flying Pug was reviled in its day as one of the ugliest retro / pike specials ever (ill-) conceived. Mitsubishi planned to make 1000 of those things, but sales were so bad that they called it quits after 139 units were made.
One hundred and thirty nine Pugs made over two decades ago – what are the odds of finding a single one, right? Well, counting the feature beast I photographed at the lights near Nishi-Sugamo station, I’ve caught five of these total dogs. Freaky, isn’t it?
Here are the others. Clockwise from top: August 2019 in Gunma prefecture; February 2020 in Ikebukuro (Tokyo); July 2020 in Hokkaido; October 2020 in Oji (Tokyo). All Tokyo sightings were very close to each other in the northern part of the city.
So for those keeping track and have access to a calculator, this post contains photos of 3.6% of all Flying Pugs ever made. Someone up there hates me. Actually, I’ve crossed paths with a phenomenal amount of CC fodder lately, so I guess this highly unlikely fifth sighting of a Flying Pug should be seen in the proper context.
But I’m not a dog person and I don’t care for Mitsubishis generally, so I would be perfectly happy never to encounter one of these ugly mutts again for as long as I live. Shoo! Scat! Git! Beat it and stay away, Flying Pug. If I see you again, I’ll take you to the vet and get you fixed!
Related post:
Curbside Classic: The Japanese Retro Re-Trial (3rd Witness) – 1998 Mitsubishi Pajero Jr. Flying Pug, by T87
I dislike most of the Japanese retro-British stuff, though not as much as I dislike the real-British Mayflower, but I gotta say I like this Pug. Well done for the genre.
I agree, I like it too, I’ll take mine in the Burgundy. I do wonder if all of the stickers on the spare tire are original or if the owner added the dog picture.
+1. Beats all the boring cars one normally sees in traffic. Although rather like the British retro too.
I find it to be quirky and perky and individual in a way that the anonymous melted blobs around it are not.
Incidentally, that Suzuki van to the Pug’s right appears to have LEFT HAND drive.
She’s just sitting a long way back from the windshield.
I see now; and the driver is behind a deep dashboard, with the engine ahead to minimize the doghouse. Thanks.
The resemblance is uncanny.
It ditched my picture, maybe due to size. I’ll use a different one. I have a pug, and I can see the resemblance. Protruding chin and eyes, the rest back from what you expect. He’s deceptively strong and fast, too, so naming a car after a pug gives me a happy.
I find the front quite charming. My problem is the wheels don’t fill the wheel wells and dont match the general retro feel of the vehicle. Id like a closer look at that Suzuki!!
Mitsubishi has managed to achieve the near impossible of building something uglier than a Mitsuoka.
I would guess these Pugs are fetching big money now, if they are so rare.
Depends whether there’s a 140th person who wants one.
It has to be rare and someone has to care.
Well they definitely seem to be asking more for the Flying Pug version than they do for the standard Pajero Jr. https://www.goo-net-exchange.com/php/search/summary.php
And yeah that is a high percentage of the total production run. I do expect that in a coupe of years a few will find their way to the US through one of the many small companies that specialize in importing 25 yr old cars from Japan.
How could anyone not love a vehicle named Flying Pug?
I’m more interested in that Suzuki next to Nissan.
Does anyone here know which model this is?
Solio Bandit
Well then, for all our sakes I hope you don’t find another one.
We’ve been a Mitsubishi-driving family since 1989, but my liking for things from the House of Three Diamonds does most definitely not extend to this!
No edit-function this morning! It comes and goes like the wind….
Anyway, CC-in-scale does NOT have one of these. Don’t want one even if there was a model. Original as-designed form is much nicer.
It’s nowhere near the most hideous of these Japanese retromobiles; the top half of that list is more or less solid-pack Mitsuokas. Nevertheless: Flying Pug. As I sit here typing, I can’t help noticing the i key is right next to the u.
I’m ambivalent toward Mitsubishi, having forgotten they even existed until a couple years ago in the USDM, but I don’t hate this car. I find it charming in the way the I find the Nissan Juke charming. I would totally drive this thing ironically.
A group of pugs are called a grumble.
I think the owners have detected you as the only person ever to give the vehicle some publicity, and, in both mistaking you for a fellow-traveler and their desperation to be cleansed of their original sin – the purchase – they are trying to foist the entire flocking remnants upon you.
And if we are agreed that, unlike the freshness of the original Shogun Pinin, these are stuffy little stinkers, then you need to tell them in clear terms to cease in their attempt at plying their fugs upon you.
Incidentally, the collective noun for collection of fugs is, I believe, a “Global Warming.” I hope that assists.
Saw a Pug on route 31 in Western Pennsylvania. It was purple and I just loved the look. Is it really 4 wheel drive? I would love to get up close and check one out.