Originally posted 4 December 2020; rewritten 4/2024 with more and better images, and text translations
This is a still from a Japanese animated movie called Shitī Hantā (“City Hunter”). The alarmed-looking character we see here is in the back seat of a…ruh…what is that? It’s got a Pentastar and a “Michigan” badge, and it looks quite a lot like…
…Sacred poo, it is a K-car! A 1986 Dodge Michigan:
Google thinks the brochure text here reads, more or less:
Feels good without being too decorative. The generosity of caring for people kindly. Yet, there is a richness that is felt on the skin. The Michigan is a very luxurious car that gives you that American taste. This is a special edition version of the Dodge K car for Japan, which retains the dignity and strength of American cars, but has been reshaped to be more dynamic and economical. The car is equipped with a highly reliable front-drive 2.2-litre 4-cylinder engine, and its fuel efficiency is on par with domestically produced cars. [Tough driving?] and spacious interior unique to front drive. The atmosphere it creates is similar to the Michigan state flower, the apple blossom.
…well, perhaps. Down at the bottom of the page it says the capacity is 5 people, and air conditioning, power locks and windows, and cassette stereo are standard equipment.
Those prices in the lower left corner bear some attention. When these were first –sold– offered in Japan, the price equated to about $11k in 1985 Dollars, about 40% more than in the States. That’s about $34k in 2024 Dollars. By the end of the offering, the Dollar/Yen exchange had nearly doubled the price to over $21k in 1987 dollars (about 2.6× the US price, and equal to about $58k in 2024). For that reason amongst others, I have great difficulty imagining more than about three of these were bought in Japan, perhaps one for each of the 1985, ’86, and ’87 model years.
The cars are left-drive, which is not surprising since left-hooker cars are an entirely legal status symbol in Japan.
Here we see Lakes Michigan, Huron, Superior, Erie, and Ontario in cameo appearances as evidence of oil leaks. Also: turn signal repeaters—wouldn’t surprise me if they were Mitsubishi items—in the typical Japanese location near the front of the fender, large pivot-mounted sideview mirrors instead of the American-spec small rigidly-mounted ones, and a rear-discharge tailpipe. Very busy taillights, too. They look as though grafted in off a similar-year Mitsubishi, though clearly they were actually built specifically for this car.
Inside, there’s a bit of a hosey aftermarket-kit style install of a DIN (JIS?) -sized Clarion radio set in place of the taller Chrysler-sized unit. Japanese FM radio stations are on even-decimal frequencies like 100.2 rather than the odd ones used in North America like 100.3. I don’t spot much else unusual here, do you? The steering wheel pad has the bugle pictogram required in Japan on the horn control, and I don’t recall if that was also present on the home-market models.
The Japanese text here reads (per Google):
The Michigan special edition Dodge K car for Japan was forged on the vast American soil. Friendly design, now landing.
I am not sure how putting FRIENDLY CHRYSLER on a pic of…um…an old lighthouse or something helps drive the point home.
I don’t trust that the idiom’s been got right, but it certainly manages to sound car-brochure-y after Google gives it a –valiant– Michigan try (with a little word-selection adjustment from Yours Truly):
The Michigan is a special edition version of the Dodge K car for the Japanese market that retains the dignity and strength of Chrysler’s proud American cars, but has been modified to be more dynamic and economical. Attractive body with American taste. Efficient mechanicals. Space for 5 people to relax comfortably. The pleasant colour coordination of the the interior and exterior further accentuates the beauty of the Michigan. Furthermore, the Michigan is equiped with a highly reliable front-wheel-drive 2.2-litre 4-cylinder engine that allows it to stand up to even bad weather and rough roads. Its fuel efficiency is on par with domestic cars, and everything about it is designed to be very friendly.
You can tell just how friendly the design is by looking at the interior. Power steering with tilt for easy handling. Simple, easy-to-read instruments. Switches are easy to reach. Plenty of foot space so you won’t get tired even after long hours of driving. Brake and accelerator pedals that are neither too light nor too heavy. A parking brake pedal that can be applied easily with your left foot. And a low dashboard that provides a wide field of vision ahead. The windshield uses tinted glass to soften the glare of the sun. All of these promise a sporty, comfortable, and safe drive.
There does appear to have been at least one actual, real Dodge Michigan—the one in this apparent magazine road test (unfortunately, this is the only page of it I could find):
That is, with my doubts in [square brackets]:
Although it appears large (4,550 mm [long], 1,740 mm wide, 1,400mm high), it is easy to get a feel for the vehicle while driving, and you can handle it as though it were smaller. Although it has front wheel drive, it has a good turning radius and can even make U-turns on wide two-lane roads. It’s not a lie when they say that it’s the first American car that can stay calm even when you get lost on a narrow road.
Now, let’s look inside the car. The test vehicle had a white body colour, with a coordinating interior in a beige called Dovan (you can also choose blue). The woodgrain used for the dashoard and console is a perfect fit.
Compared to the driver’s seat of a European sporty sedan, which has a sense of tension that makes you feel as though you’re flying into a dogfight in a fighter jet, the driver’s seat of the Michigan is so comfortable that it feels like you’re in a completely different type of vehicle. Even Clint Eastwood, who is famous for his role as the Phantom Pilot, would choose this Michigan-style seat over the cockpit if he wanted to relax.
The seat is comfortable enough to be used in a living room. Not much side support and not much [grip?] but those don’t really apply to this car. Even though it is soft, it has good back support, so even if you have a chronic back problem, you can drive for a long time without pain.
The springs and dampers are not unnecessarily stiff, so the overall impression of the car is very mild. Upshifting of the 3-speed automatic is also smooth except at WOT—so smooth that you hardly notice. From the start to around 120 km/h, if you drive like a normal citizen, not squealing the tires or slamming the accelerator, you won’t [notice much commotion?]. Both engine noise and road noise are extremely quiet.
Before the start, turn on the radio as background music. The stereo was set up so I could listen to it perfectly, and Sani from the editorial department was sitting in the passenger seat. I could feel the presence of the yawn I had suppressed [???].
Stop light grand prix in the city or on the expressway, merging from an interchange, the necessary dashing power is sufficiently available; even in such situations, you don’t have to floor the accelerator.
The photo caption says:
Another feature of this car is that it suits rural landscapes. It has a different atmosphere than a Mercedes or Volvo.
H’m. Pretty good review! Though I doubt if they actually checked with Clint Eastwood about vehicle seating preferences. Maybe I’m wrong and they sold more than three, so in lieu of the bat signal I shine a Pentastar and letter “K” in the sky, hoping Tatra87 will swing into action and find one of these to photograph (T87, see if you can find a Fifth Avenue, too, willya? All we can see in the brochure pic here is a sliver of the front end, and I’d like to see what sort of taillight adaptations those had in Japan).
At least one part of the Dodge Michigan was local; those plastichrome name badges Chrysler installed on everything they built from about ’84 to ’95 were made in Japan. It’s inexplicable, but for some strange reason that wasn’t on Iacocca’s laundry list of gripes about the Japanese, and I also don’t recall him complaining very much about the rust-resistant steel he bought in great volume from them. Pay no attention to the cigar-chomping man behind the curtain, I guess, and if you can find a better plastichrome name badge…buy it!
If you want to get your Japanese-animated Japanese K-car freak on, there are many more stills from Shitī Hantā at the movie’s Internet Movie Car Database page, each of which can be clicked for larger.
Ah yes, Japan. The country that is supposedly impossible for an imported car to sell there.
Wow, I was not aware of this variant. How did Jason Shafer miss it? 🙂
The K car was a decent piece of work, but I have a hard time seeing the value proposition at the prices these things required as Japanese imports. As did most Japanese, as you note.
It having been a while since I wrote the K-Car Chronology, I do remember spending a copious amount of time researching the various locales these were sold. Nothing like this turned up. The Mexican Volare, yes. The Japanese Michigan, no.
All I can say is there was a version of the Caravelle (stretched Reliant) sold by Hong-Ki. Or however you spell it.
The Front Looks very Mercedes-Like?!
The Dodge grille as seen here and on the home-market Dodge Aries less so than the Plymouth version. The pre-facelift Plymouth (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/fe/db/08fedb7f738ac235ed6a0b86f95c5f0a.jpg) did so almost to the point of trademark infringement. Early Dodges aped the Cord, but at least that was a long-dead marque (and noted FWD pioneer).
Better img link already at CC (won’t let me edit)
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/452308.jpg
Good grief… I never would have imagined! I wonder if there’s any pictures out there of an actual real-life example of a Dodge Michigan. I can’t help but wonder if these really existed. Of all the vehicles in Chrysler Corp.’s 1980s lineup, this is the one I see having the least appeal in Japan (really, at least they could have offered the wood-paneled wagon K-car version!).
I’m curious how it managed to get in anime. Did someones parents have one? burned in their memory?
CC effect… I was wondering just last night why carmakers never used Michigan places as status symbols. They always use California and Florida beaches (Malibu, Daytona) as status names, but never places that were familiar to the carmakers themselves.
Grosse Pointe, Belle Isle, Grand Boulevard, or from a more gritty angle, Eight Mile. (Come to think of it, 8 MPG used to be a status symbol.) Southfield Freeway was the real Rodeo Drive for Detroit, the place where designers took the new ideas to watch for oohs and aahs.
Leave it to Japan to find the symbols that Detroit missed.
With all respect to Washingtonians, Tacoma, as in Toyota Tacoma, isn’t a particularly appealing place. So it is odd that the Big Three never chose an equally gritty, industrial place, especially to name one of their heavy duty trucks.
Neither is Calais, if I remember correctly.
Detroit Diesel?
Well, one could argue that we did get Pontiac (a Michigan city, which itself was named after an Indian chief), and Cadillac (named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, considered to be Detroit’s founder).
But Michigan itself is (or, perhaps was) actually a good model name. Too bad it was used on perhaps the most obscure car that Chrysler ever made.
Alpena, Flint, Jackson, Marquette…
The Chinese did quite well in appropriating American cities to name their various hand tools.
Lots of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago tools out there. Cities known of course, for their former industrial might. The Birmingham, Cleveland, Akron, can’t be far behind!
Funny how now almost any newer equipment sporting a rust-belt city’s name has become synonymous with junk. A polar opposite of what such a name once represented.
It seems like Buffalo fell first, about 40 years ago.
Fairlane was the name of Henry Ford’s estate.
I assume that the Plymouth Cranbrook was named after the private school that lots of auto execs sent their kids to.
The Chevy Delray was probably named after the neighborhood in Detroit.
Delta township is on the west side of Lansing, but there’s probably no connection between that and the Olds 88 model.
I’m almost expecting Tatra to trip over one now, as he has shown lots of non Japanese cars sell in reasonable numbers in Japan, we get them washing up here used looking immaculate after careful car yard grooming but often mechanically shot to pieces through lack of servicing and constant idling, just because the average Toyondazdassan will do 100,000 kms before you have to lift the bonnet and fit new spark plugs your German built Audi or BMW will not they like fresh oil occasionally before that milestone, doesnt hurt new sales they dont die in Japan only after they emigrate.
The Michigan “Mitten” is reversed.
Artist’s dyslexia must’ve flared up.
I think it is just cut off at the bottom. That is the Grand Traverse bay “pinkie” not the actual “thumb”
I think you’re right. Good catch.
“Imported from Detroit”
Interesting as to watch, especially over 10 years later since Chrysler only makes one sedan now and the 200 was not terribly popular.
I was going to make a snide remark about the absurdity of offering K-cars in Japan, but the more I think about it, the less nutty it seems. Compact exterior, spacious interior, reasonable fuel economy, good performance at urban speeds, decent reliability. Imagine an alternate reality where the K-car was a product of, say, Mitsubishi, and no one would have batted an eye.
I have to think the large turning radius would work against it.
The Mitsubishi 2.6 Hemi 4cyl. was an option for the K-car. I don’t remember how reliable the engine was though.
It wasn’t.
It is surely absurd. Why would any Japanese buy a boring, relatively compact, reliable by Chrysler standards car at an inflated price? It was a crappy, style-free car for Americans who refused to buy Japanese.
Lots of people import LHD American cars to the UK. They are full size pickups, Challengers etc etc. Precisely nobody imports a Taurus or a Chrysler 200.
“Precisely nobody imports a Taurus or a Chrysler 200” in the UK, eh?
Funny how things are different on this side of the planet.
In the middle of the top brochure photo, it says “American Casual” in blue script.
Better name. Astrological meaning aside Aries the word sounds just as milquetoast, generic, planned by a committee as, well, Stellantis.
The license plate, interestigly, reads “Shinjuku” in characters above the main numbers.
Which of course, is fictional, as a Japanese license tag. Most cars in Central Tokyo will be registered in 3-4 major registration areas:
Shinagawa
Adachi
Tama
Nerima (we see this a lot in Tatra87’s photos of cars)
Chrysler sold them in Japan but didn’t get serious enough to sleeve down or destroke the 2.2 to get under the 2.0L threshold for class 5 registration tax (a considerable savings over the class 3 the cartoon car’s plate reflects), nor do right-hand-drive which makes me wonder whether an RHD variant was ever planned since K development would’ve been fairly far along when Chrysler was forced to sell off its’ overseas operations. Would there have been a K-Car Aussie Valiant, would it have replaced or joined the Alpine in the ex-Rootes/Simca European operation?
I think Mitsubishi had already bought out Chrysler Australia by that stage. Mitsubishi’s RWD Sigma, in local production, had become a huge success. Dimensionally the K-car was a bit larger (23cm longer, 7cm wider, 12cm more wheelbase) but not enough so for it to look obviously as the ‘next class up’, so to speak. And you could get the Mitsubishi 2.6 engine in the Sigma. Besides, after years of BMC/Leyland products, Aussies were a bit wary of FWD in a family car then; it wasn’t seen as the way of the future.
Phonetically, “Michigan” doesn’t seem that far a stretch from “ichiban”, which means “number one” or “best” in Japanese according to what I just looked up. I wonder if this had anything to do with the name choice.
That’s a really interesting thought. The Japanese pronunciation of “Ichiban” and “Michigan” would be approximately “Each’bahn” and “Meach’gahn”, respectively, so a parallel could be drawn to almost-lexical car names in English (Lyriq, Acura) and to Anglicised Japanese car names (Camry).
In another life, long ago on another planet, I was briefly a linguistics student, so this kind of idea is fun for me to play around with.
The issue with selling a K-car Dodge Michigan for 3 million yen in 1986 was that you could also buy a Honda (Acura) Legend for 2.5 million yen or a Toyota Camry for 1.3 million yen. Not exactly an easy sell.
Of course, Detroit still haven’t learned anything and continue to offer 3.9 million yen (38,000 USD) Jeep Renegades and 10.5 million yen (100,000 USD) Cadillac CT6 .
Late to this party. I will keep an eye out for this Dodgy Michigan — won’t hold my breath though, as I doubt many were imported in the first place, so survival must be pretty low. But you never know!
Looks familiar, my Father bought a new 1986 Dodge 600 which was similar. His had column shift (wish you could still buy those) and didn’t have the console…funny now you barely see any vehicles that don’t have a console whereas back then they were mostly in smaller cars that had the shift mechanism between the seats.
Dad’s 600 didn’t stay long..my middle sister totalled it in 1989 after borrowing it when her car was being serviced ( 1986 Ford Escort)…was my Dad’s last MOPAR, after having bought his first new car in 1956 a Plymouth Plaza. After this, he bought 3 Mercury Sables in a row, then 2 Chevrolet Impalas (my Mom still owns the last one, after his passing almost 5 years ago now).
I knew the Michigan hot dog but not this rebadged k-car .It must have been much more indigestible than sushi left on the counter. https://www.goadirondack.com/filters/michigans
This was a memorable post, so I’m glad to see it again, with more detail.
Here’s another picture of what appears to be a real car – this is doubly odd because it seems to feature rear seat headrests, which don’t appear in the other images, and were certainly never offered on North American K-cars. Well, I too am hoping that Tatra87 comes across a real example in the wild. Stranger things have happened.
Oh, and the old lighthouse in the brochure? Well, at least it’s actually in Michigan. It’s the Round Island Lighthouse near Mackinac Island.
Hi Dan, Thanks for this k car history lesson.
Why is the (forgive my vocabulary accuracy here) fender indicator/blinker light ahead of the front tire, like right behind the side marker/turn signal light instead of back behind the front wheel just ahead of the door where the “LE” badge” would be on the ‘ol US spec cars? Seems like a goofy place to put that light so close to the other parking lens.. Cheers!
I don’t think putting those lights behind the wheel had come into usage on Japanese cars yet. Daniel will no doubt cite chapter and verse of the regulations….
Yes that is what I am looking for! The complete and definitive Danswer…They look goofy and incorrect to me in their current location.
I think it’s difficult to find an existing, in the wild not from a private collection K car here in the states. Lets see if T87 can find a Michigan in Japan!
Great article, Daniel.
If only American media had chosen to describe K-Cars as having “dignity and strength”, we might be having a whole other conversation about Chrysler nowadays. Or maybe not…but I love the concept.
And the Great Lakes looking like oil leaks? Priceless. 🙂
Daniel, great to see you back, even if only editing an older article. I hope you’re doing well, and that you’re still enjoying the Mazda.
I imagine these sold better in Japan than the Chevy Cavaliers rebadged as Toyotas.
Regarding your “sacred poo” euphemism, in the same spirit I have long used “sanctified dung”.
One of those things you imagine happening in some parallel universe, but not in reality.
The K-car was perhaps the most “Japanese-style” car being made by the Big Three. If any Detroit product stood a chance of being a sales earner in Japan, I’d have thought it would be these. But no. I have to wonder what this exercise cost them on a per-car-sold basis.
I would say if we were talking about which 1985 American car was most “Japanese-style”, I would pick the Ford Escort – especially the “1985 1/2” version – over the Aries/Reliant. These have always screamed ‘MURICAN to me. Or maybe that was just Iacocca screaming it in my ear.
As a proud American seeing these wretched rides sold in Japan is just plain embarrassing! While working as assistant service manager at a Dodge dealership
I hopped into an N- body Skylark 2.5 TBI , 3-speed automatic and was amazed how much better it drove and accelerated than K- Cars despite my GM background! At least the Mopar 2.2 was relatively cheap to fix,the same definitely couldn’t be said for the 2.6 Mitsubishi the engine was a horror story, I remember myself and techicians practically begging customers NOT to throw $3500 at cars regrettably equipped with this supposedly better Japanese engine.
Well, it’s been about 4 years and I’m still Michigan-less… There must be one left somewhere. I will keep hoping, looking…
Japan is the nation where Dodge Vans are treasured. I wonder if any Dajiban fans have preserved a Dodge Michigan?
Does anyone know much about Anime? Is this show supposed to take place in the 80s? This seems like a very obscure car to set the time period with. While I know American cars often have followings in areas where they weren’t first sold, I can’t imagine the Aries/Reliant in Japan being iconic enough of the era to be used to set the stage for when events might be taking place. Nor could I see it being a common enough CC nowadays to portray the driver as an American car enthusiast. Though for all I know of Japanese culture, perhaps the Michigan there would be like driving a Skyline here. Thanks for a great article!