Mitsuoka is famous for giving Japan’s domestic cars weird, retro automotive costumes. For decades, its most popular offerings were the Viewt, which transformed a Nissan March into a British saloon, and the Le Seyde, Japan’s own Excalibur or Zimmer built on a Silvia chassis. Now, the company has set its sights on an American icon, the Corvette Sting Ray, based on the current-generation Mazda Roadster (aka MX-5 Miata).
Called the Rock Star because ‘Murica, the roadster keeps all the Roadster’s running gear, including the 1.5-liter engine for the Japanese market. Body-wise, however, it is transformed into a 1963-67 Corvette Sting Ray convertible. While cars like the Viewt looked oddly grotesque, the Mazda’s naturally curvy fenders and hips make the Rock Star a surprisingly proportionate homage. Plus, the fact that the C2 Corvette was designed by Larry Shinoda, a Japanese American, and Peter Brock, founder of Datsun racing team BRE, makes this perhaps Mitsuoka’s most fitting creation to date. If you want one, you’ll have to move fast. It starts at nearly $42,000 and only 50 will be made.
Hideous.
Makes the Pao look like a super model.
The MX-5 is perfect just the way it is.
lol if you want hideous, look at pontiacs xD
Hideous? How about the Datsun F10? There was also a reason the Subaru 360 was a sales bomb.
Well, the Japanese don’t have a lock on good or bad styling now do they? As to the 360, it failed in America not because of how it looked, but because of what it was, a car totally wrong for this market, as there was no market for tiny city cars in the US at that time, and largely there still isn’t I don’t blame Subaru for that, it is all at the feet of Malcolm Bricklin who brought the brand here with the wrong car at the wrong time. He is also the chap that thought the Zastava Koral (Yugo) was a good idea to try to sell here.
So, I heard this blasphemous rumor today…
“NEWS: Mitsuoka turns your Miata into a Corvette Sting Ray”
No. No, they do not.
I actually like it. Just need a proper matching set of wheels. And perhaps even a different color.
do not
Wonder if they’ll take a USDM Spec Miata and change it.
Ambitious? Yes.
Innovative? Perhaps.
Looks like a Corvette? Not at all.
I’ve got a healthy sense of humor and an eye for the absurd, but as a lover of both C2 ‘Vettes and ND Miatas, this does not seem to me like a prudent idol on which to lavish one’s money, time, and heart.
Now… how ’bout a Testarossa-bodied S660?
That’s actually a pretty cool idea!
Someone used to make Testarossa kits for the Fiero, that wasn’t a good idea either.
Many more than just the Fiero, in fact the Testarossa started as a kit–tuner Strosek beat Pininfarina to the punch with that most 1980’s of design tropes, the side strakes, with the 1982 Strosek 512BBi.
They’re looking for a lawsuit from GM…
How about turning a Challenger into a Celica? Similar lines…
Actually what I’d like to see Toyota do is stretch the GT86 platform a bit, add a real Toyota engine, and then name the new car Celica.
That’s a car I would buy.