Delica Star Wagon (L300 4WD)

In June 1986 Mitsubishi launched the third-generation Delica, a one-box van whose rounded corners it called 'soft cube' styling. The passenger version was the Delica Star Wagon, export markets knew it as the L300, and the version that matters here had four-wheel drive, a low range and a turbo-diesel mounted under the front seats. Japan's recreational-vehicle boom was getting going, and the Star Wagon 4WD was its most improbable product: a family people-mover that could follow a Pajero up a forest road, as long as nobody was in a hurry.

A VAN BUILT ON A 4X4'S BONES

Underneath the van body, the 4WD Star Wagon borrowed its running gear thinking from the contemporary first-generation Pajero: double-wishbone front suspension on torsion bars, a leaf-sprung live axle at the back and a part-time system with a two-speed transfer case. Wikipedia notes that parts are seldom interchangeable, though, and the body is a monocoque rather than a Pajero-style ladder frame. Crankshaft Culture, whose editor runs the MDOC USA owners' group on Facebook, calls the idea that a Delica is 'just a Pajero with a van body' one of the most common misconceptions in the scene.

The layout is pure cab-over. The engine sits beneath the driver and front passenger, so you get to it by lifting the front seats, and the driver sits directly above the front wheels. At launch the 4WD came with either a 2.0-litre petrol four (P23W) or the 2,476 cc 4D56 turbo-diesel (P25W), both with a five-speed manual. Japanese catalogues rate the diesel at 85 PS at 4,200 rpm and 20 kg·m (196 N·m) at 2,000 rpm, enough to move a van of 1,700 kg or more at a dignified pace.

THE BUBBLE-ERA OPTION LIST

Mitsubishi then did what Japanese makers did in the late 1980s: it added things. An automatic for the 4WD turbo-diesel arrived in August 1988, and a 2.4-litre petrol 4G64 (P24W) followed in 1989. You could have an Aero Roof, a High Roof (the high-roof diesel is the P35W) or the Crystal Lite Roof, a high roof lined with glass panels. Trims ran from DX and XL through GLX and Exceed to the Super Exceed. Owners describe options such as a fridge-like 'Cool Box' between the front seats, swivelling middle benches and even a factory karaoke unit.

The special editions are the ones importers love. Gulliver's catalogue lists a Chamonix package almost every autumn from October 1989, and Jasper editions in February 1993 and January 1994. GearJunkie says both were aimed at winter sport, with waterproof carpet, dual batteries and a limited-slip rear differential. An August 1990 facelift stretched the body from 4,460 to 4,485 mm, and later vans have the cluster of projector headlamps that most people picture when they think 'Delica'.

SLOW, TIPPY AND SURPRISINGLY GOOD

Nobody buys an L300 for speed. Crankshaft Culture quotes a top speed of about 87 mph (140 km/h) and says its own diesel van was happiest at 60 mph. It's tall and narrow, and torsion-bar front suspension doesn't flex much. Off the pavement, though, the short 2,240 mm wheelbase, 210 mm of ground clearance, low range and 30-inch tyres on stock suspension add up to a van that took the same owners down Death Valley's Lippincott Grade and through the obstacle course at the BC Overland Rally, on open diffs. 'It does get a bit tippy, however,' they added.

THE LONG GOODBYE AND THE GREAT MIGRATION

The Delica Space Gear arrived in May 1994 with a short hood and the Pajero's Super Select 4WD, but the old van didn't disappear. Gulliver's catalogue shows the Star Wagon continuing as a 4WD turbo-diesel GLX, plus Active World specials in 1996 and 1997, until October 1999. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi had sold a two-wheel-drive, 2.4-litre petrol version in the US from 1987 to 1990, simply as the Van and Wagon. The 4WD diesel never came here new.

It came anyway. Once Canada's 15-year import rule allowed it, right-hand-drive Star Wagons began arriving in Canada, especially British Columbia, and DrivingLine counted nearly twenty vans, almost all of them right-hand-drive turbo-diesel Delicas and many imported via Canada, at a 2018 owners' meet in Oregon. The US 25-year rule has made every L300 legal to import since the last ones turned 25. Some states have pushed back: Maine began revoking Delica registrations in 2021, and Michigan sent owners similar letters in 2024. The van's reputation keeps growing, and an Italian team entered a 1990 L300 in the Classic class of the 2026 Dakar Rally.