This Snoopy-Edition Pajero Mini I Saw At Radwood Increases The Number Of Snoopy-Endorsed Cars I Was Aware Of By 50%

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 pored 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 by 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 are 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 earliest 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 idiosyncratic 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.

Top graphic images: Author; Sony