Hope Motor Company was a Japanese car company bought by Suzuki in 1968. In December 1967, they released the HopeStar ON360, which is affectionately referred to in Japanese as the ''sanrin'' (三輪)" or "three wheels", with a Mitsubishi 360-cc

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...

, straight-two ME24 engine producing 21 bhp. The ON360 had a four-wheel drive layout. While 100 engines were purchased from Mitsubishi, most sources state that only 15 ONs were finished, all in 1968.

HopeStar ON360

The HopeStar ON360 was originally developed in 1967 and was available from April 1968. It used a Mitsubishi air-cooled two-stroke ME24 engine, which produced . The rear axle was sourced from the

Mitsubishi Colt 1000 The Mitsubishi Colt (A20) was one of their first series of passenger cars produced by Shin Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries, Ltd, one of the companies which would become Mitsubishi Motors. Built from 1963 until 1970, they were available in four body st ...

and wheels were sourced from the

Mitsubishi Jeep The Jeep CJ models are a series and a range of small, open-bodied off-road vehicles and compact pickup trucks, built and sold by several successive incarnations of the Jeep automobile marque from 1945 to 1986. The 1945 Willys Jeep was the worl ...

. It was a very basic two-seater vehicle with no doors, but a sturdy

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

system allowed it to go off-road. Top speed was , 30 km/h in 4WD mode. The company sold very few ON360s, possibly as few as 15, although 100 ME24 engines were purchased. Hope sold the design to Suzuki, as the Suzuki Jimny, in 1968, after Mitsubishi declined to take over production. Specs datasheet with technical data and performance data plus an analysis of the direct market competition of HopeStar ON360 (man. 4) in 1968, the model with -door open-top off-road body and Line-2 359 cm3 / 22 cui, 15.5 kW / 21 PS / 21 hp (SAE) offered since April 1968 for Japan . According to the ProfessCars™ estimation. and quarter mile time is 27.8 sec. This car is 2995 mm / 117.9 in long, 1295 mm / 51 in wide and 1765 mm / 69.5 in high.

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video (YouTube) Kei cars Three-wheeled motor vehicles Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Japan {{Japan-company-stub