Alright guys so I have a question. This might be dumb or what ever but I'm going to ask just to see if anyone knows the answer. Why did Mitsubishi use Roman numerals (XIII, IX, X) if they are a Japanese company?

 

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OK, no more flames and counter-flames, please. If you don't like the question, you don't have to answer.

No idea why Roman numerals are more often used, but is it any more weird to use Hindu-Arabic?

There's no way that they were going to use Japanese (Kanji) numerals. No-one outside of a smallish proportion of Asia would have any clue what they meant, while almost everyone knows both Roman and Hindu-Arabic.

 

I wouldve preferred kanji having an evo hachi would be dope

 

I think it is to add a unique flavor to a very unique car.

 

I once considered putting 私を洗 on the side of my car, in the style of drifters.

Luckily, I was talked out of it.

Feel free, therefore, to steal the idea.

ps. my license plate is "WASH ME"

 

Thanks for cleaning up any comments that I didn't get to read lol

You would think that people wouldn't freak out of simple questions. It's like like I'm talking about their mothers or anything. Besides maybe someone wanted to ask the same question but didn't want to get harassed by jerks.

But yeah a few of my friends were talking about this. They were subie owners so they brought it up lol. I kinda wanted a smart answer to give them lol.

 

Probably the same reason they use English names for the models of their vehicles. Even JDM vehicles use English for their badges.

 

A smart answer? Ask them why their flagship performance model shares the abbreviation for Sexually Transmitted Infection.

 

Looks much better

 

Just guessing, but here goes:

Basic Roman numerals all consist of various straight lines.
I V X, etc, can all be formed by the combination of straight lines.
Arabic numbers have curved lines.

Straight lines are easier to carve into granite or press into clay or shape with crude writing instruments.
(Compare Minoan Linear "A".)

They'd also be easier to make in metal badges. No curved pieces needed.

(Of course, if you're casting the badge, it can be any shape, but you can prototype a 3 with three left over pieces of metal stock. )

Probably nonsense, but it's something you can tell your Scooby pests.

 

While you are correct that Roman numerals only have straight lines for ease of carving, I believe that the first Evo was produced some time after the Japanese learned to cast.

If we really want to get into this, there's a tradition of sorts to use Roman numerals for ordinals and Hindu-Arabic for everything else, including reals and other scalars. That's why the Superbowl uses Roman, even thougjh it's at the end of a 16-game (note the Hindu-Arabic 16) regular season. Since generations are ordinals, they get Roman. Since alternative models (e.g., Mazda 6 vs 3) are not ordinals, they get Hindu-Arabic.

What I've always found amusing about this was how the year a movie was made or a building was built is indicated in Roman. This indicates that the folks doing so are aware that year numbers are ordinals, not scalar. And, yet, the people in said buildings and making said movies all seems to believe that the new millennium started on Jan 1, 2000, forgetting that, because years are labels as ordinals, there was no 0, so 2000 was the last year of the old millennium, instead.

 

I think the roman numerals finally paid off with the 10th gen.

Evo "X" kind of has a nice sound to it.

 

Especially given that many makers use an X to indicate AWD.

It's interesting to meet folks in person, instead of on the web. Some say "Evo ex" and some say "Evo ten." Of course, a majority of the Great Unwashed still ask "is that a Mazda six?" so I'll take either "ex" or "ten" any day.

 

The roman numerals also seem to help make it easier to talk about the different generations.

I'm not a STi expert but they don't seem to have an easy nomenclature to discuss all their generations/iterations over the years. They either go by engine codes or descriptors like "the bug-eye model" or whatever.

 

Over here we differentiate the generations by "versions." They are pretty much in line with the evolutions. My brothers 03 STi is a version 8. Every now and then I do a double take when someone is selling a V8 or V10 STi.