Mitsubishi introduced the first mass-produced car with a modern direct-injection gasoline engine, launching the technology in the 1996 Japanese-market Galant and Legnum.
The engine was Mitsubishi’s 1.8-litre 4G93 GDI four-cylinder. Instead of spraying fuel into the intake port, it injected gasoline directly into the combustion chamber. This enabled lean-burn operation under suitable conditions and promised better fuel economy than conventional port injection.
The Japanese-market eighth-generation Galant and its wagon counterpart, the Legnum, went on sale in August 1996. Mitsubishi later exported the technology in the Carisma GDI, which helped make “GDI” widely associated with the company’s gasoline direct-injection program.
The wording refers to the modern mass-produced passenger-car breakthrough, not every earlier experiment with gasoline injection. Earlier systems included aircraft and limited-production automotive applications, while Mercedes-Benz and Toyota also developed important direct-injection engines later. Mitsubishi’s distinction is bringing an electronically controlled GDI system into mass production for ordinary cars.