2022 Mitsubishi Outlander: Beyond Badge Engineering

Mitsubishi revealed the all-new 2022 Outlander utility vehicle over the internet last night. In fact, the automaker almost made as big of a fuss about this being the first car showcased via Amazon Live as it did its new SUV. It’s the kind of thing that really makes you wonder where an automaker’s priorities are located, though tech monopolies giants are so deeply ingrained in modern businesses that one hardly notices anymore. But we’re digressing before we’ve even started discussing the new Mitsubishi Outlander.

While the manufacturer can certainly be faulted for letting go of the most interesting aspects of the brand, its core values have remained mostly intact. The 2022 Outlander remains the only vehicle in its segment to offer standard third-row seating, though past experiences with the model presumes that it will only be useful for children and exceptionally small adults. But we’re not sure if that makes up Mitsubishi keeping its MSRP dangerously close to its highly competent rivals when the outgoing model under impressed with its budget-built interior. Honda’s CR-V and even Nissan’s Rogue have felt like substantially nicer products from inside the cabin. Fortunately, that’s one of the big issues the 2022 model-year Outlander was hoping to address.

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2022 Mitsubishi Outlander's Amazon Live Reveal Is a First

As the 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander ships to U.S. dealers, there will be a live reveal on Amazon, an auto industry first. On February 16 at 3 p.m. Pacific time, you can see the newly-designed 2022 Outlander.

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Opinion: It's a Bleak Future for Mitsubishi Cars in North America

Mitsubishi has an important product debut coming up: the all-new 2022 Outlander three-row crossover. In what will be the fourth-generation Outlander since 2001, the 2022 model ditches Mitsubishi’s ancient GS platform the Outlander has used since 2007 and sees a migration over to the same platform as the Nissan Rogue.

I think this is the beginning of the end for Mitsubishi in North America.

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Junkyard Find: 1990 Mitsubishi Galant GS-X

As we’ve seen in this series, Coloradans bought plenty of all-wheel-drive-equipped AMC Eagles, VW Quantum Syncros, Audi Quattros, and Toyota All-Tracs during the 1980s. The suits at Mitsubishi Motors saw all those AWD-enhanced car sales in snowy American regions and decided to sell some rally-influenced Galants on our shores. A few decades later, this rare-but-not-valuable Galant GS-X appeared in a Colorado Springs self-service car graveyard.

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Mitsubishi Teases New Outlander, Schedules Arrival for February

Mitsubishi released a teaser image of the new Outlander on Thursday, making good on the summer promise that it would actually continue designing new vehicles. Unlike the recently refreshed Eclipse Cross, the 2022 Outlander will be an entirely new model.

The brand is promising refined, on-brand exterior styling and some modest changes in the vehicle’s overall dimensions. Outlander is supposed to herald in a new design strategy without looking out of place in the existing lineup. While the teaser was too shadowy to offer much help, some light image manipulation on our part has given us a better sense of what the crossover will look like when its global debut takes place in February.

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Rare Rides: The 1995 Mitsubishi Pajero, Montero's Forbidden Sibling

Rare Rides has touched on the first generation Pajero (Montero to North Americans) once before via the Raider, a captive import Dodge dealers could shift while the company had zero small SUV action of its own. Today’s Pajero is a second-generation version – the three-door never sold on our shores. Surprisingly, it even maintains the same color scheme as the Raider.

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Junkyard Find: 1979 Dodge Colt With Twin-Stick Transmission

Chrysler’s run of selling rebadged Mitsubishis began way back in 1970, when the rear-wheel-drive Colt Galant arrived here for the 1971 model year. Those cars sold very well in North America, with sales continuing through 1978. After that, Colt badges went onto the front-wheel-drive Lancer Fiore (later sold here as the Mirage). Here’s one of those first-year FWD Colts, found in a Denver-area yard in nice condition and equipped with the extremely cool Twin-Stick dual-range transmission.

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Eclipse Crossing - Here's the 2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross

Sorry, sports-car fans with nostalgia for a certain era – Mitsubishi still insists on using the Eclipse name on a crossover. One that’s now restyled.

A plug-in hybrid version will be offered overseas, but not here. The next Eclipse Cross will go on sale in the States in the first quarter of 2021, following launches in Australia and New Zealand.

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Deliverer of Lifelines, Former Mitsubishi CEO Masuko Dies at 71

Osamu Masuko, the longtime Mitsubishi Motors boss who guided his company through turbulent waters, helped craft an alliance with Nissan and partner Renault, only to find his ship back in storm-tossed seas, has died just three weeks after his unexpected departure.

Masuko died on Thursday, aged 71, Japanese media reports. The former chairman announced his resignation on August 7th.

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Rare Rides: The 1988 Chrysler Conquest - an American Sports Coupe

Quick badge swaps between Chrysler and Mitsubishi were common throughout the Eighties. Mostly a one-way affair, Chrysler rebranded Mitsubishi products as Colts, Plymouths, and Dodges. These captive imports generated revenue via Chrysler’s brand recognition while cheaply filling gaps in the domestic company’s lineup.

Today marks our first Chrysler-branded Mitsubishi, and it’s certainly the sportiest rebadge we’ve seen here. Presenting the Chrysler Conquest, from 1988.

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Junkyard Find: 1988 Dodge Colt DL 4WD Wagon
Chrysler sold various Mitsubishis badged as Dodge or Plymouth Colts from the 1971 model year all the way through 1994.Here’s a Mirage-based fifth-generation Colt in California, the final model year for the Colt station wagon, and it sports both a five-speed manual transmission and the very rare all-wheel-drive powertrain.
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Mitsubishi Chairman Osamu Masuko Abruptly Resigns

A longtime presence at the top of Mitsubishi Motors departed his post Friday morning, marking the end of an era for the embattled Japanese automaker. Company Chairman Osamu Masuko, 71, resigned effective immediately today, following a six-year tenure at the top of a company he joined in 1972.

Masuko, who rose to become president of the company in 2005 and CEO in 2014, cited health reasons for his sudden departure.

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Mitsubishi Puts Europe on Ice

Living in Europe and eager for the next generation of Mitsubishi products? You might end up waiting forever.

As part of a crash cost-cutting exercise designed to stabilize the storm-rocked company, the Japanese automaker has decided to reduce investment in under-performing markets while chopping fixed costs by one-fifth over the next two years.

In Europe, the brand could soon become a ghost. Mitsubishi has hit the stop button on any new product headed in that direction.

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Nissan Predicts $4.5 Billion Operating Loss

Based on Mitsubishi’s bleak assessment of its own future, you might have thought it would be the automaker winning this week’s award for saddest economic forecast. But Nissan refused to be outdone. Having already warned the world that 2020 would prove harrowing even before anyone heard the term “COVID-19,” the brand now predicts an operating loss of 470 billion yen ($4.5 billion USD).

Nissan likewise estimates total revenue declining by one-fifth through year’s end to 7.8 trillion yen ($74.1 billion) as its worldwide vehicle sales continue a longstanding retreat.

While it’s difficult to know what to peg these losses on, there are a few obvious suspects. Both automakers sacrificed their identities as automakers in order to spend years trying to expand globally, with a particular focus on developing countries and bland models assumed to have mainstream appeal. Nissan even re-launched the Datsun name as an affordable alternative in places like India, but it wasn’t the sales success the company envisioned.

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Mitsubishi Discontinues Pajero SUV Globally, Restructuring Continues

Strapped for cash, Mitsubishi has placed another legend on the chopping block. While the Pajero is famous globally for its stellar performance at the Dakar Rally, giving Mitsubishi more wins at the event than any other brand in history, you probably knew it as the Montero (or Dodge Raider if you’re old enough).

Sadly, you won’t be knowing it as anything but a memory soon — even if you live somewhere with a source of fresh examples. Having forecast another year of losses, Mitsubishi decided it need to continue tightening its belt. The Pajero will be taken out of production while the brand focuses on business in Asia.

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?