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SUV,
Mitsubishi,
First Drives
A Good Start On Halting The Slide
We'd like to say that
Mitsubishi has had a tough time of it lately, but "lately" isn't exactly the proper descriptor since the brand's troubles have slowly built over the past decade or so. It cut back on its marketing and it cut model lines while leaving what remained in the equivalent of a product cryo-freeze. Then there was the financial crash and replacement models that didn't possess the same edge we expected from the house of the triple diamond. There was the
lack of a North American chairman to fight for market-specific initiatives, and hence, models that lacked some of the details that US customers desired and that could sway buying choices in close races. True, that's a battle with an overseas headquarters that you'll hear from the US reps for almost every foreign automaker, but as you pile on the obstacles they multiply exponentially, not additionally. Or there's this: For more than a year, while its competition has been trumpeting new product, Mitsubishi hasn't had any new models. Like, at all.
That changes with the arrival of the
2014 Mitsubishi Outlander, an SUV that we're told will begin a new-product offensive over the next 18 months that - along with
a much larger marketing budget - should begin to turn things around. This is the third generation of Mitsubishi's volume model, one that hasn't really been changed since it arrived in 2006 and wasn't just showing its age, but practically crowing about it.
How new is the 2014 Outlander? Every piece of sheetmetal and glass is fresh from the drawing board, save for one exterior and one under-hood carryover: the windshield and the 3.0-liter V6 engine. Hearing that buoyed our confidence in the exercise. But we had to fly to Oregon to see if the coming model truly had more chance of putting steam into the turnaround, or would be more likely to continue the run aground.
Continue reading 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander
2014 Mitsubishi Outlander originally appeared on
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First Drive: 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander
