What Happened to Mitsubishi?

When I was growing up, there was this beautiful rivalry between Mitsubishi and Subaru of who could built the best rally car for road use. You could essentially walk into either a Mitsubishi or a Subaru dealer and buy yourself a rally car. What a fantastic time that was.

Some would argue the Impreza STi was the king of the hill while others said the Lancer Evo just couldn’t be beat.

It didn’t really matter who was right or wrong, what mattered was that these two car manufacturers pushed each other to engineer and design cars that people looked forward to getting behind the wheel of.

Times have, as you know, changed quite drastically since then and in this video, I want to walk you through some of the great cars from Mitsubishis not too far gone past and then try to figure out what actually went wrong the last few years.

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[aaronbryan]

Heck, even Toyota's CEO Akio Toyoda said that he wish to see Mitsubishi and Subaru back in WRC in one of the interviews with Toyota's WRC team.

[kdrei]

Im about 85% positive that major fans of the Evo would not want it to be an EV considering the fact that the STI still has an engine.... tbh

[Llando]

Im a evo X owner and it was my first love, I had to wait 5 years to get enough money to afford it and Ive owned it for 5 years now. I always thought the previous generations were really cool too, but I think the 10 is the one who looks the most aggresive of them all, I love the aggressive and boxy lines on it, makes it look like a tank.

[chiemekaa]

My first EVO experience was a white Evo 5 I believe from a Jackie Chan movie that was involved in a car chase. I just remember how cool looking it was.
It's sad to see Mitsubishi like this, in an eerily similar position like Nissan as of recent. I sure hope they can turn things around. But I definitely like the idea of an all-electric rally car.

[FTL]

I love how he ends every video with that stare of his.

[spinyslasher]

I'm gonna go ahead and remind everyone that sports cars comprise a very, very small percentage of the total automobile buyers. Just because a company stopped serving a certain demographic that's in the minority doesn't mean it fell. Mitsubishi is still selling very well, and they clearly aren't suddenly gonna fall just because they've stopped making sports cars.

[this_dude]

As much as I miss the sports cars that they used to make, it made sense to discontinue them. The company had financial difficulties and the sales of the sports cars nosedived. I mean let’s face it, do you really think that they will sell lots of sports cars nowadays in a market that has a huge preference towards SUVs? Only the people in the comments want them back and when they do bring them back guess what, they don’t buy them. In fact, Mitsubishi is selling in much higher numbers then they were 10+ years ago. Still, it is not enough for them to make sports cars again, and the cost of developing new models would be expensive, especially if they’re not going to sell in huge numbers. I guess having the EVO in their lineup would’ve been nice to give the WRX some competition, since it seems to do well in terms of sales. But unfortunately, the sales numbers probably weren’t enough for Mitsubishi to continue the EVO.


That being said, they could possibly introduce sports cars again into their lineup since they have an alliance with Nissan. Perhaps they could use the Nissan Z platform to make a modern day 3000GT for example. But at the end, it’s up to them and how much the market demands for sports cars.

[jagayong]

I used to own a 2006 Mitsi Evo 9 GSR, the 6-speed version totally stock, and it was fun to drive ‘coz it made you look like a hero as it corrected any understeer or oversteer at the limit. I regret trading it in ‘coz it doubled in value of what I traded it in for over a period of 3 to 4 years and now well out of reach, apart from the fact that you cannot find an unmodified Evo anymore.

[northstar]

That first gen Eclipse Cross is straight Aztek.

[MrJessegsx]

Not “vicious”. “Viscous” meaning the AWD system used a viscous fluid in the differentials that when cool, nothing really happened. But when the fluid was heated through slipping components inside the differentials, the fluid became thicker, locking the differentials and sending power to the rear wheels where the Limited Slip Differential was also viscous. Evos had plate LSDs in the rear. The same part number through pretty much all incarnations of the Evo. Lets not forget the DSMs. While not completely a global market car, still a great performer from Mitsubishi. A real shame what happened to to the performance arm of Mitsubishi. Coming from a Mitsubishi fan.

[imnotusingmyrealname]

Just found out the "normal" Lancer Evo cost over 60k in my country, and that was over 10 years ago!

[dylanw]

This was great video and really gave me an insight into why Mitsubishi fans love the brand so much. It's unfortunate that Mitsubishi ended up like this and I hope that they make a comeback with electric rally cars. With that being said, maybe the crossover phase is a way for the brand to pocket some cash and use that money to develop some fun electric vehicles. I hope that brands going forward realize that no everyone wants to be driven by autonomous technology and still develop cars that are purpose built to be driven.

[keyner]

I actually really like the Dynamic Shield design on newer Mitsubishi's but what they lack is a high performance car.

[Chromico]

Everyone is buying crossovers because they're the only thing available. They appeared and took off and every manufacturer decided they wanted a slice of that pie. Now every manufacturer feels the need to make multiple models.

Give me a nice wagon, or a two door hatchback. In the US almost no one sells those.

[theninethrees]

Used to own a 98’ Evo V 5 years ago, my one and only regret in life was not keeping it 😔

[elitesennabubble]

i actually really like the 2009 eclipse. it gets a lot of hate but i really like it

[dogsandcars]

Actually as an American we would better recognize the 3000 GT. Barely any dodge stealth or sold here

[Zerofightervi]

Mitsubishi used to be an engineering lead company.
If you actually look into how many firsts they had you'd be really surprised.

My personal opinion is Mitsubishi just had some bloody awful bad luck.
Everytime they were bought by another company that company was on the slide, Daimler Chrysler provided some much needed new up to date platforms but they really overstayed their welcome.
The GS platform was the basis of the ASX/Outlander Sport, Lancer & Outlander.
The Mirage was really designed to be a car for the Indian car market at first, it was then redesigned for the rest of the world, cheaply.
Their current owners have no clue what to do with Mitsubishi, look at the L200 pickup, it outsells the Nissan Navara in the markets where their both sold together, so who's taking the lead with the next generation, that's right, Nissan.

[hourglasseyesflipping]

I happen to have a 2014 Ralliart and I quite like the front grill shape of the Evo 10. The trapezoidal shape of the center with the headlight give the front end an angry design

[stratis]

kinda sad how since subaru has a monopoly on the "homologation rally car" category now, they don't really have to innovate too much as if someone wants a WRX or Evo they have to take the WRX now as their only option and its quickly becoming lackluster