1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder Convertible, Mint Condition, Leather Seats on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Mexican police seize engine-powered drug cannon

It seems like we're always hearing about new ways in which people are trying to smuggle things into the US from Mexico - including simply driving over the wall. Case in point? Mexican police have found yet another way criminals are attempting to get drugs over the border. Mexicali police have seized what looks to be either a Mitsubishi Mighty Max or Dodge Ram 50 pickup, equipped with what is essentially an oversized spud gun in the bed used to shoot marijuana over the border.
Constructed from a metal tank and a large plastic pipe, The Guardian reports that this drug cannon actually uses a car engine to build up enough air pressure to launch up to 13 kilos of marijuana at a time. Mexicali police were alerted to this truck when their US counterparts found drug packages on this side of the border. As of yet, there is no word as to how the vehicle was caught and whether any arrests resulted.

Mitsubishi debuts Concept CA-MiEV, a new suburban EV with a 186-mile range

Mitsubishi is stretching the electric jellybean. For years, the i-MiEV was regular presence at Mitsubishi's auto show booths around the world, and the car rightfully earned its nickname because of its rounded shape. Today, at the Geneva Motor Show, Mitsubishi finally unveiled a version of the i-MiEV that looks much more more at home among the alternative-powertrain car fleet of the near future.
But there's more being elongated here than just the shape. The official range of the standard i (as the i-MiEV is known in the US) is 62 miles. The Concept CA-MiEV - where the CA stands for Compact and Advanced - is supposed to be able to go 300 kilometers (186 miles) from a 28-kWh lithium-ion battery and lightweight 80-kW motor/inverter/charger unit. This is kind of astonishing, given the range estimates of other compact and midsize EVs on the market today - most are in the 80-100-mile range. Of course, the specific test used to get the 186-mile result matters, too, since the regular i received 98 miles on the LA4 driving cycle range. The US-i has a 16-kWh pack.
The increased distance means that Mitsubishi is talking about the Concept CA-MiEV as the "suburban EV," with enough range for "about one week of driving for an average European driver." If you need more, Mitsubishi hints that the flat battery pack leaves room for a range-extender. Add in convenience features like WiTricity wireless charging and the ability for the car to send an emergency email if it's stolen, and you've got the commuting vehicle of the future. With a coefficient of drag of just 0.26 and boomerang lights, of course.

Turns out Mitsubishi's history is far more interesting than we thought

Former Autoblog editor-in-chief Mike Austin was kind enough to drop this little nugget onto Twitter yesterday: the history of Mitsubishi timeline on the company's press website. Basically, it's a virtual museum, spanning from the 1917 Mitsubishi Model A to the 2008 Galant Fortis Sportback. Frankly, it's not that surprising that they didn't go much further beyond that, but still, the timeline provides both a fun trip down memory lane and an introduction to fun and/or wacky JDM models we never got.  Besides showing photos, there's actually a sizable amount of info for each, which has quite clearly and often delightfully been translated from Japanese. Take the New Minica Toppo that "adopted a 1:2 door configuration with a single door on the driver's side and two doors on the passenger side (think a Hyundai Veloster), as well as a 'Super High Roof' that added 70 mm to the height of the standard roof ... Addressing the desire to drive something a little different, the lineup was soon joined by a number of variants with personalities designed to bring more fun to the class and including the recreation specification Carabosse, the young mother and baby-oriented Marble, and the Town Bee with its round frog-eye headlamps projecting just forward of the leading edge of the engine hood." Also, check out those diagonal door handles. There are more than just JDM kei car oddities, however. There's the Mitsubishi FTO, which you may remember from Gran Turismo and other racing video games from back in the day. It was "a car that delivered fun-to-drive qualities in abundance (and) was selected 1994-1995 Japan Car of the Year." If you didn't know, it was called the FTO because it slotted below the Mitsubishi GTO, the car you know as the 3000GT. I didn't know that before. Thanks, timeline! There's also the off-roady JDM Delica vans that are now all over the Pacific Northwest having surpassed the 25-year import embargo. The 1994 Delica Space Gear (above left) was notable in that it moved the engine under the hood rather than beneath the front seats where it was previously (above right with the Delica Star Wagon), but according to the timeline "The Gear variant name was added in the belief that customers would become attached to it as a familiar 'piece of gear' for leisure and everyday purposes." Judging by the ones I see around here in Portland, mission accomplished. "Suspension was by double wishbone at the front and a 5-link with coil spring arrangement at the rear.