2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse Gs on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ex-Nissan exec Greg Kelly's suspended sentence lets him go home

TOKYO — A Tokyo court gave Greg Kelly, a former American executive at Nissan Motor charged with underreporting his boss Carlos GhosnÂ’s pay, a suspended sentence, but cleared him of most of the charges. The verdict announced Thursday of a 6-month sentence suspended for three years will allow Kelly to return to the U.S. during an appeal. Kelly's defense lawyers said they will appeal. It was unclear if prosecutors would also do so. Kelly, who appeared calm during the court session, said afterward that he was stunned by the verdict. “I have always acted in the best interests of Nissan, and I have never been involved in an unlawful act,” said Kelly, who is planning to head back to Tennessee. The court acquitted Kelly on some counts but found him guilty of charges for just one of the eight years for which the compensation allegedly was under-reported. The defense team said that was unacceptable. “Kelly is completely innocent. We cannot accept the erroneous ruling that found him guilty for that final year,” the defense, headed by Yoichi Kitamura, said in a statement. Kelly was arrested in November 2018 at the same time as Ghosn, a former Nissan chairman and head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. Both insist they are innocent and that the money in question was never paid or decided on. The trial at Tokyo District Court began in September 2020, with Ghosn absent after he jumped bail in late 2019, hiding in a box for music instruments on a private jet. He fled to Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan, and has been writing books and making movies about his experiences. During ThursdayÂ’s session, Chief judge Kenji Shimotsu repeatedly slammed Ghosn, telling the court Ghosn showed greed and malice in a “dictatorial rule” at Nissan. Nissan's faulty governance misled investors and had a damaging impact, he said. Shimotsu said Ghosn made an arrangement for his compensation that was “conducted solely out of his personal greed.” “There is absolutely no room for extenuating circumstances in his motive,” he said. Ghosn called the judgement a “save-face verdict” for the prosecutors and other Nissan executives that he accuses of colluding against him, Kelly, Renault and all shareholders. “I am relieved for Greg and his family,” Ghosn said in a Zoom call with a small group of reporters.

2023 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross gets standard all-wheel drive

Following a significant refresh for the 2022 model year, the 2023 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross subcompact crossover is mostly the same. Except now it's only available with all-wheel drive. All of the front-drive variants have been dropped. A side effect of this decision is that the Eclipse Cross now has a significantly higher base price. Last year's ES with front-drive started at $25,180 including destination. The new all-wheel-drive ES starts at $27,235. But compared with the old all-wheel-drive ES, the new one is just $455 more. Pricing for the whole lineup is below. ES: $27,235 LE: $28,685 SE: $29,685 SEL: $30,935 For that extra $455, the ES now includes LED headlights and fog lights. The LE trims and above also get new available 18-inch alloy wheel designs. The SE gets a silver front bumper trim piece, and the SEL's lower side trim is body color. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Scrapyard Gem: 2007 Mitsubishi Colt CZ2 5-door hatchback

YORK, England — Remember the Dodge and Plymouth Colts of 1971 through 1994? The Colt name stayed alive after that on Mitsubishis sold elsewhere in the world, and I've found a 21st-century example in a self-service wrecking yard near York, England. This generation of Colt served as the basis for the Smart ForFour, so (as promised) I'm following up a ForFour Junkyard Gem with this article about its sibling in the same knacker's yard. Like the ForFour, this car was built at the NedCar assembly plant in the Netherlands. Mitsubishi began using the Colt name in Japan back in 1962, then killed the name at home in favor of the Mirage when that car debuted in 1978. Export-market Mirages got Colt (or Champ, or Lancer and many others) badging at that point. For 2002, the Colt returned to Japan with a brand-new platform, and that's the generation we have here. The engine here is a 1.5-liter Mercedes-Benz turbodiesel, rated at 95 horsepower and 155 pound-feet. A 148-horse turbocharged gasoline-burning Mitsubishi 1.5 was available in the UK as well. The transmission is a five-speed manual. A six-speed automatic was an option. It's a small car but not microscopic; its wheelbase is just over 98" and its curb weight is about 2,500 pounds. The tall roof gives it great storage capacity, a trick often seen in kei vans. This generation of Colt continues to be sold in Taiwan through the present day, as the Colt Plus. In Europe, an all-new Colt based on the Renault Clio was launched last year. It was cheap. In Japan, cuteness was played up in Colt commercials.