1994 Mitsubishi Eclipse Base Hatchback 2-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

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Mitsubishi says it will make money from EVs

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV is the lowest-cost plug-in vehicle available in the US. The spartan EV's small price tag shouldn't lead you to believe the company doesn't see dollar signs where there's a plug. Mitsubishi says that electric vehicles are one of the three profitable segments that have helped the company get back into the black. The other two are light trucks and crossovers. We suspect that the resounding success of the Outlander PHEV played a bigger role in this than the i-MiEV, but you never know. Mitsubishi Motors Corp president Tetsuro Aikawa told Automotive News that the company will keeps its focus on those three segments and ease back on sedans and performance cars. To that end, the Outlander Plug-In Hybrid will come to the US next April, many years after it went on sale in Japan and Europe. The vehicle will fit well with Mitsubishi's plans to shift its strategy to SUVs and CUVs here. Related Video:

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.

Mitsubishi D:X Concept previews the next Delica off-road van

Besides the Montero/Pajero and the Lancer Evo, perhaps Mitsubishi's most famous model is the Delica. It's a minivan, but it also has serious off-road chops, and it has had them for decades. At the Japan Mobility Show, Mitsubishi showed the D:X Concept, which is a look a the future of the go-anywhere van. The look is almost that of a steroidal VW I.D. Buzz, but it works. It's chunky and aggressive, and of course it has huge tires. The single-box shape is a longstanding tradition of the Delica line for maximum interior space. Noteworthy are the laser headlights. The vertical sections can project lines ahead of the vehicle to help provide an idea of the vehicle width against the environment in tricky maneuvering at night. The interior features three rows of seats, and the seats can slide and swivel for a variety of configurations. Particularly interesting is the lack of a dashboard, as well as anything ahead of where the dash would be. Instead, a glass panel for the grille and a giant screen showing what's under and ahead of front of the vehicle take up the space. This allows for phenomenal forward visibility, especially useful off road. There is a small dash ahead of the driver and the steering wheel that blends into the door, and this is where instrumentation is displayed. Occupants also can enjoy a Yamaha-tuned sound system. Mitsubishi didn't go into much detail on the powertrain. It's a plug-in hybrid, and we wouldn't be surprised if it operates as a series hybrid like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. And that of course means that the D:X still powers all four wheels, as a Delica should. Mitsubishi also didn't share any sort of production plans. But we expect that a new Delica is on the way that will at least look a lot like this concept, even if some features such as the dash-free interior might not make it. Sadly, we don't expect it to come to America, just like the current Delica. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.