Mitsubishi

About Mitsubishi

As a shipping concern when it was formed in 1870, Mitsubishi eventually expanded to become one of Japan’s most significant industrial conglomerates, producing ships, aircraft, and, starting in 1917, automobiles. Japan’s first series production vehicle was Mitsubishi’s Model A, based on a Fiat design. However, as few Japanese citizens could afford luxury automobiles, Mitsubishi turned its attention to trucks after 1922.

After World War II, when the old company was divided into many new businesses, the biggest of which was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, truck manufacturing began again. The Mitsubishi 500 marked the company’s comeback to automobile production in 1960. The little automobile was popular at home, which led to an increased number of versions, beginning with the 1962 Mitsubishi Colt 600.

The automobile business had achieved sufficient success by 1970 to be split into its corporate organization, Mitsubishi Motors. Chrysler bought 15% of the company a year later, starting the long-lasting but sometimes tense alliance with Mitsubishi. In the 1970s, Mitsubishi’s goods were introduced to Americans as the Dodge Colt and Plymouth Arrow. As Mitsubishi expanded internationally, 40% of its automobiles were exported outside Japan by 1978.

The business established Mitsubishi Motors of America in 1981 and started selling automobiles under its brand in 22 states to establish itself in the country. The Cordia, Tredia, and Starion sports coupes were among its earliest offerings, competing with the Toyota Celica and Mazda RX-7. The Mighty Max truck and Montero SUV shortly followed. Without considering the rebadged Mitsubishis sold through Chrysler dealers, sales increased quickly, and by 1990, Mitsubishi was selling approximately 200,000 vehicles annually in the USA. Although Mitsubishi and Chrysler parted ways in 1993, they continued using each other’s platforms until the late 2000s.

In production cars like the 3000GT sports car, Mitsubishi demonstrated cutting-edge multi-valve engines, all-wheel drive systems, and even the first forward distance warning alert system in the world between the 1970s and 1990s, earning the company a reputation for technical innovation. Along with the Lancer EVO and off-road variants of the Montero, it also had a lot of racing success.

American consumers continued to enjoy Mitsubishi’s Eclipse sport coupe and the enduring Montero, which received a smaller companion in 1997, the Montero Sport, despite Japan’s challenging economic conditions in the 1990s, which led to more conservative and less attractive vehicles. In the early 2000s, Mitsubishi’s U.S. sales reached over 300,000 annually thanks to the company’s captive finance arm’s provision of simple financing. Due to this, many loan defaults, low resale prices, and falling sales just before the Great Recession.

Mitsubishi turned its attention away from SUVs in the U.S. in the late 2000s, stopping sales of the once-popular Montero and Endeavor (formerly the Montero Sport) and concentrating on the long-delayed, slow-selling iMiEV electric vehicle, only for Americans to become more interested in SUVs than ever. The basis of Mitsubishi’s U.S. range has been the tiny Outlander and subcompact Outlander Sport crossovers since the middle of the 2010s. In 2017, it revived an aging brand on a smaller crossover, the Eclipse Cross, and debuted a well-liked plug-in hybrid, Outlander.

Nissan joined the Nissan-Renault Alliance by purchasing a 34% share in Mitsubishi Motors in the same year. Beginning with the brand-new 2022 Outlander, which is anticipated to start arriving at dealerships in the summer of 2021, the next generation of Mitsubishi goods will be developed in collaboration with Nissan.