‘Mitsubishi’ no doubt is being looked upon as a niche Japanese auto brand in India, but to disappointment they were also having some of the performance vehicles in their portfolio here that too at a price of luxury ones. Hence, the brand found its image stuck in between the dilemma of luxury and performance, which as an outcome had chosen to go with the niche, where the profit margin is more and needs fewer efforts to push the vehicle out of the showroom.
Well, to be specific we were talking about the luxury SUVs Pajero Sport and Montero, pitted against performance driven Cedia Sports and Lancer EVO X. The latter model plates are now discontinued in India, says the official Mitsubishi India website. In actual, the official website confirmed, “Production laid to rest, but the Legend lives on” for the EVO X, whereas for the Cedia Sports it was termed, “The ultimate rally car now goes off the road”.
Both of the model plates are not only discontinued here in local, but their production is brought to a halt on a worldwide basis.
Bifurcating the discontinued explanation to the Cedia Sports, it was learnt the bespoken badge was landed in India in 2006 where the production of same was terming to the extinction in many markets of the world, and finally the automaker had brought production to a complete halt in November 2012 here as well. Since then, the cars which were available in the market were of the inventory stock and not the factory fresh. So now finally the whole clutter had reached dead end and compelled the Japanese to place a board of “Sold Out” on it.
Coming to the EVO X, we learnt the price tags were harassing the carmaker to lower down its range due to the luxury plastered German bugs available in market. In return against the money asked, Mitsubishi was delivering the extreme performance instead of the niche comforts on board, which had made the things worsen for auto brand throughout the various global territories, and as a result the word ‘discontinuation’ came out being an end to all the hassles.
But in replacement, EVO X may get an EVO XI till 2015, as some of them are rumored doing test rounds which at the time of writing is not confirmed. Yet the officials at Mitsubishi had slammed a seal on it, work had already begun on the EVO XI model plate since 2012. It too is believed XI moniker may adopt a ‘hybrid’ powertrain parallel to the existing ones, and can spark the small displacement (engine) extensively for producing astonishing power out of it.
Now we must say, SUV Pajero Sport and Montero are going to get the griffin very stiffly in our market due to the lot of concentration by makers, and also can speculate some magical marketing tricks from them if they are really interested to lure the SUV fanatic Indian customers to their showrooms.