1993 Mitsubishi 3000gt Coupe 2-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Mitsubishi Outlander rumored to get Nissan engine, Rogue Sport to get PHEV

A report in the Japanese business daily Nikkei, picked up by Automotive News, said Mitsubishi anticipates using a Nissan engine in the next-generation Outlander headed our way later this year. If the report comes true, the engine swap would be a first for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance partners outside of Japanese kei cars. Mitsubishi engineers will have an easier time slotting in a Nissan engine as the next-gen Outlander gives up its GS platform — an architecture Mitsubishi co-developed with Daimler Chrysler almost 20 years ago — to move to a modified version of the CMF platform that supports the Nissan Rogue and Qashqai, our Rogue Sport.    Last December, Auto Express spoke to Ponz Pandikuthira, NissanÂ’s European vice president of product planning. The exec said Nissan had two hybrid powertrains under consideration for the next-generation Qashqai, the first being Nissan's serial hybrid ePower system that's fared well in Japan where overall speeds are low, but that might not be suited to Europe's higher average speeds. As for a PHEV, Pandikuthira said, "WeÂ’re not pursuing a big plug-in hybrid strategy. On some car lines weÂ’ll try it out, but the business case for plug-in hybrids is not very good." Completing the round-turn, Nikkei said Mitsubishi would supply its PHEV for the compact Nissan, making the Qashqai the car line that gets the tryout. If that happens, and assuming Nissan brings it here, the Rogue Sport would be Nissan's first PHEV in the U.S. Nissan has tended to delay updating the Rogue Sport to Qashqai spec, so depending on when a PHEV version arrives, it could be the only hybrid in Nissan's U.S. fleet since the Rogue Hybrid retired for the 2020 model year.  The platform and engine exchange would have been planned before Nissan's troubles over the past 18 months, but they represent the alliance's growing effort for greater synergy and lower costs. One supposed tactic going forward comes from the Volkswagen Group playbook, identifying a brand's expertise and putting the brand in charge of developing that expertise for the alliance, the same way the Volkswagen brand develops low-cost platforms and Audi runs R&D for the group. We'll know more about plans afoot at the Franco-Japanese trio when the alliance unveils its new midterm business plan perhaps as soon as this month. Related Video:      

Junkyard Gem: 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse with Lambo Doors

Front-wheel-drive sporty cars with wild body kits and eye-searing graphics became increasingly popular in North America during the 1990s, but it took the enormous mainstream success of the first Fast and Furious movie in 2001 to place bewinged sport compacts with giant tailpipes in every town from Nome to Naples. No doubt due to the narrative-enhancing role of the cop-purchased 2005 Mitsubishi Eclipse and its Robo Car Aero Armor body kit in The Fast and the Furious, the second-generation Eclipse (and its Eagle twin, the Talon) built by Diamond Star Motors in Illinois became the car to have by the middle 2000s… and the only way to improve on a full complement of flares, scoops, and wings was the conversion of the doors to use scissors-style aka Lambo hinge mechanisms. You'd think a car so equipped would be sufficiently desirable to stay on the happy side of the boneyard fence (Those are the doors of a billionaire, after all. -Ed), but such was not the case with this '98 in the Denver area. As we all know, there's no point in going to the expense and trouble of installing Lambo doors in your Eclipse if you haven't got a wing big enough to keep a Mitsubishi F-2 fighter plane aloft. Check! I find these graphics a bit too subdued, but then I'd have chosen a Mitsubishi Debonair AMG for customization in the first place. The body kit looks plenty mean, but hard times appear to have befallen this car quite a few years back. A bit over 150,000 miles show on the odometer, which is non-shabby for a DSM product. The engine is the Chrysler-sourced 2.0 DOHC unit originally designed for use in the Neon, rated at 140 horsepower. A 210-horse turbocharged Mitsubishi 2.0 could be had in the 1998 Eclipse/Talon, but the real gone cats added 14,000 horsepower worth of NOSSS. Someone loved this car enough to put plenty of sweat and dollars into it, and I felt saddened to see it come to such a fate. If it had had an automatic transmission, at least I could have consoled myself that it was built entirely for show. Nope, five-speed manual. The aftermarket wheels look rough, but they may have been sold anyway. This car has been crushed by now, but perhaps the Lambo door hardware got sliced out before then. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. So fast, it destroys wholesome farmhouses. The final model year for this generation of Eclipse was 1999.

US expands probe into ZF-TRW airbag failure-to-deploy to 12.3 million vehicles

DETROIT — U.S. auto safety regulators have expanded an investigation into malfunctioning airbag controls to include 12.3 million vehicles because the bags may not inflate in a crash. The problem could be responsible for as many as eight deaths. Vehicles made by Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and Fiat Chrysler from the 2010 through 2019 model years are included in the probe, which was revealed Tuesday in documents posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It involves airbag control units made by ZF-TRW that were installed in the vehicles. The control units can fail in a crash, possibly because of unwanted electrical signals produced by the crash itself that can disable an air bag control circuit housed in the passenger compartment, according to NHTSA documents. The electrical signals can damage the control circuit, the documents say. ZF, a German auto parts maker which acquired TRW Automotive in 2015, said in a statement that it's committed to safety and is cooperating with NHTSA and automakers in the investigation. The case is another in a long list of problems with auto industry airbags, including faulty and potentially deadly Takata airbag inflators. At least 24 people have been killed worldwide and more than 200 injured by the inflators, which can explode with too much force and hurl dangerous shrapnel into the passenger cabin. The inflators touched off the largest series of automotive recalls in U.S. history involving with as many as 70 million inflators to be recalled by the end of next year. About 100 million inflators are to be recalled worldwide. On April 19, NHTSA upgraded the ZF-TRW probe from a preliminary evaluation to an engineering analysis, which is a step closer toward seeking recalls. So far, only Hyundai and Kia and Fiat Chrysler have issued recalls in the case. Four deaths that may have been caused by the problem were reported in Hyundai-Kia vehicles and three in Fiat Chrysler automobiles. NHTSA opened an investigation in March of 2017 involving the TRW parts in Hyundais and Kias. The upgrade came after investigators found two recent serious crashes involving 2018 and 2019 Toyota Corollas in which the airbags did not inflate. One person was killed. Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit consumer group, said the ZF-TRW case shows the auto industry thus far has learned very little from Takata.