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2013 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport models with leather seats recalled over airbag fears

Mitsubishi is recalling 733 of its 2013 Outlander Sports that were fitted with leather seat covers due to problems with the seat-mounted airbags. Apparently, the wiring for the airbags may have been routed incorrectly when the seat covers were installed at the port.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bulletin, the issue only really crops up if owners adjust the height of the seats. Naturally, if the seat wiring is damaged, the airbag may not deploy in the event of a side impact.
The affected vehicles were all manufactured between July 20, 2012 and May 29, 2013. There have been no reported injuries or accidents due to this issue. Mitsubishi, meanwhile, will begin notifying owners, who will need to report to their local dealer for free inspections or repairs. Take a look below for the bulletin from NHTSA.

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 Mirage hatch and sedan refresh teased

Almost every Mitsubishi model sold in the U.S. wears the automaker's "Dynamic Shield" design. The corporate face combines a two-piece grille emphasizing the horizontal with slim, angled headlights supported by a thick, C-shaped trim piece that defines the fog lights and lower intakes. The only holdouts are the Mirage hatchback and Mirage G4 sedan, but that will soon change. Mitsubishi teased a dim image of two Mirages that had earned their Dynamic Shields, and promised a debut on November 18 in Thailand. The reveal location gives a shout-out to the Laem Chabang plant that, along with another facility in the Philippines, builds the siblings. It's easy to forget about Mitsu's tiny twosome, but it's hard to deny they've served the company well as global offerings. In the U.S., the duo has increased its annual sales every year since the car's introduction in 2013. Around the world in fiscal 2018 the Japanese automaker sold 140,000 units, and sales through the end of October in the U.S. show the Mirage nearly 10 percent ahead of last year's sales at the same period. Assuming the cheap-as-chips price equation doesn't get a heavy refresh, there's every reason to think the facelift will aid sales. The hatch and sedan wear two different faces at the moment, both graduates of the most mediocre school of ambiguous econoboxes. The teased image puts a personality on economy, with large, single lenses peeking out from a narrow eyeline above the Dynamic Shield's sculpted features. It appears designers have done a touch of reshaping in back as well, and there's a wee spoiler hanging off the back of the decklid. No word on what might be in store for the two three-cylinder engines sold in international markets, a 1.0-liter that makes 70 horsepower and 65 pound-feet of torque, and the 1.2-liter that's our only choice here, making 78 hp and 74 lb-ft. The fuel filler cap has moved from the driver's side to the passenger's side, though, so there could be action under the skin, and we'd expect a few interior upgrades, too.