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Mitsubishi denies plans for Toyota/Subaru rival sports coupe

Forgive us for being wistful, but there was a time when Mitsubishi coupes and sports cars were the downright awesome. The 1990s brought us the all-wheel drive, turbocharged Eclipse GSX and the twin-turbocharged 3000GT VR-4 (seen here). The times, they were good.
Fast-forward to today, and the Lancer Evolution exists as Mitsubishi's sole, true performance offering. Mitsubishi killed off the Eclipse last year, by which time it had lost much the luster of its predecessors. With an affordable Japanese sports car fomenting underway thanks to Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ, one may think that it's an ideal time for a brand like Mitsubishi to jump back into the performance coupe game. A rear-drive Mitsubishi sports car to take on the Toyobaru twins could be just what the brand needs to gain some mindshare among consumers.
Not so, says Osamu Masuko. The president and executive director of Mitsubishi told reporters at the Sydney Motor Show, "Our engineers are very prominent to investigate new technologies, but to use that technology they are not that good to bring the revenue to make that money." Read: the engineers want to do it, but the company does not find it to be financially responsible.

2019 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross scores an IIHS Top Safety Pick

The 2019 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross is a funky little crossover with a name that has angered more than a few Eclipse fans out there. Today it gets honors from the IIHS, though, in the form of a Top Safety Pick award. It’s great to see the totally new Mitsubishi get safety honors for what is probably the best car the company sells in the U.S. now. You will have to get an upmarket version of the vehicle for it to be one that qualifies for the award, though. That nets you the LED headlights rated as Acceptable and the front crash prevention technology. It avoided collisions when traveling at 12 mph and 25 mph in IIHS testing. On top of that, it needed to score Good in all the major crashworthiness tests, which it did. The full breakout of scores showed it scored an Acceptable rating for some of the specifics the IIHS was looking into, but the car appears plenty safe from a crash perspective. Child safety seat testing found that the carÂ’s LATCH system was extremely easy to use, netting it a Good rating in that category, too. The 2019 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross starts at $24,690 for a completely base car, and stretches to around the $30,000 mark in its most expensive form.

Masuko to step down as Mitsubishi Motors CEO, Kato to succeed him

TOKYO — Mitsubishi Motors Corp said on Friday that Osamu Masuko will step down as its chief executive on June 21 and be replaced by Takao Kato, who is president of its operations in Indonesia. Masuko will retain his role as chairman of the board, Mitsubishi Motors said in a statement, adding that Masuko and Kato will hold a press conference on May 20 to discuss the changes. Japan's sixth-largest automaker, in which Nissan Motor Co holds a controlling stake, said this month it expects profit to fall to 90.0 billion yen ($821 million) in the year to March as it navigates slowing demand for cars, global trade frictions and the need to develop new technologies. Mitsubishi's partners Nissan and France's Renault are meanwhile grappling with the fallout from the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, the group's former chairman, who is facing charges of financial misconduct in Japan. Ghosn has denied all charges against him. Reporting by Stanley White.