Evo Gsr Wicked White 2.0l Turbo Recaro Seats on 2040-cars

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Question of the Day: Most heinous act of badge engineering?

Badge engineering, in which one company slaps its emblems on another company's product and sells it, has a long history in the automotive industry. When Sears wanted to sell cars, a deal was made with Kaiser-Frazer and the Sears Allstate was born. Iranians wanted new cars in the 1960s, and the Rootes Group was happy to offer Hillman Hunters for sale as Iran Khodro Paykans. Sometimes, though, certain badge-engineered vehicles made sense only in the 26th hour of negotiations between companies. The Suzuki Equator, say, which was a puzzling rebadge job of the Nissan Frontier. How did that happen? My personal favorite what-the-heck-were-they-thinking example of badge engineering is the 1971-1973 Plymouth Cricket. Chrysler Europe, through its ownership of the Rootes Group, was able to ship over Hillman Avanger subcompacts for sale in the US market. This would have made sense... if Chrysler hadn't already been selling rebadged Mitsubishi Colt Galants (as Dodge Colts) and Simca 1100s as (Simca 1204s) in its American showrooms. Few bought the Cricket, despite its cheery ad campaign. So, what's the badge-engineered car you find most confounding? Chrysler Dodge Automakers Mitsubishi Nissan Suzuki Automotive History question of the day badge engineering question

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution will live through 2015

If it were only so easy for humans. Mitsubishi has extended the life of the Lancer Evolution X by at least a year. An MMNA spokesperson tells AutoGuide that it is "committed to introducing the 2015 model year Lancer Evolution," noting that production for said models will begin in July. This gives us a year of clarity about the future of a model whose future blinks in and out of existence quicker than a boson particle.
As far as we can tell, the Evo as we know it is definitely going to die, the question is when. In March, Mitsubishi said it "does not have any plans to design a successor with the current concept, as a high-performance four-wheel drive gasoline-powered sedan." What is rumored to fill the hole left by the Evo might or might not be a linear descendent, but is expected to be some kind of hybridized high-performance model about which much has been speculated.
MMNA PR manager Alex Fedorak told Autoblog, "Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) is committed to introducing the 2015 model year Lancer Evolution in the U.S. Production of North American-specification Lancer Evolution models for the 2015 model year will commence in July 2014." Our previous advice still stands, however, even with the extension: If you want one, get an Evo while you can.

Mitsubishi Mirage sedan confirmed for US

The Mitsubishi Mirage easily takes the cake as the worst new car I've driven in the last year. Actually, make that the worst new car I've driven in several years (Side Note: when was the last time I drove a Smart Fortwo?). But regardless of what I, or my colleagues, think about the Mirage, it's selling decently – Mitsubishi has moved over 14,000 of them so far this year, which is actually higher than the company initially expected. And now, we've got official confirmation that the sedan version is headed our way. This isn't really shocking, considering earlier reports, but Motor Trend received further confirmation of the Mirage sedan's arrival during last week's Los Angeles Auto Show. There's no official timing as to when the sedan will arrive, and when I reached out for comment, a Mitsubishi spokesperson said of this report, "Yep. Confirmed." So, yeah, the Mirage sedan is headed our way. It'll probably come in somewhere around the low, low $12,995 price of the hatchback, and hopefully, it'll be better to drive than its more versatile hatchback sibling. And hey, if it can help Mitsubishi build sales momentum here in the US, then that's a win, right?