- [James] Thank you to Magic The Gathering for sponsoring a portion of this video. - The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Beautiful, isn't it? A rally car for the road. A millennial icon burned
into our collective memory through movies, video games, and anime. Undoubtedly, one of the most desired cars for anyone born after 1985. Thanks to this car, Mitsubishi was gonna be cool forever. (car crash) At least that's what I thought. Today Mitsubishi's lineup is boring. Why? How could they? How dare they kill off
their most iconic model in favor of crossover
SUV's and commuter cars? Well, it's because they
don't care what you think. Are they tone deaf? Why did they stop making cool cars? Is this a good decision? Why don't they care what we think? Today were gonna look at the long, and frankly strange, troubled history of Mitsubishi and see if they can survive without having a single
performance car in their lineup. I did a bunch of digging
to find out what was behind this total branding 180. And what I found out was crazy. - Thanks to Magic The
Gathering for sponsoring a portion of today's video. Welcome friends to today's expansive and never before traveled journey through the plain of Kaladesh. Call me Jameth of Donutarium as I guide the grand delinquent voyage through arduous mountain terrain, wind whipped plains, as cataclysmic gearhulks
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AE86 actually running. - Sounds good. Later, buddy. See you next time. Magic The Gathering has
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the description below to start playing MTG Arena for free today. Maybe you'll get matched with old Jameth. That portion of the
video was brought to you by Magic The Gathering. - This is the Eclipse Cross. It's a crossover SUV and
it made a lot of people a lot of mad. Why? Well, the name. The Eclipse is one of
Mitsubishi's most iconic cars, second to the Evo. It was a true sports car. And as we'll see, it was
integral to the tuning scene here in the States. "The Fast and the Furious"
might not be around if it wasn't for this car. It's that important. To put that name on this is bold, to say the least. People lost their marbles when Mitsubishi first announced this thing. But as I'll keep reminding you, Mitsubishi doesn't care what you think. Mitsubishi is not just a car company. The Mitsubishi most people
know is Mitsubishi Motors, a small subsidiary of the
Mitsubishi Corporation, which has their hands in
pretty much every industry including energy, banking,
mining, farming, and real estate. With cars playing a relatively small role within the Mitsubishi business universe, this actually makes
Mitsubishi Motors a more interesting company to
examine than other OEMs, in my opinion. If your business doesn't necessarily rely on cars to survive, how does that influence
what kind of cars you build? That's an exciting question to me. Mitsubishi started building cars in 1918, when the Mitsubishi shipbuilding company churned out the Model A, which was Japan's first production car, with a run of 22 units. Fast forward 50 years and Mitsubishi Motors is
looking to get into America. But they can't do it alone. So, they linked up with
Chrysler in Detroit to bring their Gallant to the States under the name Dodge Colt. This is what's called a captive import. The car built somewhere else has one name, brought to another country
and sold as something else. The relationship was symbiotic in nature. Imagine Dodge is this urchin
crab trying to protect itself from increasing demands for
compact fuel efficient cars, and Mitsubishi is this fire urchin just trying to make its
way across the Pacific. The relationship is mutually
beneficial for both parties. Dodge meets consumer
and regulatory demands, and Mitsubishi gets to vibe out. And right on a crab,
which sounds pretty rad. While Mitsubishi was still
a small player in the US, the story was a little
different around the globe. Mitsubishi Motor Company
realized the potential of motor sports as marketing and entered the Gallant in rallies to show off its reliability, and it really paid off. In 1972 the Gallant won the demanding Australian Southern Cross rally, starting a five-year event
winning streak for Mitsubishi and a proud tradition in rally racing, which we'll dive into
a little deeper later. The rally wins boosted
Mitsubishi's reputation all over world and increased demand. And this was great news because their pal Chrysler wanted to build a global car brand. So, they acquired a piece of Mitsubishi with long-term plans to
eventually buy the entire company. That strategy wouldn't pan out, but there would be some
pretty cool cars to come out of the Chrysler partnership like the Starion Conquest, 3000GT Stealth, and the aforementioned Eclipse. By 1980 Mitsubishi was
building 1 million cars a year, and Chrysler was importing more than a hundred thousand
of them into the US. This number was bumping up against the voluntary import limit
Japanese manufacturers were abiding by in the US. So, Mitsubishi had to get
clever to sell more cars. So, they did what other OEMs
like Honda and Toyota did and decided to plant their roots in the US with a big old factory
in Normal, Illinois. Go Wildcats! Ironman, you're all right. To help build the new facility, Chrysler put in $325 million, half of what was needed. This renewed venture between
Mitsubishi and Chrysler was called Diamond Star Motors. With the factory complete in 1988, it began pumping out one car under a number of different badges. The Plymouth Laser, Eagle Talon, and Mitsubishi Eclipse. It was the beginning of a defining era for Mitsubishi in the States. While the Laser and Talon
were styled by Chrysler, all the design work underneath
was done by Mitsubishi. The two-door coupe was intended to be a sporty treat for the masses, but (indistinct) tuners quickly discovered something very interesting
about the Eclipse triplets. The engine. The Eclipse was available with Mitsubishi's 4G63 inline four engine, the same engine Mitsubishi was putting in their Lancer Evo
rally cars over in Japan. In stock form the turbocharged 4G63T made 180 horsepower, not bad, but those tuners were
looking to make a lot more, and because the engine had
a cast iron cylinder block, it was able to take a lot more boost than it made from the factory. The ceiling for tuning these
motors was really high. You couple that with also
available all wheel drive and super aerodynamic styling and you have a car pretty much hand built for drag strip glory. Because of these features, the Eclipse helped jumpstart the fledgling import tuner scene here in America, and thus carved out Mitsubishi's place in the car nerd cannon, making their current lineup
today even more confusing. At the time, Mitsubishi
had a devoted following and a strong brand identity. At that time it seems they
did care what you think. Further proof of the Eclipse's
importance in tuner history, is the second gen DSMs inclusion in "The Fast and the Furious". So, with all this history it's disappointing to see the Eclipse name being used on a crossover
instead of a sports car. But as we'll see later, it might be for the best. As far as I'm concerned, the Evo was the tip of
the brand identity spear. I was curious what the
actual sales numbers for those cars were, so I spent a lot of time looking at data, I learned how to make a
graph in Google Sheets, and I got to work. This line right here is the Lancer Evolution's sales in the US for the life of the model. And here's the line for
Eclipses from the second gen because I couldn't find first gen numbers. And here's the line for
Mitsubishi's overall sales. Oh, that's bad. If these numbers are anything to go by, people in the US didn't give a hoot about Mitsubishi's little rally car. Maybe a better way to say it is that people who could afford to buy one didn't give a hoot. Right around the time the
Evo finally came to the US, Mitsubishi was falling off a cliff. What the heck happened? Well, I'll tell ya. That little point right there is Mitsubishi's peak in the US so far. In 2002 Mitsubishi sold
just under 346,000 vehicles. Seven years later, they'd
reached rock bottom with 53,986. Take a hurt, man. That sucks. Trouble started in 2000 when Chrysler continued their
pursuit to buy Mitsubishi. Chrysler at the time
had merged with Daimler, the parent company of
brands like Mercedes, Maybach, and Freightliner. Daimler Chrysler bought a
34% stake in Mitsubishi. And remember, this was
part of Chrysler's plan to buy a global brand with
plants around the world. Unfortunately, Daimler Chrysler's purchase could not have come at a worse time. Less than one month since the
$2 billion deal was signed, news broke that Mitsubishi did a booboo. Under US and Japanese law, automakers must tell the government about defects reported by customers. Mitsubishi didn't do that. Mitsubishi hadn't done that since 1977. That's bold. I guess they didn't care what
the government thought either. As a result, Mitsubishi recalled over
600,000 cars in 2000, costing the company an
estimated $69 million. Nice. Even though most of the
cars affected were in Japan, 50,000 of them were American vehicles. Probably not the impression you wanna make when someone just gave you $2 billion. A lot of high level people at Mitsubishi claimed to have no
knowledge of the coverup, which I don't know is possible, I guess, but come on. Interestingly, the recall was three years before Mitsubishi hit their peak. So, that wasn't the culprit
in their sales slump, though I suspect it played a large part. The defect coverup was a gut
punch to Mitsubishi's stock, and to make matters worse, the company had a lot of debt
that was starting to pile up. You'd expect for Daimler
Chrysler to bail them out. After all Mitsubishi was their
door into the Asian market and they wouldn't want
to lose that, right? That was the whole freaking
point of the partnership, but the troubles were
causing Daimler Chrysler to get cold feet and they
slowly started selling off their stake in Mitsubishi, eventually severing all ties by 2005. Knowing this, it's actually pretty amazing that the Evo made it to the US at all. We got really lucky. With the looming debt and
shaky ground beneath them, Mitsubishi could have easily scrapped any plans to bring it here, not to mention letting it
stay here for 13 years. I think we've got to count
our blessings on this one. A side effect of the Daimler
Chrysler Mitsubishi divorce was the evolution 10, which would be a radical step forward for the beloved rally car. The new Evo launched in 2007. Gone was the legacy 4G63T and in its place was the
aluminum block 4B11T, which immediately made diehards worried. "An aluminum block. Are you kidding me, dude? There's no way it'll be as
strong as the cast iron block." Mitsubishi had to make the switch to meet emissions regulations, but some people saw that
change as the company losing a little bit of its character. Of course, those people
will be proven wrong by just as, if not better performance, from the new aluminum engine. But hey, a legacy like that isn't gonna be forgotten that quickly. Also the Evo 10 styling
was a little too much for some people. I personally liked it a lot and still do. I still get excited when I see them, but it's really a matter
of personal preference. To make matters worse, Mitsubishi closed their
performance division Rally Art in 2010, signaling the end of a motor
sports era at the company. I told you, they don't care what you think. Things weren't just tough for the Evo, but for Mitsubishi as a whole. From their peak in the early 2000s, Mitsubishi America's
sales were in a nosedive. Over the next 10 years units sold would fall nearly 600%, from over 345,000 in 2002, to 57,790 in 2012. Something had to be done and fast. During the long slide down, Mitsubishi announced a new
strategy for the US in 2011. This plan is responsible
for the company's huge shift from the funky and fun image they had to something a little less
exciting that we see today. The key to the plan was to stop producing region specific cars for the US and bring Mitsubishi's global lineup here, but still produce them in Illinois. I think that's pretty cool. By 2014, the Endeavor SUV, Gallant sedan, and the third gen Eclipse will be dunzo. The end of the Eclipse was surprising, being their longest lasting model. But considering the Eclipse
only sold 7,500 units in 2011, the decision was justified. One car that Mitsubishi
kept alive was the Lancer, as the small sedan made up
a good chunk of their sales. Something interesting to
note on our sales graph is the relatively stable sales of lancers through the 2010s, seemingly unaffected
by the wild fluctuation of the company sales as a whole. I have no idea what this data suggests. Other than that, the Lancer filled a small but
dedicated niche in the market, which only makes the
model's 2017 death in the US even more painful. So, which cars would be filling in the lineup with the
region specific cars gone? Well, some really strange
ones, to be honest. In 2011 Mitsubishi announced
the i-MiEV electric car, a new global small car, and new hybrids. So how'd that work out? I'll tell you. Mitsubishi's new strategy was off to a strong start until 2016, when on April 20th news broke that Mitsubishi had been, quote, manipulating test data to
overstate the fuel economy of some of their Japanese models going back to that 1991. Think Dieselgate, but with cute JDM micro cars. At first Mitsubishi owned up to only lying about four of their cars, but it turns out that they
also lied about 13 other cars that were involved. Not a good look, and their investors thought so too. Mitsubishi stock plummeted 50% and made company
leadership look really bad. Yeah, that would. So, the new strategy wasn't
off to a great start, but looking at our graph, sales in the US don't look like they were affected that much. All right, so borderline
criminal negligence aside, what did Mitsubishi do right? Where are they headed today? Let's talk about those global
cars they brought over here. That new global smart car they teased, turned out to be the Mirage, a tiny, colorful, affordable commuter car. The Mirage is one of the
cheapest cars for sale in the US with a 2020 MSRP of 13,995. And hey, it's available as a manual. Next was the Outlander hybrid, which my boys up in Canada
thought was pretty good. And that's where the US lineup is today. They make three different
versions of the Outlander, two Mirages, and the Eclipse Cross. Okay, so Mitsubishi took one
of their most iconic names, added Cross to the end
as in crossover SUV, then made it look like this. Some people really hate it, but I will admit it does
look better in person. But regardless of looks, I can't deny that the Eclipse
Cross was a step over the line when it came to
Mitsubishi's brand identity, or more accurately, the lack thereof. 20 years ago, Mitsubishi had sports cars. They were cool. The Eclipse, the Evo, the GTO, which I didn't even talk about, these were all cars that
high schoolers wanted. I don't think that holds
true for their lineup today. That being said, if I had a brand new Mirage
when I was in high school, I'd be pretty stoked. My point is Mitsubishi
no longer makes cars that car nerds like myself wanna buy. But as the title of this video states, Mitsubishi doesn't care what you think. And I think that's because
these boring cars are working. Mirage sales absolutely
crushed Evo 10 figures in the last three years
of the rally cars life. The Mirage even outsold the
regular Lancer before that died. And let's talk about that Outlander. As of last year, it made up a
strong 61% of Mitsubishi sales with over 74,000 units sold. Add the Eclipse Cross into that and SUV's make up 77% of
Mitsubishi's business in the US. The pandemic has greatly
affected sales this year, which I'm not surprised, but once things calm down I expect Mitsubishi to
get back into the groove. Their identity isn't about
motor sports anymore, but about giving people
as much value as they can. And that strategy seems to
be working out for them, even if they have a long way
to go to reach their 2002 peak. And I mean a long way to go. Thank you very much for
watching WheelHouse this week. Let me know in the comments what your favorite Mitsubishi is. It is a toss up for me
between the second gen Eclipse and I think the Evo eight. Just let me know, man. I think Mitsubishi was a really cool brand and now they're just
trying something different. I've wished them the best honestly because it's cool to have
variety in the market. Hey, we have a podcast called Pass Gas. It's an in-depth history podcast
of like hour long episodes. A lot of fun, I do it with James and Joe. Please check that out on any
platform of your choosing. Follow Donut on all
social media @donutmedia. Follow me @nolanjsykes. Mitsubishi, I love ya. Be kind. I'll see you next time.
:( the eclipse cross really was the biggest fuck you to tuner enthusiasts
They middle fingered us
Wait for the “evo cross”
Lord knows it’s coming 😭😭
Oh yeah I saw this in my recommended this morning, is it a good one?