Better late than never! Though the initial plans of Mitsubishi was to introduce its latest sports variant of the Mitsubishi Pajero at the Delhi Auto Expo of 2012, the same could not materialize because of the devastating floods that had engulfed Thailand in 2011. The auto maker, however, is now all set to introduce this latest version in the Indian automobile market before the ending of the first quarter of 2012, which is just around 50 days away.
Mitsubishi India strongly believes that this latest sports edition of the Mitsubishi Pajero is going to play a major role in reviving its low sales in the Indian auto market. The Pajero enjoys the reputation of being a very sporty vehicle and brand building is an exercise that is not going to be required to be done for this car in the Indian market. The only thing that Mitsubishi needs to ensure is that the car is priced effectively. This also does not look to be a herculean task as the car is going to be assembled in India itself using the assembly line of Hindustan Motors. This is definitely going to give the latest edition of the Pajero a significant advantage over its main competitors, which includes the Renault Koleos and the Honda CR-V. Both these cars are presently being marketed in India as CBUs thereby making their cost factor two times more than the Mitsubishi car.
A major highlighting factor of the globally available version of the latest Mitsubishi Pajero is its diesel engine, which is turbocharged with the capability of offering peak power and torque figures of 135PS and 320Nm respectively. The engine has been mated with a five-speed manual as well as automatic transmission gearbox. Auto experts are waiting eagerly to see whether Mitsubishi introduces the automatic gearbox version in India. The possibilities of this happening is bright given the fact that it’s main rival, Toyota is planning to come out with an automated gearbox version for its modified variant of the Fortuner. Mitsubishi also needs to put in a lot of work in terms of improving the quality of its service centers if it wants to attract more customers for its cars in the Indian market.
