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  • William Maley
    William Maley

    By William Maley •

    Mitsubishi and Nissan Midsize Project Hits An Impasse

      A New Midsize Sedan for Mitsubishi Hits A Snag

    Back in late 2013, Mitsubishi announced a new partnership with Nissan to create a new midsize sedan for the North American marketplace. But at the NADA conference this weekend, a Mitsubishi executive says the plan has hit an impasse.

    “I told them that the plan has stalled. And I said that’s really all I can tell you at this time,” said Don Swearingen, executive vice president of Mitsubishi Motors North America to Automotive News.

    Its unclear whether the sedan part of the partnership or if another part is causing the trouble. Nissan was unable to comment at the time the story went up.

    But while the midsize sedan fate is in question, Mitsubishi dealers have a lot of new products to look forward in the next couple of years.

    • Redesigned Outlander - July
    • Redesigned Outlander Sport and new Lancer - End of the year
    • New Mirage - Next Spring
    • Mirage Sedan and Outlander Plug-In Hybrid - Second Quarter of 2016

    Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

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    regfootball

    Wait.. a new Mirage? Already?

     

    Mitsubishi should partner with Suzuki to sell the next Kazashi in the US.  The last Kazashi would have made a great Galant.

    that was my idea too at the time I was selling Suzukis for a living.  DO you think you could get two Japanese companies to collaborate though?

     

    I've read stuff where they had interviews with Suzuki higher ups who said Kizashi was a disaster for them, when in fact the reality is opposite.  Kizashi actually got them on the radar of some really sophisticated buyers, and it was the first US suzuki that got people to consider them as less than a freak show and a real mainstream alternative.

     

    I still remember the people / buyers i put on the spot, asking them to tell me 'you like the Legacy better than the Kizashi".  I would never get an answer to my face on that question.  But it came down to two things really on the Kizashi failure.

     

    ---sized like a tweener.  same physical size as a cruze and much roomier than that, but was advertised as a midsizer and it was a bit short on space in the rear for that.  our own detail guy who is tall shunned a Kizashi and got a Sonata only because of the interior room.  Likewise i lost sales to mazda6 and accord etc. for same reason.

    ---the status of US dealers and not marketing and packaging cars correctly and the impending doom of getting run of the US.  SX4 was a great niche product and they finally upsize it and have to leave the market before they sell it here.  It could have helped save death.  If you want to see the SX4 concept fully realized and what all my customers were begging for, look no further than the Trax / Encore.

     

    Suzuki will never build another Kizashi because they are geared for small $h!boxes.  Mits would have been the perfect outlet to sell a larger suzuki in the US.

     

    Japanese mfrs in general need to stop going it alone and merge up.  

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