By William Maley
Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com
March 19, 2013
Mitsubishi is mounting a comeback in the U.S. The brand which only sold 57,790 vehicles last year, a 27% drop in sales compared to 2011, has big plans that involves more marketing and beginning to fill the holes in the lineup.
Masatoshi Hasegawa, executive vice president of corporate planning for Mitsubishi Motors North America told Automotive News the brand is looking at a new midsize sedan and a larger crossover.
"We are looking into a possibility for the [mid-sized sedan] segment, and we may look into maybe a bigger brother to the Outlander."
Hasegawa also noted that a replacement for the aging Lancer compact is sorely needed.
But any decision and/or appearance of these new models isn't likely to happen until 2015, the year that Mitsubishi hopes to be selling 100,000 vehicles per year,
A comeback is "not going to happen overnight," Hasegawa said. "We went into a descent, so it's going to take time to get back up again. But I think now we will definitely go into an upward trend."
So what will happen in the meantime? Well for starters, Mitsubishi will show the new Mirage subcompact at the New York Auto Show next week that will go on sale in the fall. Next will be the new 2014 Outlander crossover that will be coming out in June along with a massive marketing behind it.
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.
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