Test drive Mitsubishi Outlander (Airtrek) 2003 - 2007 SUV

Family showdowns

The multi -veined Frank Williams, the permanent chef of the formula team of Williams BMW, in recent years declared himself an ardent opponent of intra -divided tactics. Among his pilots there is no one number, equal chances are given on the highway, the main thing is that the general piggy bank is regularly and abundantly replenished. Fair? Of course. But such a democratic approach also has a side effect in the form of unbridled ambitions that guarantee voltage in the team up to collisions in the race. So you can stay without glasses in all the tests at once. Is it necessary? Where the win -win cynical dictatorship reigning in Ferrari. Manufacturers and sellers of cars try to adhere to this method, breeding their models into different price angles. However, there are also incidents like a recent bored in the segment from 25,000 to $ 30,000 at once two Mitsubishi brand SUVs.

We are talking about the already well -known and well -adopted model Pajero Pin and a newcomer of 2003, which bears the name Outlander. In principle, each of the cars has its own positioning: Pinin SUV, Outlander Verging, moreover, more expensive. This should facilitate the potential buyer of the flour of choice, and it is unlikely that a person who has been going with a firm intention to acquire Pinin, seeing Outlander, will at once change his opinion to the opposite. At the same time, in the most common among such machines, the five-door two-liter format, both Mitsubishi come closer to a distance of some $ 1,500. You can count yourself: Pinin 2.0 GDI costs $ 26490, and the most affordable Outlander 2.0 MPI Comfort is offered for $ 27990. We considered this fact enough to grab a new to a couple of a newcomer and Pinin for a test drive. Moreover, to this day, our hands did not reach him.

One of the features of the marketing tactics of Japanese companies is that machines are sold with fixed equipment sets, and it will not work to play the option. It remains to accept the equipment of the purchased car for a given. What will please Pinin? There is an automatic machine, air conditioning, two pillows, heating the front seats, a CD resort, alloy wheels and fog. Outlander? The same air conditioning, two pillows, heating the seats, fog, as well as heating the lower part of the windshield. However, the automaton will have to deal with the programs only on the 2.4-liter version, which costs 32090 dollars. Disks steel stamping, the radio is absent completely. Like the relings. Not much.

Outwardly, the cars are quite day and night. The Pinin tram is all so open, naive, almost toy: well, yes, I look like a copy of the venerable all -terrain vehicle on a 1: 2 scale, and now what? Can't you dare, or what? Put on your health! The rectilinear architecture of the car body tightly relates it with such a classic of professional off-road as Land Cruiser 70, Patrol model of 1980 and the first Pajero. Anachronism is still the same, but this ministe of the heroes of yesterday is definitely charming. The Outlander intertvert, on the contrary, is expressive and angry, it seems that he is ready to cling to the throat to everyone who doubts his power. The catchy machine is swift, dynamic outlines unmelledly recognizable both anfas and from the stern. That's just from the torso you expect more developed muscles, and not these lightly smoothed sidewalls.

Pinin in Italian means a baby. So affectionately friends called Battista Farin, who founded his own body atelier in 1930. For several decades, a small company has grown into a group of companies Pininfarina and gained the status of an indisputable legislator of the world car. In its current collection of PROT-A-port, Pajero Pinin, produced in the Italian city of Byro Canavez, is also listed. But he goes in exceptions, since Pininfarina stylists have nothing to do with the design of the machine. This is a purely Japanese product, in their homeland called Pajero IO. It was only for production in Europe that he was slightly and lightly awarded with Italian couturier, after which he received a prestigious Pininfarin nameplate on the front wing. In my opinion, not quite justified.

Outlander is a truly epoch-making machine. In any case, for Mitsubishi Motors itself. This is the first model created as part of the global rehabilitation program of the corporation, carried out by its current co -owner, the international giant Daimlerchrysler AG. In particular, a new corporate identity was tested at it, the development of which was engaged in the Olivier Bula chief designer, who, by the way, passed from Mercedes-Benz. And if you take into account that before Mitsubishi did nothing at all that could be called a parquet SUV in general, Outlander pioneer in full. For the first time by lit up at the 2001 Detroit car dealership as the ASX concept, only a few months later he was already in Japanese show rooms called Airtrek. Having passed through the hands of the specialists of the California design studio Mitsubishi, Airtrek safely turned into Outlander.
 
   
 
 
 

Source: Wheel magazine [No. 73/2003]