Talk Back Tuesday -- Mitsubishi Lancer v Dodge Caliber
I'm at an undisclosed location today driving the new 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer
. I don't yet know what the embargo date is on detailed specs or driving impressions, but considering the car's debut at the Detroit Auto Show in early January I'm certain it will be sometime after that.
But even before driving this vehicle I've heard some interesting tidbits from my Mitsubishi contacts. As some of you may know, this car uses the "Project Global" platform that shares underpinnings with the new Outlander. And you also may know that, technically, the Outlander shares structural componentry with the new Dodge Caliber. But where I basically like the new Outlander, I basically dislike the Caliber. So what happened?
Obviously just sharing a platform doesn't guarantee that two different vehicles will look or feel the same. But, according to my Mitsubishi contact, the pull-back in the DaimlerChrysler/Mitsubishi collaboration that occured a couple of years ago greatly improved Mitsubishi's autonomy in exactly how the Outlander was developed, beyond its basic platform design. He was telling me this after I'd driven the Caliber but before I'd experienced the Outlander, and he made it clear: "Don't use the Caliber as a basis for how the Outlander will turn out." Needless to say, in my opinion he was right -- Mitsubishi's execution on their version of a "Project Global" model was much better.
Now comes the Lancer, and I'm hearing the same positive rumblings. It will be interesting to see how well Mitsubishi does with this vehicle, as it represents the bread-and-butter of their product line and is thus quite important. But if the Outlander is any indication, it should be quite impressive.
Which begs the larger question -- what's with these joint ventures and the subsequent inability of the larger, "parent" companies to produce vehicles as competitive as the "child" brands? Do you want to talk Mazda 6 versus Fusion? How about Edge versus CX-9? People who didn't like the lack of domestic vehicles on our Most Wanted list might remember that while the Mazda 6 and CX-9 won awards, the domestics (Ford in this case) had similar versions of those cars. And while the CR-V ultimately won our SUV under $25,000 category, there was some serious discussion involving the Mitsubishi Outlander (the Caliber was not mentioned). So why didn't the domestic models win, or even merit serious consideration? Because everything from driving dynamics to interior design to exterior styling was on side of the imports.
And it's the same situation with the Caliber versus Outlander. While both offer a solid ride quality and effective interior space (items highly dependent on basic structural design), it's the details like suspension tuning and interior design that give the Mitsubishi product the advantage (well, that plus I hate the Caliber's weak and buzzy drivetrain). In a market as competitive as this one even minor tweaks can make all the difference, and there are more than minor tweaks separating many import models from their domestic brethren.
But I do find it ironic that the original headlines a few years ago read something like, "Chrysler will not be working with Mitsubishi as closely as it has in the past," thus inferring a drop in Chrysler's interest in "supporting" Mitsubishi. But the back story, coming from inside Mitsubishi, was something more along the lines of, "Alright! Now we can finally make some killer product without interference from the DCX overlord!"
- Posted by
- Karl Brauer November 14, 2006, 8:17 AM
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- Dodge, Domestic Manufacturers Problems/Challenges, Mitsubishi, Talk Back Tuesday
The DCX, GM & FORD empires controlled the projects and we saw the end result many times. The magic word is: "cuttting corners". Mitsu will spread their wings and do some energetic cars again. Will see!
Here is a possible explaination: When I worked as an engineer for an auto company, and beforehand, a very large entertainment company's "show" division, I discovered that there were two phases to design:
1. Implementation of the design (analysis, prototype development, prototype tests, management approval)
2. manufacturer of the design (part list procurement, production facility selection, assembly, delivery, and test).
In a large company, 1 and 2 are rarely handled by the same people, and undergo different priorities. One telling example; while in phase 1 we were allowed to use innovative, "new" technologies, phase 2 usually fell back on well known cost effective suppliers using previously defined parts.
In other words, the engineer team creates an innovative design using new parts and techniques, and that design gets handed off to the manufacturing team who reaches into their trusty parts bucket to build with "tried and true" (read, known and usually cheapest) parts.
Marketing messes things up too (anyone...any good examples??)
Even the Geo Prizm, pretty much a clone of the Corolla, was less pleasant. Why? The center console in the Prizm was uglier. (At one point in the early or mid '90s I think some of the parts were the same ones in the Corvette, but they looked bad enough in the Prizm.)
I'm breathing a sigh of relief alongside Mitsubishi. In my opinion, DCX was preventing them from using the formula that got them where they (once) were. Now that they have the autonomy they need, we'll likely see the Starions, FTOs, GTOs and so on that made them famous.
I believe the new Outlander and Lancer are the beginning of a new era at Mitsubishi. Maybe some day they'll be in a position where they can bring the Diamante to actually compete in the market it was intended for.
A Mitsubishi GTO? Uh.. maybe I'm just too young or something, but I always thought that was a Pontiac thing.
Perhaps you'll know what the GTO is after viewing this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_GTO
Kinda misleading name, but still an awesome car.
Jerry, the GTO was the Japanese-market name for the 3000GT and for a Galant coupe version of the '70s. I guess the latter was seen as their home-market equivalent to the Pontiac GTO, so they did the same thing as Pontiac and ripped off Ferrari's GTO nameplate.
But now sports sedans do better than sports cars, so it's all about EVO. The current EVO wasn't built on a fundamentally great chassis (not that you can tell), so I wonder what the EVO X will be like if the Lancer's chassis is good before any modifications.
I can answer that Carlismo --
The next EVO will be VERY good. All I can say right now...
Thanks for the link flicmod and for the additional info carlisimo. The 3000GT was a pretty awesome car too! (I preferred the Dodge Stealth twin for looks though) :-)
IMHO the answer is – Ford equivalents are bigger and heavier. Even Focus is more tuned for comfort than Mazda3. Mazda is a performance oriented division and Ford is a mainstream. Mazda has red gauges, Ford – green.
Mitsu and all other Japanese companies compete globally and are export oriented – there is no market in Japan itself. They have to be good or - die. Japan cannot just give up manufacturing sector like America and move on to different sectors. They have no recourses, no flow of immigrant with fresh ideas, they are not first to market, they do not constantly create new sectors or new types of products like America, they are not good at non-material business of music, movies, ideas, internet, services and etc. They never were able to compete against Intel or Microsoft, Apple, Google and so on. Japanese government simply cannot know what new markets will be generated soon.
Japan will be in a big trouble when China really catches up. And China has an advantage of its own huge market, almost like America. So in the end they have to follow American or German model – or die. In case of car manufacturing they will need to follow German model – build expensive and well engineered cars with heritage. While Japanese companies still have time they need to generate some heritage instead of churning out Camcord like appliances.