New Mitsubishi Eclipse: Ehhh mediocre Options

[turbohcar]

For whatever reason Mitsubishi has decided to bite its own tail again. Sources inside the plant tell me one of the new concept Eclipses went down the line just a few days ago. Styling is supposed to be it's strong point. It was reported that many of the employees were very happy with the car aesthetically, which is pretty close to that of what was seen at the auto shows. However, power is where they are lacking. They will NOT have the AWD platform with a hybrid gas in front electric in back power plants. No turbos either. No Mitsubishi would rather eat itself into debt farther by simply replacing the V6 in the current Eclipse with a larger displacement (3.8L) power plant. Yet again I am dissapointed with Mitsubishi's poor judgement. It has been said over and over again by enthusiast and factory employee alike, people bought those cars (90-99) because they are a poor mans Porsche (sometimes better) and because of the organic, animal-like styling combination (95-99). You put performance and a hot body together and you've got yourself a winning combination. One without the other is simply a quadrapeligic, you're getting nowhere fast. Even the 1G cars are somewhat good looking. I hope sooner or later the realize what they're doing wrong. Oh and production is supposed to start early next year.

[ncgalant]

look at it from Mitsubishi's point of view. 90% of the eclipses they sold 95-99 were non-turbo. In 2000 their sales went through the roof. They take that to mean the turbo cars were hurting them. Personally I'd love to see and eclipse VR-4 though