[ajmat]

Hindustan Motors held held a brief off-road event for Pajero Sport owners late last month. It was open for Pajero Sport Owners and prospective customers on invitation. I went along as a guest of a friend of mine and his family. It was held off Bannerghatta Road at a place called WRAC. The course consisted off some minor gradients and dips, some mud plugging and some sideways incline driving followed by a steep incline trail. One drove up to a point and drove back the same way.

This was the first time I had been in a Pajero Sport but I was impressed by the body control. the ride was less choppy although firm and the interiors of a better standard. The only thing was that the engine suffers from turbo lag below 2200 RPM and gear shift is a little clunky (I come from a Jetta so things are relative.)

We were booked for the 11 am slot which started only at 12.15. First batch got stuck. The briefing was brief, merely telling us to belt up and follow the lead car. If they briefed a lot more on actual off-road craft, i.e positioning the wheels, no revving and digging yourself in a mud pit, the importance of momentum, things would have been smoother.

First part was a ravine descent - easy enough



This was followed by driving into a mud pit



Quite a few folks got stuck here since they did not maintain the momentum and they also revved like mad to get out and dug themselves in further. Instead of a tractor, another Pajero sport was used to pull them out. Considering the road tyres, this was a little challenging in terms of traction!

We then drove through some dips and across some inclines





The biggest challenge was a very steep incline which required quite a bit of momentum. I was impressed with the car as it did it with 5 up + a/c with ease!








At the peak, we hit a rocky trail which proved the Pajero ground clearance. It never scraped except when rebounding off the bump stops.

I did though scrape a rock and pierced the sidewall. Rs 12000. Ouch



We returned and then had lunch while the cars were hosed down (and not with a pressure hose, expect some swirl marks! )

I did speak with some senior management about Mitsubishi's India plans.

Some snippets of the conversation were as follows:

• HM are releasing a new SUV soon!" Soon denote middle of 2014. It will be the Outlander diesel. I did remark that it is a long wait but the claim was that competitors take that much time, they need to get the plant ready, engine maps sorted out. (note - doesn't it look like the new Skoda Octavia will be here within 9 months of its launch?)
  
• Mitsubishi will not enter small car segment as it is not profitable
  
• They will remain with SUV only which is their main strength
  
• The Cedia has some demand. I am not sure where!
  
• An auto Pajero sport is in the wings

Summarising, my brief outing with the Pajero Sport was impressive, but the lack of aggressive marketing and need for urgency unjustly dampens the sales of these impressive vehicles. An example is my friend who went to the old style Pajero and never knew the Pajero Sport existed!

[mayankjha1806]

Surprisingly this thread does not show up on "New Toipc" or on "New posts" liks. I saw this on my Facebook and once in office i had to search again on google to get to it for posting.

Watching this car in action is reaffirming its capability. Also who foots the bills of any damage in such company sponsored OTR's (example the tyre 12K)? Do they do some after OTR checkups so as to make sure the owners do not face problems afterwords?

Originally Posted by ajmat

• HM are releasing a new SUV soon!" Soon denote middle of 2014. It will be the Outlander diesel. I did remark that it is a long wait but the claim was that competitors take that much time, they need to get the plant ready, engine maps sorted out. (note - doesn't it look like the new Skoda Octavia will be here within 9 months of its launch?)
• They will remain with SUV only which is their main strength
• The Cedia has some demand. I am not sure where!

There are only two problems with HM+Mitsu combination. There never was a doubt about the quality of their cars. One the availability of service network and two How the relationship in this alliance (if gone sour) will impact owners of these premium cars.

Pajero sport can do much better numbers if only its OTR price was lower than Fortuner, unless that happens i do not see this car doing significant numbers.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Surprisingly this thread does not show up on "New Toipc" or on "New posts" liks. I saw this on my Facebook and once in office i had to search again on google to get to it for posting.

Watching this car in action is reaffirming its capability. Also who foots the bills of any damage in such company sponsored OTR's (example the tyre 12K)? Do they do some after OTR checkups so as to make sure the owners do not face problems afterwords?

.

I prepared this on sunday afternoon and directly moved it to the main forum. It might have got buried since I did not bump it up!

The owner foots the bill if anything goes wrong. The OTR session was actually very mild but again when I went for the Range Rover Drive, they checked things very carefully at each point

[Jaggu]

This is short and sweet report, do you have more pictures of this event? Would love to see more action shots of the Mitsu's.
This is the same trail (one part of it) which Khan designed for the Bangalore Annual OTR.

[sharc_biker]

I still wonder why Mitsubishi doesn't come into India full fledged with its already existing international product portfolio.
India for Mitsubishi has a big market potential as the brand name is still synonymous with the iconic Lancer and the Pajero among most Indians.
There is a lot they need to setup here of course. Production plants, dealership network. But i believe there is a good return on investment for them.