Mitsubishi sold its last car in India in January 2020. Four years later, a post about the Pajero got 4,000 likes and 80 comments in four hours. That is the Mitsubishi story in India — great products, massive goodwill, zero strategy.
In this episode of the evo India Podcast, Sirish Chandran and Aninda Sardar go through the complete Mitsubishi India journey. The Lancer that arrived in 1998 with independent rear suspension on a rally-derived chassis and beat the Honda City in every handling test — just not in engine feel. The Mitsubishi Cedia that shared its platform with the Evo 6 and 7. And the chairs are actually from the rally car that Sirish drove. The Pajero whose two-tone red-and-white paint job was not a design choice — the paint booth at the Tiruvallur facility was too small to fit the whole car, so the doors were painted separately. The Pajero Sport, which had more power and more torque than the Toyota Fortuner, cost ₹5 lakh more and never had a chance. The Mitsubishi Outlander had column-mounted paddle shifters borrowed from rally cars, a Rockford Fosgate sound system, and a CVT gearbox that killed it. And the Evo 10 — India's most beloved performance car, the one that beat the Mercedes-AMG CLA45 in a back-to-back comparison and upset Mercedes considerably in the process — priced at ₹60 lakh and sold in numbers so small Mitsubishi had to discount the remaining units into oblivion.
Sirish also talks about the five days he spent waiting in Coimbatore for Mitsubishi to bring the Evo 10 to the track, his Cedia rally car that gave him the foundation for everything he knows about car dynamics, and the honest verdict on whether Mitsubishi will ever come back to India.0:00 Precap
0:33 Introduction: Mitsubishi's journey in India
2:09 The history of Hindustan Motors and the JV with Mitsubishi
7:12 History of the Mitsubishi Lancer
10:14 Mitsubishi's motorsport history
10:52 Sirish's memories of the Mitsubishi Lancer
12:35 Mitsubishi Lancers rallying in India
17:01 Mitsubishi Lancer Invex
18:22 Mitsubishi Lancer stopped and in came Cedia
26:13 The arrival of Mitsubishi Pajero
29:28 The Mitsubishi and Jeep connection
30:45 The variants of the Mitsubishi Pajero
34:56 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport
35:37 The moment when the Montero was stopped and reintroduced
36:22 The missed opportunity at a Fortuner rival
38:01 Mitsubishi Outlander
41:31 evo India's own Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X
48:42 Mitsubishi has an India website
50:11 The sad ending to the Mitsubishi story in India
51:22 Mitsubishi in the Renault-Nissan alliance could bring the Pajero back
53:14 Mitsubishi and TVS tie-up
