Mitsubishi hasn’t sold a pickup truck in the United States since the Mighty Max in the late 1990s, but there is mounting evidence that the brand’s dry spell may end. At a recent vehicle launch, Carson Grover, the brand’s director for product planning, said the company is considering a new pickup for the U.S. market but acknowledged the challenges involved with doing so.
Reported by The Drive, Grover said pickup trucks were “another one of those things we want to try to figure out.” The problem with those ambitions is the Chicken Tax, a heavy 25% tariff on imported trucks. That insane percentage is why Toyota and Nissan build trucks here, and it’s why we don’t see cool foreign-market trucks like the Volkswagen Amarok.
Mitsubishi will need a partner if it plans to bring a truck here, which it conveniently has in its Alliance partner, Nissan. The Frontier could form the basis for a Mitsu pickup, but Grover’s comments suggest the automaker could have other plans. “The Ford Ranger, the old ranger, that was much smaller, had so much volume and was around so long.” He went to namedrop the Ford Maverick as well, which he said fills the small, affordable gap that the Ranger used to occupy.
As The Drive pointed out, it might be possible for Mitsubishi to repurpose the existing Rogue platform for a small pickup, but Grover was careful to note that the company isn’t making any announcements on the subject. As is the case with the vast majority of requests for comment on future product, Grover declined to elaborate but did say the company has taken notice of other trucks’ popularity.
A new American-market truck could further revitalize the Mitsubishi brand in North America. The automaker recently revived another of its iconic nameplates in late 2022 with Ralliart versions of all its vehicles. Mitsubishi’s motorsports arm made a name for itself in the World Rally Championship starting in the late 1980s, and some of the coolest cars to wear the brand’s badge have also been stamped with the Ralliart name.
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Source: www.autoblog.com