Ralliart is coming back.
At least, that’s what Mitsubishi keeps telling us, and yet its toughest ever ute — the Triton Raider — doesn’t mention the much-loved motorsport brand. It’s also a project completed by Australian second-stage manufacturer Premcar.
Why? Because Mitsubishi’s Australian arm is hungry for Ralliart to return and it’s not going to wait around for approval. Instead, it needs to show how a halo product such as the Raider can succeed before the factory steps in with more power, wilder styling, and trick suspension.
“We stopped short of putting the Ralliart branding on this vehicle,” Bruce Hampel, GM product strategy and product PR told Chasing Cars.
“We did some research clinics of what customer expectations are of the Ralliart brand and the Raider, while it resonates well with customers and it’s very typical to what a lot of customers do with aftermarket modifications… we didn’t feel it was worthy of the Ralliart branding.
“But we do have alignment with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation to continue the study into reinstating the Ralliart brand into Australia and then they have aspirations to reinstall it properly, globally, as well,” he explained.
What would make a Triton worthy of Ralliart branding? “More unique appearance, higher levels of suspension sophistication, and ideally more performance from the powertrain,” is the short answer, says Hampel.
That sounds like a Ford Ranger Raptor fighter to us. No powertrain specifics were locked-in but various options are on the table — from a hotted-up turbo-diesel through to complex, multi-motor hybrid set-ups.
Why use Aussie company Premcar for Raider?
Lately, Premcar’s been known for its similar program with the Nissan Navara and Patrol Warrior variants — vehicles upgraded sympathetically and holistically, which retain a manufacturer warranty and sacrifice very little in the way of everyday usability.
Previously, the Premcar team worked under other names on hotted-up Fords, including the FG Falcon-based Holy Grail. There are also hush-hush OEM programs going on in the background — this is a serious company.
Hampel explained that “Mitsubishi are very good at designing and developing vehicles for the global market.
“But the economics of trying to deliver a tailored suspension package from the production facility for each individual market is really outside of the scope of what Mitsubishi can economically contain.
“The second stage [manufacturer] allows us then to take what was already a well developed platform, a capable platform, and then enhance it further. Again, specifically for customer desires and types.”
Success to Mitsubishi will be measured in various ways, the easiest to quantify being sales. Hampel said the company was holding “about 200 orders” in the week before Raider’s local launch and admitted “we’d love to do 1000 cars in 12 months.”
Premcar’s production ability shouldn’t cause any bottlenecks. Raiders will be built-to-order, with flexible shifts at the factory meaning supply can ramp up or trickle down as needed.
“[MMC is] very interested in what we’re doing. We have lots of eyes up in Japan eagerly following the progress of the program,” said Hampel.
“Now that we’re at the point where we’re on sale, they’re eagerly reviewing what’s happening with an eye to understand whether this type of model — which is new for Mitsubishi, using second-stage [manufacturer] process — is something they can entrust their distributorships to deliver successfully with local expertise,” he added.
And Mitsubishi needs a win in Australia. The Triton is showing promise with cab-chassis and single-cab models online and driving sales, yet the brand’s deliveries are down 25 percent year-to-date.
Some of that can be attributed to the Outlander model year change but a lot of it’s driven by poor ASX sales. The Pajero Sport is almost out of stock and ADR rule 98/00, which mandates autonomous emergency braking (AEB), means no more can be imported.
Mitsubishi will be looking to new products like Raider and incoming Pajero full-size SUV to both deliver sales and provide a halo model so buyers start remembering what Mitsubishi stands for.
