Mitsubishi Motors will relaunch the Montero and Outlander in their latest avatars by the end of this year. This was confirmed to CarWale by Uttam Bose and P Vijayan, MD and CEO (respectively) of Hindustan Motors Finance Corporation Limited (HMFCL) during the Japanese automaker’s Heart-in-Mouth event held in Pune on February 13.
It has been more than a year since HMFCl spun off from HML and looks like the company is realigning itself in the right direction. It announced last year that there were five cars in the pipeline for the Indian market over the next three years.
Out of this list it has already launched the 2014 MY Pajero Sport in MT and AT guises. This, as we had said earlier, will be joined by the latest model year versions of the Montero and Outlander SUVs. The former will be powered by a diesel engine while the latter will return with a range of petrol mills, a move the company says is now possible thanks to the reduction in the gap between the price of diesel and petrol.
The Attrage is currently only offered with a 1.2-litre four-cylinder petrol engine in most of the markets that it is sold in and it will be interesting to see what kind of diesel engine Mitsubishi plans to plonk in the sedan for the Indian market.
Continuing on the same path, we also quizzed them about the Delica MPV. Like the Attrage, the MPV too is under consideration for India and if brought in here will become a D+ segment MPV in the price range of Rs 23-27 lakh where it will compete with the soon-to-be launched Toyota Hiace. The vehicle is expected to target fleet operators and large hotels.