conquest usa history/ why

[conquest9113]

hey guys i'am 28 i was born in 84 so i was very young when the conquest was released in the us my question is why didnt they take off and make more sales or where more popular then there where was it the reg price tag 20k i be leave .with every thing the car came with stock u would think it would be a fav or first pick vers mustang or camaro .

[Fuze]

Back then it had some competition from Japan. The Supra, Z's, and RX-7's were more popular at the time, along with domestic muscle/pony cars on the market to appeal to guys who were used to them, and not used to these new Jap imports..

Mistubishi was a minor player in the US in the early 80's, having only brought a couple of cars over and the Starion was the only sporty one. The Starion was the first turbo Japanese import and the first intercooled turbo car as well, even after Toyota, Datsun and Mazda ran back to slap turbos onto their NA cars to keep up. The Starion always did well in competition, and was a star of the production class racing scene.

[Burton]

Simple supply and demand. There was more demand for the Supras, RX7's, etc... In fact, there wasn't enough demand for the SQs from the start. At the end of their run in 89, there were still 88's sitting on showroom floors that people hadn't bought. They only brought around 80k to the US over 6 years, which is not very high volumes. Car companies like to sell that many or more of a model EVERY YEAR to maximize profits. I'm guessing it took 80k cars for them to be profitable after figuring in R&D, tooling, and other costs to bring the car to production. If that's the case, then Mitsu probably figured they had made their money back, and there was little demand for the SQs so they gave them the axe. The late 80's and early 90's were a bad time for sports cars anyways... They really didn't start making a comeback until the late 90's. Even the highly desireable 90-96 300ZX only sold around 80k cars over a 6 year period and then they axed that one too. From there it was like 2-3 years before the demand for sports cars came back up and they started doing the 350Z

[Cloud81918]

One of the big issues no one has touched on is importation limits. The US was very worried about the Japanese makers taking over and strict importation limits were set. Mitsubishi was already using up some of it allowance selling cars to Chrysler, meaning fewer allowances available for importation of Mitsubishis. Mitsubishi didn't have enough money to build a US plant like many of the other makes. To make the most out of it allowed car count it targeted the area that other Japanese makes found the best return; Family cars like the Gallant.

 

Another reason is that the Mustang and Camaro were serviceable anywhere.

 

By the late 80's the Starion was pretty long in the tooth. While it still had the power to compete, it was behind the time in many other areas.

[patra_is_here]

plus wasn't it expensive compared to the car it competed against. priced higher than the domestics and other jap cars, and around the same as a 944 iirc.

[tux]

no, it was half the cost of a 944 Edited March 28, 2013 by tux

[Cloud81918]

Yeah it was a lot less expensive.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92NoDd7DGnU

[Guest]

plus wasn't it expensive compared to the car it competed against. priced higher than the domestics and other jap cars, and around the same as a 944 iirc.

 

It was the least expensive one, less expensive and than Nissan or RX-7. The problem was brand recognition. It was relatively new compared to Toyota or Datsun/ nissan.

[ucw458]

Read this and you will understand why they didn't sell that many.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors

 

 

The Mitsu brand of cars didn't show up in the US until 1982. Import restrictions, a brand few had heard of, and the fact that Mitsu was still a small car company meant US sales were small.

[TexasQuest]

To this day Mitsu doesn't keep up with most domestic or import brands. Heck Hyundai passed them by years ago.

[Cloud81918]

Talk is they will be out of the US market in 4 years or less unless something changes.

[TexasQuest]

Oh yeah they are blowing the thing up. They have two models left currently. The Outlander Sport and Lancer. The Outlander is dead after this year and Lancer is gone after next year. Word is they're going fully electric.

[Cloud81918]

They reversed a few months ago; Just like Nissan. But Nissan has some fat it can lose. They can place a wager looking for a big win, Mitsubishi is in rough shape and can't. During their fat years they were moving cars, selling engines to Chrysler and licensing out technologies to other makers, but they just couldn't figure out how to adjust after that success and understand that it would go away. Mitsubishi failed to launch a high end brand, like Infinity and Lexus. They didn't re-invest into their technology enough either.

 

In the early 90's that we exciting and they squandered that by allowing poor quality to seep in and when the money slowed they went GM and killed their sporty image by thinking they could apply it to lame cars. Mitsu almost pulled it back with the Evo. But one outstanding product in an otherwise lame lineup won't save an automaker. It would be like GM trying to survive on the Vette.

 

I have no clue how they think they can move forward. Their engine tech is behind, the platforms are stagnant I sort of think they are just holding on for a possible buyout; By who I don't know.

[patra_is_here]

thanks for the info! i guess i need to revise my memory.

[conquest9113]

o very kool thank u every one for all the info that was just what i was looking for . and cloud that video was great thank u.first time i have seen that one

[white quest ky]

Throttle body injection that is all

[Dred_85.5_TSI]

^ you mean like GM was using in most of their cars? (or a Quadrajet) The SQ TB system wasn't that bad when it first came out.

[4WStarion]

They reversed a few months ago; Just like Nissan. But Nissan has some fat it can lose. They can place a wager looking for a big win, Mitsubishi is in rough shape and can't. During their fat years they were moving cars, selling engines to Chrysler and licensing out technologies to other makers, but they just couldn't figure out how to adjust after that success and understand that it would go away. Mitsubishi failed to launch a high end brand, like Infinity and Lexus. They didn't re-invest into their technology enough either.

 

In the early 90's that we exciting and they squandered that by allowing poor quality to seep in and when the money slowed they went GM and killed their sporty image by thinking they could apply it to lame cars. Mitsu almost pulled it back with the Evo. But one outstanding product in an otherwise lame lineup won't save an automaker. It would be like GM trying to survive on the Vette.

 

I have no clue how they think they can move forward. Their engine tech is behind, the platforms are stagnant I sort of think they are just holding on for a possible buyout; By who I don't know.

 

From an international view the early 90's was their best time, early Evos, GTOS, FTOS + the start of the (proper) MIVEC stuff (not the economy stuff you guys get) I have no idea where you get the idea poor quality was involved unless it was a US thing, there is still a lot of that stuff around here and we used to have a rental car company running off mainly Mitsis from that era, they were outstanding. As for investing in tech, I don't know if any car comes out of Japan without Mitsubishi parts in it. Also remember every company that has dealings with Chrysler goes under, every single one. (hopefully this changes with Fiat)

 

A couple of years ago I would have agreed about where they are going, with Outlander being there main seller, now there is a new one, a new Mirage, Triton selling well also Challenger although they have no mid size car like Galant or Diamante. But they sell heaps in Europe.

 

As for the Starion, too expensive here by a long way. Before 2nd hand imports I guess there were less than a couple of hundred sold new. Your total would be more than 10 times the rest of the world figures.

[Cloud81918]

From an international view the early 90's was their best time, early Evos, GTOS, FTOS + the start of the (proper) MIVEC stuff (not the economy stuff you guys get) I have no idea where you get the idea poor quality was involved unless it was a US thing, there is still a lot of that stuff around here and we used to have a rental car company running off mainly Mitsis from that era, they were outstanding. As for investing in tech, I don't know if any car comes out of Japan without Mitsubishi parts in it. Also remember every company that has dealings with Chrysler goes under, every single one. (hopefully this changes with Fiat)

 

A couple of years ago I would have agreed about where they are going, with Outlander being there main seller, now there is a new one, a new Mirage, Triton selling well also Challenger although they have no mid size car like Galant or Diamante. But they sell heaps in Europe.

 

As for the Starion, too expensive here by a long way. Before 2nd hand imports I guess there were less than a couple of hundred sold new. Your total would be more than 10 times the rest of the world figures.

 

Sorry I should have phrased it a bit better. I was meaning that the early 90's were their best years. They fell off after that.

 

Paint quality went down hill. The 4G63 crankwalk issues and the transmission issues on many AWD products. All of them started working their way to the surface. The 3000GT and Eclipse day were amazing here in the states, but ended beached on the rocks. The Eclipse went from a screamer to a bland Gallant coupe. The sporty cars were replaced with cars ment for a wider appeal and went agasint established model in those fields.

 

Mitsubishi was at one time a top teir engine technology house; They are no longer. Hyundai, once a manufacture with no technologies of their own, had to license lot of things from Mitsubishi. They are now at the front; Teaming with BMW on engine programs. Mitsubishi is on the sidelines now and stuck their with some moderately suceessful, but no longer outstanding engines and an extremely limited choice of platforms. They are painted into a corner and don't have the cash to develop.

[Tim_C.]

Mitsus are very popular in Dubai. The styling is better for the price to a lot of people.

[4WStarion]

Dubai and Turkey as well, I was of the same opinion as Cloud 5 years back until I went to these places and realise that of course Mitsubishi is not keen to promote itself in our tiny little City sized Country at the bottom of the planet, yeah they build them in Turkey and there are heaps of them, heaps. Boring cars yes but massive sales.

 

 

 

Sorry I should have phrased it a bit better. I was meaning that the early 90's were their best years. They fell off after that.

 

Paint quality went down hill. The 4G63 crankwalk issues and the transmission issues on many AWD products. All of them started working their way to the surface. The 3000GT and Eclipse day were amazing here in the states, but ended beached on the rocks. The Eclipse went from a screamer to a bland Gallant coupe. The sporty cars were replaced with cars ment for a wider appeal and went agasint established model in those fields.

 

Mitsubishi was at one time a top teir engine technology house; They are no longer. Hyundai, once a manufacture with no technologies of their own, had to license lot of things from Mitsubishi. They are now at the front; Teaming with BMW on engine programs. Mitsubishi is on the sidelines now and stuck their with some moderately suceessful, but no longer outstanding engines and an extremely limited choice of platforms. They are painted into a corner and don't have the cash to develop.

 

All manufactures moved away from the performance stuff at that time though due to pollution laws, probably earlier in the US though. The cheap turbo performance stuff disappeared, not just a Mitsubishi thing. (crank walk seems to be a US thing)

 

As for engine design, Mitsubishi has been using direct injection since 95 (now out of it thankfully)

Now its passenger diesel engine is used by Peugeot once the leader in diesel engines so its not all doom and gloom. Although for the stuff I mainly work on (late model Japanese domestic models) Mitsubishi is behind compared to the hundreds of models from other companies.

[Komeuppance]

Indeed, crankwalk issues were isolated to DSM (US) built engines. DSM years are an alternate timeline in Mitsubishi's history... A very very bad one.

 

-Robert

[Cloud81918]

I was just looking at their US history, I don't know a whole lot about elsewhere.

[nomad]

^{Although I do like the name Conquest, I wish that Chrysler had used a previous models name like Challenger or Charger. I think it would have made our cars less obscure. Instead of being a weird new japanese car being sold as a Chrysler, it would have been the "new challenger" or whatever.} Edited April 10, 2013 by nomad

[TexasQuest]

Personally I'm glad they didn't. It makes the car unique instead of another "breed" of an already used name. And as for the crankwalk thing, it was blown wayyy out of proportion. It was not near as common as people made it out to be.