News: Mitsubishi's Range Rover contender

The real Mitsubishi Pajero is back, and it’s not the asthmatic Sport variant. By Arvind Kumar

If I go back around 15 years ago, before the torrent of grey imported and locally sold Range Rovers, BMW X5s and Volvo XC90s there was one premium SUV and the only one that mattered was the Mitsubishi Pajero. Anyone worth their lead who wished for a statement of power and presence had a Pajero. In recent times, it was the pretender Pajero Sport that made it to our shores and while it had the size it never had the poise. So welcome to the return of the original king of stance and girth.

And it’s back in fine fashion, rocking a 3.8-litre V6 powerplant which is good for 247bhp and 329Nm equipped with the company’s MIVEC technology. Sending power through a five-speed Invecs-II transmission equipped with a Sports mode, the ingredients for a potent off-roader cum highway cruiser are all present.

The car’s safety repertoire comes in the form of front, side and curtain airbags and Mitsubishi’s Active Stability and Traction Control (M-ASTC) which modulates the brakes and engine output when it senses an impending calamity is on the cards. While the Super Select 4WD promises a bear’s hug of the road or dirt surface at all times.

Priced at RM RM291,177.50 on-the-road without insurance. It is available in three colours – Warm White Mica, Eiger Grey Metallic and Cool Silver Metallic draped around muscular sheet metal highlighted with Day Time Running Lights (DRL) at the front and obligatory spare wheel cover tacked to the rear tailgate – just because nothing else says 4X4 like a spare wheel cover on the boot. Good to know some things don’t change but why should it, the original high-roller still looks the part and its back.