I was at the California International auto show today..hoping to see an evo, but no! Anyways I ask the Mitsubishi reps there about it and this is what he told me..... I'm just the messenger! Don't know if its accurate.. Evo will be released in late DECEMBER 02..and 280 hp..and he said 28k..... I hope I don't sound naive, but this is what a mitsubishi rep told me..also he said it will be a full production car..550,000 units per year...It sound to good to be true..so don't hold it against me if its wrong. Lates

 

Wow, that's a lot of cars! What number did he really say?

 

If he really said more than half a million, that guy's a unit himself.

My philosphy is sit back and wait. ...then again, it's not quite as pressing if you know you can't afford the car.

 

full production?!?
however, that 550k units thing just put it over the top, just shove this "rumor" in the trash bin, 550k units is just ridiculous, this isnt exactly the new civic

 

550k units? maybe thats the world release number

 

Mitsubishi total US sales is around 300K cars. That would make the Evo the best selling car in the US. The BS meter has just been pegged.

Erik

 

MAYBE 5500 a year at most....but it will be somewhere around 4000. That couldn't even tell you the right release date! Pretty pitiful.

 

Sounds like rep needs to master the English language. 5500 thousand? I mean 5 K . I mean 5500 K. Yea thats it!

ROAD/RACE
http://www.roadracemotorsports.com/

 

yea..sorry he actually said 50,000 per year..thats a typo..

 

50k is still a crapload of units, id very disappointed if it that were the case. its like sure youll still get looks, but with that many, its about as interesting as seeing a c-class on the road...

 

yeah i like the fact that there are like...none on the road..it makes it unique...if even 50,000 were produced i think it would suck. jus takes the fun out of seeing them.

 

There WILL NOT be 50,000 Evo's. It's not even worth dicussing or worrying about.

 

Right now we're tracking about 380,000 units for this year. Our goal is 500,000 units by 2005, and with the launch of the new Outlander, Endeavor, Evolution, new Galant, Lancer Sportback, new Diamante and new pickup perhaps it will happen. Maybe that is what the rep said that you misunderstood. The best selling car in America goes back and forth between the Camry and the Accord (and sometimes the Taurus if you count fleet sales) There is no way Mitsubishi could produce 500,000 of any one unit and sell them all in the U.S. The only thing we have that is produced and sold over 50,000 would be the Montero Sport, Eclipse, and Galant and perhaps the Lancer, but 4-5000 is about all we'll see of the Evolution. The Ford F series at over 1 million units a year continues to be the best selling vehicle in the U.S.

 

Does even sell 50k Lancers per year?

 

I spoke to a marketing exec at Mitsubishi headquarters in August. He told me that the plan(subjest to change on a daily basis) was to bring 1800 EVO's in which equates to approximately three per dealer since they have about 600 dealers. He emphasized that it would not work out that way, of course, some dealers won't get any, some will get more, depending on sales history.
I also spoke to the head of marketing for Subaru USA about the sti and he said they were looking at similar numbers. He told me that they got burned in Japan by releasing pricing and delivery date of the sti first. Mistsu then undercut them on price and launched earler resulting in greater sales. He said that they were waiting to not make the same mistake here.