Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi is the smallest Japanese vehicle manufacturer with a presence in the Canadian market. While former performance cars like the Lancer Evolution were stars in rally-racing and in The Fast and the Furious movies, Mitsubishi's modern product range is far more pragmatic these days. After a few years of delivering underwhelming products, the company's new crossovers and plug-in hybrids herald a potential return to form.

Odds are, there's a Mitsubishi-branded part under the hood of your car. Mitsubishi is a massive, highly diversified corporation — in Japanese, a zaibatsu — and building cars is just one of the industries it is involved in. Thus, while it has a much footprint in Canada than even Mazda, it has a long history around the world.

In fact, the very first Japanese-built car ever made was a Mitsubishi, all the way back in 1917. The company pivoted to wartime materiel production during WWII — notably, the excellent Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane — and after the war was split up into smaller divisions.

The automobile division formed a partnership with Chrysler, which led to all kinds of now-forgotten favourites. To bring up The Fast and the Furious again, Paul Walker's original car in the first movie was an Eagle Talon — built in Indiana, but a Mitsubishi underneath.

Mitsubishi also had a longtime partnership with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. Many of the company's concepts appeared in his films, including a surprisingly entertaining racing movie called Thunderball, and in the madcap Cannonball II. In the real world, Mitsubishi gained even more notoriety and respect by winning four consecutive world rally championships in the 1990s. Oh, and who beat Porsche the first time it took the 959 to the Paris-Dakar rally? That'd be Mitsubishi.

Despite the wins and the publicity, Mitsubishi was a late arrival to Canada — in 2002 — and Canadians mostly missed out on the heyday of the brand. It became a value brand, the aging Lancer sedan being not quite as good as a Civic or Corolla, but coming with a solid warranty. The Mirage provided basic transportation.

Today, though, the reborn Outlander crossover is equal to the task of taking on some pretty cutthroat competition. Built in partnership with Nissan, it's available as a midsize crossover with three rows of seating, and as a plug-in hybrid with up to 61 km of range. The RVR and the Eclipse Cross crossovers offer reasonable pricing structure, and Mitsubishi's still-excellent 10 year, 160,000km powertrain warranty. And the fuel-sipping Mirage is still there, offering old-school small car frugality.

So, no sportscars or Subaru-defeating rally machines at the present, but a range of mainstream vehicles that fill a more practical role. Perhaps if the likes of the Outlander continues to succeed, we'll see Jackie Chan again pairing up with some new sporting Mitsubishi for a Cannonball reboot.