A Year in Review: Do I Regret Buying America's Cheapest New Car?

But first, just a bit of background. I bought my Mirage at a time when the microchip shortage and a spattering of insanity in Eastern Europe made for a car market quite unlike any in the 120-year history of the automobile.

At a time when reliable used cars were at an all-time premium, I decided to take a gamble on a brand-new one. But not just any new car, the cheapest in America.

But for all the quips, jokes, and undue mean comments levied at this three-cylinder, 78-horsepower economy car, I'm happy to report this little scamp of a car never missed a beat. It must be said the stock 14-inch wheels and 165/65 tires were not all that suited for the intense inter-state driving I tend to get up to.

But a simple upgrade to a set of Petlas Snow Master W651 195/60 snow tires and 15-inch steel wheels made sure my Mirage could not only handle potholes better but also made it less than useless in deep northeastern snow.

Other than the wheels and tires, I've done exactly jack squat to the rest of the car. At least for the purposes of a proper review, that's probably for the best.

Most new cars get babied in the first year of ownership. There's a sense that you have to protect your investment on something second only to your home in importance. But not my Mirage.

I had work assignments to get to, photographs to take, and not much time to get there in most cases. I drove the absolute snot out of the thing, and my often intense and frantic ex-New Yorker driving style isn't kind to cars made of lesser stuff.

Say what you will about the Mirage for being slower than molasses in January, but its 1.2-liter 3A92 inline-three cylinder engine is stronger than most people would ever give it credit for. In fact, most Americans would question if the Mirage was unfit for highway use if they knew how little power it made.

Well, I'm here to tell you my Mirage took interstates, parkways, freeways, causeways, and any other high-speed driving I threw at it without an issue. Don't get me wrong. It never did things particularly quickly. But I never missed a work assignment in this car. If I'd chickened out and bought the first cheap Chrysler or Nissan that showed up on a used showroom lot, I think there's a good chance this wasn't the case.

If you're curious, yes, it can do 100 miles per hour, and I've even gotten the thing past 105 and nearly to 110 with a tailwind behind me at some undisclosed empty freeway at four in the morning.

With amenities like a seven-inch multitouch infotainment screen, cruise control, hand-free BlueTooth telephone, and a less-than-useless backup camera, this entry-level sub-compact would have been almost luxurious 15 years ago.

Granted, the bizarre mix of late 90s-adjacent interior plastics, gauges, dials, and instrument clusters with all this modern hardware makes for one weird place to sit.

To be honest, it's all worth it, in my opinion. Why? You needn't look any further than the digital fuel economy dial in the trip computer. Unless you're perpetually traveling up a 35 percent incline, that readout shouldn't go lower than 35 miles per gallon.

On long treks, I was averaging around 40 consistently. In the era of spiking fuel prices, that's nothing to sneeze at. Keep in mind that's in spite of the heavier wheels and tires. Speaking of those, I noticed something peculiar about this Mirage when I put those on.

I found that other drivers on places like the Pennsylvania Turnpike felt more comfortable cutting me off, denying my merge onto highways, and generally found it easy to mess with me as I was driving around on the glorified donuts that came with this car.

When the chunky snow tires, which extend past the wheel arches, were fitted, that suddenly stopped. Life really must be all about perception, after all.

Other than that, I found the Mirage to be a remarkably cheap car to keep on the road. Not the least because of a 60,000 miles bumper-to-bumper warranty and a 100,000-mile powertrain warranty that covers the notorious Jatco CVT-7 transmission.

But because of no fault of the car, Mitsubishi's anemic presence in some parts of America might make it difficult to get an appointment with a service dealer. I can say from experience that one Mitsubishi dealer I called no longer even accepts the online service application form that's still on their website.

You may call the Mirage a simple plastic box on wheels. But, the abundance of plastic body panels only makes fixing small scrapes and dings easier to repair. No thousand-dollar repair bills for accidentally scraping a curb with your bumper in a Mirage. My local body shop sorted it out for $100 out the door.

Add it all up, and I'd say I don't regret buying America's cheapest new car. If anything, it only makes the other cool stuff I review here feel all the more special. Cheers to another year of hard-driving folks.