There are cheap cars designed by engineers who are truly interested in making the best out of the available budget. And they usually succeed. Then there are cheap cars designed cheaply and, worst of all, made cheaply for all the wrong reasons. Even when compared to European econoboxes that cost close to nothing, the Mitsubishi Mirage is “atrocious” at best.
Doug DeMuro makes a case about how bad the Mirage is in his latest YouTube video, starting with pricing. Bearing in mind the hatchback starts at $13,395 and the sedan at $14,395, care to guess how much of the sticker price some dealers are willing to cut in order to move these things? 40 frigging percent!
The exterior design doesn’t have any redeeming feature to it, and to be brutally honest, Nissan did a better job with the Versa. Speaking of the cheapest Nissan available in the United States, the Versa soldiers on as the most value-minded choice thanks to a suggested retail price of $12,110.
While we’re on the subject of Mirage versus Versa, the Nissan comes with a 109-horsepower four-cylinder engine. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, can’t do better than a three-cylinder with 78 horsepower and close to nothing in terms of torque. Zero to 60 miles per hour? 11 seconds and 7 frigging tenths!
And oh, don’t even get me started about the interior. Full disclosure: yours truly has driven the Mirage in Euro-spec form (which is called Space Star), and together with the Suzuki Alto, it’s hard to make the cabin of a small car less uninviting and uncomfortable than the Mirage’s dreary cockpit.
The iffy plastics, lack of a center console, lack of contouring of the rear seats, and annoying beeps of the climate control system pale in comparison to the ride quality. Again, “atrocious” is the word that best defines how the suspension works in typical driving conditions. Despite it being based on old Renault technology, even the Dacia Sandero feels more refined.
And with that, press play to find out why Mitsubishi could’ve done better without too much effort. Speaking of better, the next-generation Mirage will borrow the CMF-B platform from the next Renault Clio.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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