Perhaps Mitsubishi IS taking the Hyundai/Kia approach, what with the long 6/60 bumper-to-bumper, 10/100 powertrain warranty.
Some of you say that Mitsubishi sells cars like the Mirage as family sedans in second-and third world countries. Since many of the up-and-coming middle class in these countries aspire to have the things Americans have, I would think it’d be a BIG BIG selling point that Mitsubishi can say to these people, hey, these are the exact same cars we sell in the US market.
Luxury is relative anyway. I remember as a kid my father’s Ford Country Squire station wagon and my mother’s Ford Maverick. Roll-up windows, A/C never worked, AM radio. My parents bought new cars in the mid-80’s. Power windows, power door locks, AM/FM radio with cassette player, A/C that worked (for the first few years anyway. . . ) cruise control. To me those are the hallmarks of a luxury car. My new Mirage has all of that and a whole lot more. By my standards the Mirage IS a luxury car. What more could you possibly want/need in a car? (Although I have recently ridden in a 15 passenger van and I swear air conditioning was coming out of the seats - I thought it was one of those Mercedes vans but it turned out to be a Ford Transit connect van - very nice.)
Is it just me, or did it seem like the car a/c’s of the 70’s & 80’s never lasted more than a single summer? Every year when summer would roll around, the a/c would be blowing hot air again. My father refused to have the a/c fixed over and over again every year. Sometimes he would get the a/c fixed if we were going on vacation, then it would work for the rest of that summer, but next year it was back to rolling down the windows for air.
Yeah, there’s a few of us in the U.S. who want a bare-bones low cost auto, but not enough to build a profitable business selling them - it’s all about mindless consumerism, not about what you need, its about keeping up with the Joneses’.
Quote @db4690 ". . . poor people don’t want to appear as such. They don’t want their clothing OR their cars to scream “poverty” And I can’t blame anybody for that "; Yeah, about that. That’s a substantial part of the reason a lot of poor people stay poor.
There’s a saying, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” A big reason for that is the rich behave in ways that create wealth, and the poor behave in ways that destroy wealth. I see many of my co-workers engage in this behavior all the time. When times are good they buy the most expensive vehicle they can get financing for, and spend thou$and$ more tricking it out with the most expensive rims and stereo equipment. Then when the overtime dries up, or they get hit with another child support order. . . . well, the ‘hook’ got it! There’s just an “easy-come-easy-go” attitude about the whole thing. Then they cry-cry because they’ve got to pay 36.9% interest for everything.
Edit to add: I remember riding through farm country you’d pass many ramshackle little houses along the road, many with shiny Cadillacs sitting in front of them. The saying was, if push comes to shove, “. . . you can sleep in the car, but you can’t drive the house.”
