Ralliart potentially too quick

A 2.4-litre Lancer VRX sedan will be available next year, and there are also plans for a Ralliart sedan and Sportback in the new compact family, but Mitsubishi is worried about their potential impact.

The cars are being assessed for local sales, but could be rejected because they put too much price and performance pressure on the upcoming Evo X hero car and confuse customers with too much choice.

"We think Ralliart in the Lancer sedan will be popular but there’s a risk of cannibalising too much from the Evo,” the managing director of Mitsubishi Motors Australia, Rob McEniry, says.

"There in fact may be too much in that end of the range."

Mitsubishi has been working for more than a year on a Ralliart plan for its locally-made 380 sedan, without going into production, but has too many choices for the all-new Lancer. It is now deciding which models to take and how it will work up through the Ralliart range to the Evo X.

"If we have a Ralliart on the sedan and the Sportback, and then Evo only on the sedan, whether in fact we might re-mix it and only have Ralliart on the Sportback rather than on the sedan as well," McEniry says.

"Then we’d step up to the Evo in the sedan, so you’ve got a gap. Then on the hatchback, you’ve got a sports line that goes out.

"They’re the things we’re playing with at the moment , we’ve got it all in the product program at the moment and it’s all available. It’s just how we mesh it in the final analysis.”

McEniry will not even hint at the possible price tag of a Ralliart Lancer sedan, except to say it "won’t be extraordinarily more” than the donor car.

Still, to sit between the new 2-litre VRX and the upcoming Evo, the 2.4-litre VRX would need to be around $35,000 with the Ralliart at not much more than $40,000 to stay competitive.

While Mitsubishi struggles with its compact choices it has a firm plan for the Evo X.

"When you step up to the Evo there will be three levels ; a stripped- out model for the rally competitors, then the second level will be a manual so they’ll be more street cars, and then there’s the top level with the double-clutch auto and that’s got a bit more luxury associated with it,” McEniry says.

Yet there will need to be careful positioning.

"There will potentially being some cannibalisation from Ralliart Lancer. In terms of strategy, what we might do is not have the bottom- level Evo freely available, but more on customer order or dealer confirm order so that it is directed then at the track driver more than being more freely available as a road car," he says.

"So then the step up is more obvious.

"How we just manage that bit so we get the mix right as well, that’s going to be fun and games.”

However, despite his concerns and planning problems, one of McEniry’s personal priorities at the Mitsubishi helm is to stretch the Ralliart halo over more of the brand.

"Ralliart could become a bigger opportunity for us,” he says.

"I’ve put up business cases to Japan on different aspects of it.

There’s just a totally new area there that’s untapped and they see it as well.

"They’ve got some pretty excited people looking at it and they want to get back into it as well. It’s part of their fundamental strategy.”"

McEniry says the first step is expanding the Ralliart network in Australia to get a bigger sales base.

"At the moment have 37 dealers who are both Ralliart dealers and Evo dealers. We want to take it up to a maximum of 90 who are Ralliart, but we’ll restrict the Evo to what it is today as a maximum in fact.

"And there’s a good reason for that restriction in that an Evo customer is probably a step up so the technical support, the ability of the car deserves that restricted, very specialist support.

Extending the network will give us broader product base and allow the dealers to step the customer up as well.”