Oh, and it'd help if it could merge onto the interstate or climb up a steep Western Pennsylvania hill without falling backward or getting creamed by a semi-truck in the right lane going way, way too fast.īy those measures, the Mirage passed with flying colors. My only wish for one of the most affordable new cars in the world was for it to take me from point A to point B and get me from assignment to assignment for autoevolution. So, then, what do I think? Well, my expectations were meager when I drove off the Mitsubishi dealer lot that November evening. Mitsubishi is still on shaky ground these days, and the warranty was ultimately the dealmaker in my case. With that in mind, the five-year, 60,000-mile, bumper-to-bumper warranty, 100,000-mile, ten-year powertrain warranty, and seven-year corrosion warranty all looked positively delectable to a person who'd been without a car for six weeks to that point. The prospects of any cheap beater I'd be liable to buy in today's market spewing its transmission's guts up on my parking garage's floor was not in my list of plans this holiday season.Įvidently, neither is it in the plans for many Americans, who've helped the Mirage rise to the highest selling new sub-compact in its market segment, a badly needed win for Mitsubishi. Much of what remained afterward was old, high mileage, and years out of warranty. And the Yaris? Toyota doesn't even make them anymore for the U.S. Suddenly, used Corollas, Civics, and Camrys buyers had banked on for decades as emergency wheels had suddenly eroded away. As the global microchip shortage laid waste to auto factories the world over, the global supply of cheap used cars became substantially more depleted than it had been in recent memory. Well, I don't think anyone could have possibly anticipated the auto industry to take the dramatic fall it has this year. So then, knowing what we know about the Mirage, why would anyone in 2021 see any need to own one of these little boxes on wheels? Over three million people have watched this particularly damning review of the Mirage, and it's one of the first reviews DeMuro created that went genuinely viral back in 2017, kicking off his rise to automotive stardom. Truth be told, Doug DeMuro did at least explain that he completely understood why people in need of cheap, reliable transportation genuinely enjoy the Mirage, even if some of the commenters on his video couldn't be bothered to watch for long enough to hear him say it.īut what this contextualizes so perfectly is how much of an impact the Mirage was bringing for such an unassuming little runabout. Critics panned the little Mitsu as everything from "underpowered," "unrefined", and "pathetic." one particularly popular auto YouTuber was incredibly unkind to the little Mirage, hailing it as "the worst new car you can buy," strong words there. In parts of the world where cars are still unobtainable commodities for most of society, the Mirage and its sister cars, the Attrage and the Space Star serve as a gateway to car ownership.īut in North America, where SUVs and pickup trucks rule the roads, the Mirage was less warmly received, at least initially. The Mirage is the kind of car with a remarkably vibrant and polarizing history in its time in the North American market.
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