posted by Corey Behrens
It’s the Alpine scenery behind the Mitsubishi L200 that caught my eye, not so much the truck, although it is a bit eye-catching with that distinctive angled gap between the cab and bed. The Hintertux Glacier is in a branch valley of the Zillertal, just a ways down the Inn Valley from Innsbruck. We visited it in our last trip there, exactly six years ago.
I shouldn’t complain; just yesterday I had a fabulous hike in the Cascades, to the top of Black Crater.
It’s one of the smaller volcanoes in the long line of the Cascades. We’re looking south at the Three Sisters, the North Sister being most visible. It’s been a tough year for hiking due to the many fires. I almost turned around as the drive up the McKenzie Valley was pretty smoky. But I got past that once into higher elevations, although the views were not as crisp as they would normally be.
I hustled up the 3.8 miles and 2800′ of elevation gain to the summit in exactly one hour and fifteen minutes. Not bad for an old fart. I did not have the dog a long, as this is now a bit much for him, especially since there was almost no shade.
But the real shocker was finding that Black Crater had been over 90% burned itself a few years back. I knew of the fire up there then, but didn’t know that it had totally engulfed this mountain. So it was a sunny hike up through endless dead trees, punctuated by fireweed, so called because its the first plant to appear widely after a fire.
This Mitsubishi is unfamiliar to most of us, as it was not imported to the US. This generation came out in 2005, and was a dismal failure in Japan, but sold fairly well in other export markets. In fact, Mitsubishi does not even sell their current Triton pickup in Japan.
The current generation is also sold as the Fiat Fullback as well as the Ram 1200. More of what we’re missing in the US, like the smaller FWD Ram 700.
Now that I’ve had my moment of homesickness and rambled on as usual, I shall wrap this up and remember fondly my memories of being in this area last. Hopefully again, before too long.
It’s baffling that Mitsubishi never grabbed the bull by the horns and offered this over here. Chicken Tax yeah blah blah blah, but when nobody else was offering anything similar at a decent price, it would seem that even with a 25% import tariff Mitsu could offer this competitively priced. It would not seem to cost much more to produce than a Mirage (also in Thailand), at least in basic form and those prices with 25% more added as a tariff would not necessarily be uncompetitive when viewing the generally high prices of this size class’ competition.
That’s an interesting retro style! Like the pickup beds mounted on the earliest Model T coupes.
You are right and with that image in mind, this Mitsubishi doesn’t look so odd now.
Proof once again, that it doesn’t matter how ugly your ride – it is the destiny that matters!
So THAT’s what the fireweed plant looks like… Thanks Paul.
If you are lucky enough to find a varietal honey called Fireweed, it is excellent. I haven’t seen it in years, but with all the fires out that way this year, hopefully some smart apiary owner will put his bee hives near some and harvest it.
I no longer have any fireweed honey, but I still have a few bottles of mead left that was made exclusively from that honey. I made the stuff about a dozen years or so ago, and haven’t had any in a few years. I wonder how it’s aging? It was pretty smooth the last time I had some. ;o)
The 2015+ Triton/L200s have a less pronounced curve between cab and bed, particularly on Club Cab models, but looking at some models (both current and previous gen) with the pickup bed replaced by an aluminum “trayback,” it appears that only some of the curve is actually reflected in truncated cab space.
Love the photos of Austria! Thanks
Quite common here though I cant think of an Asian brand of pickup that isnt, Ranger and Hilux lead in the popularity stakes and Mahindra runs last with the others somewhere near midfield.
That curved bed/cab interface looks swoopy but is costing cab volume and usable bed volume compared the usual vertical surface. I don;t think it would be worth either the chicken tax or the cost of US production for Mitsubishi to try and sell in the US, The Tacoma and Frontier have most of that market and the rest is owned by the “might as well buy a bigger truck for the same price” Ford and Chevy options.
Old tech and style but reliable and good value, a very option in Australia.
That regular cab could have really been given some personality and sold here well. Cheeky Japanese cool… The missed opportunity from the Nissan Gobi concept in the 90’s. There is whitespace for a$20-30K Regular cab 6-7ft bed pickup. There are a lot of people out there that want to like the Maverick but would happily trade those back doors for more bed.