casm
August 23rd, 2006, 16:18
Been spending some time with the Mitsubishi L200 (http://www.l200.org.uk/) pickup on and off over the past few months. I'm not a pickup guy, but WHAT A TRUCK. Stock it has about as much overall ground clearance as an XJ with 4" or so of lift, standard rear locker, 2.5-litre turbodiesel, 5-speed, 1.925:1 low range, locking centre diff, shift-on-the-fly. Full specs are here (http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/l200/specifications.asp?strCar1=NS1).
Terrain where I was isn't exactly as demanding as it can be in North America, but it did extremely well in the deep mud (typically in the 12"-16" range) I was able to slog it through. It's IFS, but Mitsu did it right - the arms didn't feel like they were getting in the way, and in the few rocky and rutted sections I was able to run it through didn't seem to pose any real problems for it. The locker does exactly what you'd expect it to and saved my bacon a couple of times.
Drives well on-road, too - my only complaints were that the gearing's a bit short over about 70mph and the highish revs get old after a while. Low range could also do with being a bit deeper for sharp descents, but overall it's a really competent package. Oh, and it averaged 24mpg in mixed driving - in a country where diesel's the equivalent of $5.40/gallon, this is pretty important.
Really liked it. Too bad we can't get something like this here, or that Jeep's unwilling to make something that could potentially equal or better it.
Terrain where I was isn't exactly as demanding as it can be in North America, but it did extremely well in the deep mud (typically in the 12"-16" range) I was able to slog it through. It's IFS, but Mitsu did it right - the arms didn't feel like they were getting in the way, and in the few rocky and rutted sections I was able to run it through didn't seem to pose any real problems for it. The locker does exactly what you'd expect it to and saved my bacon a couple of times.
Drives well on-road, too - my only complaints were that the gearing's a bit short over about 70mph and the highish revs get old after a while. Low range could also do with being a bit deeper for sharp descents, but overall it's a really competent package. Oh, and it averaged 24mpg in mixed driving - in a country where diesel's the equivalent of $5.40/gallon, this is pretty important.
Really liked it. Too bad we can't get something like this here, or that Jeep's unwilling to make something that could potentially equal or better it.