Mitsubishi 380 3.8L V6
I’m not sure if it’s because I’m abit bored of small 2-door hatchbacks, but my current tastes of cars seem to be leaning towards medium to large executive saloons lately, even though people would probably think this guy is driving his father’s car if I roll in driving one. This is the Mitsubishi 380, the successor to the Magna line in Australia.
The Mitsubishi 380 is based on the North American Mitsubishi Galant. It’s direct competitors in Australia is the Holden Commodore and the I’m blogging about this because if the Proton-Mitsubishi partnership involves chassis sharing for a Perdana replacement, it might just be based off this car, with a much smaller engine of course. As expected from it’s name, it’s powered by a 3.8 liter MPI SOHC V6 engine.
The Mitsubishi 380’s engine is the 6G75, a pretty large V6 engine with 4 valves per cylinder making 235 horsepower at 5250rpm and 343Nm of torque at 4000rpm. There is a 5-speed INVECS-II automatic transmission option, and also a 5-speed manual transmission.
The Australian 6G75 is a bit different from the 6G75 used in the North American Mitsubishi Galant. The camshafts and valve springs are improved versions, derived from the Ralliart Magna program. The injectors are also different, upgraded to 12-hole versions that spray atomised fuel. With these upgrades, the engine is able to meet stricter Euro III emission laws that are enforced in Australia.
The car really sounds great, but unfortunately it’s not doing very well in Australia because of it’s 10% higher price than competitors, low resale value and the bad reputation of it’s precedessor the Mitsubishi Magna. The resale value was so bad that after 2 years, it only retained 35% of the original value.
Very unfortunate, considering the car won The Australian’s Best Large Car Award and the engine won the Society of Engineers Australasias Automotive Excellence Awards for “innovative adaption of new and existing technologies in the new Mitsubishi 6G75 3.8 litre V6 engine, designed to provide significant benefits in performance, driveability and emissionsâ€.
February 4, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Paul, in your own opinion.. for a perdana replacement, which platform do you think would suit our market best? euro-look or samurai add-ons?
February 4, 2006 @ 8:09 pm
there’s one here in simferepol
February 5, 2006 @ 7:57 am
Tell me a reason why should the China company spend RMB36000 per month to employ a fellow British (assuming GBP3000 per production staff) wherelse back in China you can get 40 people to do the same job?
February 6, 2006 @ 2:06 am
Why must it be a rebadged Mitsu? Why cant it be a rebadged Passat? Aiyooo……..
February 6, 2006 @ 4:03 am
whatever, we will get old chunky model to be rebadge as Perdana.period.
February 6, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
King KOng.. you are absolutely correct. sad
February 6, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
This Mitsubishi 380 looks like Perdana at the rear view. Are they share the same platform?
February 7, 2006 @ 3:45 pm
While i was googling around, I found this anti Mitsu website…
Do checkit out..
http://www.mitsubishisucks.com/cars/new-models/magna-380/
February 7, 2006 @ 8:25 pm
Paul, u have this thinking means u already start to plan for future, eg: a family already. good ah.
not bad if this model can be Perdana next replacement model.
cheers…
February 12, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
[...] The Australian taste for large sedans with big engines are apparent with the Holden Commodore. Mitsubishi’s most recent offensive on the market was the Mitsubishi 380. This is Toyota’s latest offering for the Australian market, the Toyota Aurion, replacing it’s previous failed large sedan offering the Toyota Avalon. [...]
March 9, 2006 @ 8:32 am
[...] A team of Proton engineers met with Mitsubishi officials at Mitsubishi Australia’s Adelaide assembly plant last week to discuss the possible import of the Mitsubishi 380 large sedan into Malaysia. This followed the shipment of a Mitsubishi 380 here last month for climate and government regulation approval testing. [...]
May 24, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
[...] Details are sketchy right now, and the projects are not even approved and could possibly not even see the light of day if the feasibility studies have negative results, but at least it is something to look forward to once the Satria Replacement Model is launched. Another model to look forward to is the Perdana replacement model, which might be based on the Mitsubishi 380, or a Volkswagen Passat. Funny, when originally announced, Proton planned to launch the Perdana replacement by the end of 2005, but I guess that plan was scrapped when talks with Volkswagen broke down. The Mitsubishi 380 sounds likelier now. [...]
June 27, 2006 @ 12:14 am
[...] The new Mitsubishi-based Proton model will most likely be a replacement for the aging Proton Perdana which was based on a 1990s Mitsubishi Galant Eterna. The new Perdana Replacement model is said to be based on the Australian Mitsubishi Galant known as the Mitsubishi 380. The Galant/380 comes with a huge award winning 3.8 liter V6 engine, but this will likely be replaced by a 2.0 or 2.4 liter unit for Malaysian usage. [...]
July 17, 2006 @ 2:18 am
[...] CarPoint Australia has a preview article on the new Proton Satria Neo, but that’s not important. What’s important is some rumours in that post regarding the upcoming Perdana Replacement Model, said to be based on the Australian-built Mitsubishi 380. [...]
March 2, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
i drive this car till sien edi la ! when i work in australia everyday look at this car. they even have their face-lift edi. and malaysia still consider this car to be brand new 1… haih…… but is 3.5V6 really powerful. 5speed automatic somemore