Mitsubishi Ralliart revival coming – but as a sticker pack or the real deal?

Mitsubishi Ralliart – a performance brand made famous in rallying and motorsport – is set to return to showrooms within the next five years.

However it is unclear at this stage whether the Ralliart badge will be applied to genuine performance models or styling upgrades.

Top executives for Mitsubishi Japan have told Australian media a Ralliart revival is on the company’s agenda and part of its five-year future models plan.

“We are serious about reviving Ralliart,” said Koichi Namiki, the executive in charge of product strategy for Mitsubishi Motors. “But just because we are having lots of discussions, doesn’t mean it comes very soon.”

John Signoriello, the global boss of sales and marketing for Mitsubishi and the former CEO of Mitsubishi Australia, said: “There’s lot of history with Ralliart and Mitsubishi. Our task is how do we take that history and create a future with it.

“How do we use our heritage … and learn from our technology and apply it to cars that come out of the factory today.

“I feel we have an opportunity going forward … especially when we’ve got a separate brand called Ralliart sitting on the shelf not really being utilised properly.”

The Mitsubishi executive said Ralliart fans should not expect a successor to the Lancer Evolution turbo all-wheel-drive sedan – or a showroom version of the tri-motor electric e-Evolution concept car (pictured below) unveiled in 2017.

“I’m not saying Ralliart is going to be what it was in the past,” said Mr Signoriello. “I think it’s going to be very different.

“We are still at the planning stage, still at business case development stage.”

When asked if Mitsubishi was aiming to have a Ralliart variant of each model in its line-up, Mr Signoriello said: “Everything’s under consideration. We don’t have a massive budget, but we are investing in (research and development).

“I wouldn’t see us creating something new that is just Ralliart. It’s a matter of how do you take what we’ve got and take it to the next level. We have to be realistic about where we go with this and study what the future looks like.

“It’s hard to talk about now because there are just lots of options being considered and whatever we say, it’s not locked in.

“But there’s good discussions, there’s healthy discussions from the top down.”

When asked if the future of Ralliart was just a sticker pack, Mr Signoriello said: “It’s powertrain but it’s also other things as well. This is about a complete package.

“There is no doubt we need to do it properly. Ralliart is a very proud name, it’s a very strong name and we need to do it justice.”

Could Ralliart go electric?

“Anything’s possible. Would you, could you? The answer is ‘yes, you could’. Would we? The regular meetings we have really is to define what is happening and how we create this strategy,” said Mr Signoriello.

When asked if the tri motor electric concept car (pictured above) unveiled in 2017 was just a dream, Namiki-san said: “It’s not just a concept. We really want to make that kind of technology for production vehicles. When? We don’t know, but it’s always been our plan.”