Late last month, Mitsubishi confirmed that its Montero SUV, AKA the iconic Pajero in the rest of the world, was coming back. The rugged off-roader was Mitsubishi's answer to the Toyota Land Cruiser and Nissan Patrol and was held in much the same high regard.Mitsubishi has also confirmed that it is going to build another body-on-frame off-roader. But this one is a pickup, and it will be built and sold in the US to finally put the Japanese automaker back into the truck segment for the first time in over 15 years. CEO Confirmed US Truck At Investor Presentation Mitsubishi Mitsubishi CEO Takao Kato made the company's presentation to investors last month. As part of the Japanese automaker's new mid-long-term plan, he announced a focus on new products. This included the return of the Pajero SUV as well as 13 new models planned for Asia for the next six years. It also included this new American truck.Kato confirmed the pickup while talking about the company's plans in North America. He said that Mitsubishi has a new agreement with Nissan on vehicles for the US market and that the new truck was one of them. He called it a "collaboration project" for the new truck and said that it would be built at "Nissan's production plant in North America."Nissan builds two pickups in North America, and only one of those is sold in the US. But Kato confirmed that he meant the US market for the new truck, along with "off-road models." New Frontier Already In Progress Nissan Mitsubishi's alliance partner Nissan has already started working on a replacement for the Frontier pickup. The popular midsize rig is likely to show up around 2028, and it will have a new platform that can handle combustion or even plug-in hybrid power. We've also heard reports that it could be more like the Navara, the truck Nissan sells in the rest of the world.It's not clear what this means for the Pajero returning to the US as the Montero. The presentation had a slide detailing that the two vehicles were the same, but the body-on-frame Pajero is based on a different platform.The Pajero will use the frame of the Mitsubishi Triton, a truck that is built in Thailand and Brazil for sales around the world. Mitsubishi would not be able to sell the Triton in the US without a 25% tariff unless it moved production to the US, Canada, or Mexico, but it could import the SUV without the Chicken Tax.Mitsubishi isn't a stranger to the US pickup truck market, though it has been gone for a long time. Its most recent effort was the Raider, which was a rebadged Dodge Dakota that it sold from 2006-2009. That truck was a dismal sales failure, moving around one unit for every 10 Dodge sold, ultimately racking up just 21,000 in five calendar years. CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters: Mitsubishi hasn't had much in the way of new product over the last decade. Its already thin lineup is aging, with the newest being the now six-year-old Mitsubishi Outlander. Meanwhile, midsize pickup trucks are a large market with more than 600,000 units sold in the US last year.Getting a piece of that pie could be very valuable for Mitsubishi. Selling even half the number of trucks Nissan sold last year could make the new truck Mitsubishi's bestseller. It's a tough segment, though, with Toyota's Tacoma making up nearly half. A new truck could be good for both Nissan and Mitsubishi, but Mitsubishi will need a wider lineup replacement to have any real impact here.Source: Mitsubishi
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