From the 2010 New York Auto Show, Cars.com's Kelsey Mays takes a look at the 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport.
Transcript
<v Announcer>Cars.com Auto Review. (dramatic music) Hi, I'm Kelsey Mays for Cars.com. We're at the New York Auto Show checking out Mitsubishi's new Outlander Sport. Mitsubishi plans to position this car at the bottom end of the Outlander lineup.
And although it shares its platform with the larger Outlander, it's got some key design differences and capability differences, we'll take you through those. You'll probably see a lot of Mitsubishi Lancer in the nose, and that's because it's got this same sort of trapezoidal shape here that joins the grill and the lower air dam. I actually think the Outlander Sport wears this face a lot better than the Outlander, which got a facelift to look like this more recently. It kinda looks like it's leaning too far into the wind. The Sport with shorter overhangs kinda wears the whole thing a lot better. Cabin quality I think is a definite step in the right direction. You've got padded areas up here, definitely out of sorts for a sub $19,000 crossover. A lot of other cars in this segment have really kinda low-rent interiors. Mitsubishi's is good in some areas and not so good in others. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that they really improved on these climate controls, which are the same as the Outlanders. Same with the window switches, overall though, a fairly impressive story. I kinda like this area here along the glove compartment, they've got this nice sort of smoked out plastic finish. Interesting to look at, decent amount of space inside too. The Outlander doesn't have the biggest second row. I don't have the specs with me, but the Outlander Sport actually might have a more comfortable second row seat here. It's nice that the seat sits high enough off the ground that adults get good thigh support. I don't feel like I'm sitting really low to the ground. Unfortunately, that does sacrifice a little bit of headroom. I'm about six feet tall and my hair is starting to touch up top here, but overall for a small crossover, not a bad setup. The Outlander has one of the more roomy cargo areas in its segment. The Outlander Sport's is clearly a lot smaller and there's also no third-row seat offered here, but still seems like a decent amount of room. Mitsubishi doesn't have cargo specs immediately available for us. And if you're looking at this, sort of, really small SUV class, you've got players like the Nissan Juke now, the MINI Cooper Countryman, and those have really small cargo areas. So for that class, this isn't really that bad. The Outlander will use a two liter four cylinder engine, and Mitsubishi expects it to get as high as 31 miles per gallon on the highway. All-wheel drive will be available. Keep an eye out for when the Outlander Sport goes on sale this fall. <v Announcer>For more car related news, go to Cars.com or our blog, KickingTires.net.
