Mitsubishi 380 Sucks
Mitsubishi! > Cars > New Models > (Magna) 380
LATEST. February 1, 2006. 500 workers at MMAL's Adelaide plant want to take voluntary redundancy! Offer was for only 250! What do Mitsubishi workers know from insiders' vantage point? mitsubishisucks' guess is that they know that Mitsubishi 380 is one of the biggest flops in the Australian Auto industry. A 640 million dollar hype? By the way, January 2006 sales sank to a new low of 719 units, compared to over 2,500 units revised target (from original 3,500 down to 2,800).
January 20, 2006. 250 Job Cuts because of extremely poor sales.
It was more or less expected. MMA sold just 947 Mitsubishi (Magna) 380 in December 2005 compared to 1620 units it sold in November 2005. The model was launched in the middle of October 2005! It was expecting about 32,000 annual sales or about 2,800 units each month. Officially, the new annual sales target has been revised downwards to 27,000 from the recent 32,000 units. It means about 2,250 units a months, more than twice of what it sold in December 2005. More job cuts to come later?
Mitsubishi 380 - History
This model was Mitsubishi Australia's last hope of keeping its production facilities at home. Thus far indications are that it failed miserably. It reportedly spent over 600 million Australian dollars to bring this vehicle to market and it seems that its gamble failed.
Name Announcement - Bad Omen
The model is based on Mitsubishi Galant and some journalists had speculated that this model will be known as Galant too - especially after they had gotten invitation to a GALA eveNT related to announcement of its launching.
Mitsubishisucks thinks that after MMC realized that Galant is a failure in the USA, in haste it decided to rename it as 380 just to make its relationship with Mitsubishi's other models less obvious. Tom Phillips, Mitsubishi Australia's President and CEO remarked that 'Importantly, '380' conjured up images of high technology, European standards, sophistication and performance with consumers.' Right!
Seems like even the nature didn't like this new model. Reporter Bob Jennings reported that during name announcement at Bondi Beach a dirigible (an airship), with the name emblazoned on the side, was blown off course by fresh winds.
Tom Phillips Leaves MMA during Launch Period
380 was to be launched on October 13th. Before that news leaked out that Tom Phillips, the public face of Mitsubishi Australia would leave the company at the end of October 2005. Petrol prices were on rise with the resulting drop in sales of large cars. In July Phillips made the comment that 'I just can't see that we're going to fail.' Right!
Poor Sales of Magna 380
Mitsubishi sold 981 380's (380, 380 VRX, 380 LS, 380 LX, 380 GT) during October. It had only 19 sales day. Understood. During November it sold just 1,620 units. The new president and chief executive Rob McEniry didn't seem concerned as the company had 'planned a gradual build-up to the expected running rate of 2500 a month.' Gave him benefit of doubt. During December it sold just 947 units, a drop of over 40 percent from the previous month. It can be argued that if Mitsubishi 380 had done reasonably well in sales, Australia's 2005 total vehicle sales could have one million mark instead of just missing it.
Mitsubishi 380 started 2006 with a low sales figure of 711 units during the month of January. Will this model survive for 380 days?
Mediocre Reviews of Mitsubishi 380
If one read between the lines, it became clear that even the automotive press was not too fond of this model that was supposed to save Mitsubishi. More on this later.