That truck is now long gone and L200s – now known as Tritons – have been made in Thailand since 1997. But I was interested to get a call from Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand a few weeks ago asking if I’d like to try out the latest Triton. Absolutely, I said, but let’s make it interesting. Can you get it to the Rainbow Road?
The Rainbow Road is the pylon access track that goes from Nelson Lakes in the Tasman District down to Hanmer in Canterbury. Running through the heart of the Southern Alps, it’s 120km of terrific terrain with some great play areas along the way.
Picking up the Triton in Blenheim, the first thing that’s noticeable is that the droopy bum has gone. The butt of many jokes, the last Triton wellsides curved down, giving a less than entirely manly look to an otherwise fairly rugged ute. The result? Well, it wasn’t the biggest hit with the tradesmen and the farmers, which is a bit of a bummer given these guys are traditionally pretty big ute buyers.
In getting rid of the droopy bum, Mitsubishi also added another 180mm of deck length producing a total longbed of 1510. They also increased the space in the back seat and upped the power under the bonnet as well, with the 2.5 litre DID diesel delivering 26% better fuel economy and torque increased to 360 Newton metres. Enough torque to spin the rear tyres on Marlborough’s macadam as we turned off the main road at Renwich to head up the Wairau.
The bigger bed length was big enough to hold two decent sized dirt bikes, and the back seat big enough to take two daughters and their remarkable amount of travelling kit. The run up to the Rainbow turnoff was a fairly “quick” one and the redhead commented on the mild amount of road noise, particularly impressive given it was shod in Wranglers, not the world’s quietest tyre. Turning onto the start of the Rainbow and hitting the second gear lever, the Triton immediately felt happy and composed. As shingle gave way to stones, dirt and mud that feeling of composure remained solid.
Across eight small to medium river crossings it became clear that the Rainbow wasn’t going to come close to testing the Triton’s abilities so we started venturing further offroad. The approach and ramp angles are both pretty respectable, with only the departure angle letting it down. Hardly surprising in a ute, but the good news was that even when the rear end dragged there was nothing there to rip off or get hung up on.
Particularly impressive was the Triton’s ability to take on heavily rutted tracks at speed. It did this calmly and without any clatter or judder. As well as all the good stuff you’d expect from a 4x4 double cab ute, the Triton has two party pieces that it can trot out at will, and it’s these that I think might well give it the nod over the Hilux that this segment is measured against.
The first is a get of jail free card: namely, a rear diff lock that is electrically applied from the cabin. If you hit this button the LSD on the back locks up and you get the ability to make a stuck vehicle unstuck. A very useful piece of kit.
The second party piece is the Triton’s killer towing capacity. After returning from Hanmer to Wellington via the epic Molesworth Road, I hitched up the Triton to a two tonne tandem racecar trailer and through my VW Baja on the back. All up I figured around 2.8 tonnes of mass. The little truck that could took it all without breaking a sweat.
All of this and the Triton averaged a very impressive 9.8 litres per 100km. Not bad at all.
The brakes were great. Ventilated disc fronts and buge drums at the back, and delivered via ABS and EBD. No quibbles in this area at all.
So what quibbles did I have? Nothing too substantial. The box on the new truck was a bit notchy, I reckon the rear seat arrangement would benefit from being fold up ergonomics to allow better carrying ability, and the standard sound system is pretty basic. I reckon any new car sold today needs to have an MP3 plugin. My last criticism would be the spare wheel, which, slung underneath, would have to be prone to theft.
The Triton Double Cab Wellside GL 5 speed manual I drove sells for $45,995 + ORC. However, right now Mitsubishi are having a special on the higher spec’d GLX Triton for $39,990. This means you gain side curtain airbags, side steps and alloy wheels, while the diff lock is replaced with Active Stability Control and Active Traction Control. Given the 4WD Hiluxes start at $48,830 and the equivalent Navaras start at $52,450, this seems like a hell of a good price. More importantly, I reckon it’s probably a better ute, given the Nissan’s engine is fragile at lower revs and the Toyota’s handling is pretty average.
That aggressive pricing with a new bum should see the latest Triton become a firm favourite both of workers and weekend warriors. A worthy and seriously superior successor to my old Todd Park beastie of 14 years ago.