The Japanese portion of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is doing its best to stay afloat and help each other out, with new reports claiming Nissan and Mitsubishi will join forces for a new pickup.
Late last week, Mitsubishi announced it is looking to join the North American mid-size pickup market, a segment it hasn’t occupied for close to two decades.
To take on the likes of the Toyota Tacoma and Ford Ranger, it will produce the pickup in collaboration with Nissan, with Automotive News reporting it’s likely the model will be built in the US by Nissan on an existing production line.
Reportedly based on the Nissan Frontier, the existing pickup itself is due to enter a new generation in late 2027 or 2028, as a part of Nissan’s ladder-frame product offensive.
It will, in effect, be the opposite of the current arrangement the two brands have with their Australian-market utes, where the Nissan Navara is a reskinned Mitsubishi Triton, built by the latter brand in Thailand.
Despite occupying the same segment as the Ford Ranger – which is sold globally – it’s unlikely the Mitsubishi pickup will come to Australia, as the Frontier it’ll likely be based on is left-hand drive only.
On top of this, Mitsubishi already does solid sales of the Triton, which is among the most popular utes among new vehicle buyers every month locally.
It’s not yet known what Mitsubishi’s North American pickup will be called, though it’s possible the brand will revive the Raider name, the last title it gave to a pickup in the region.
Sold between 2006 and 2009, the Mitsubishi Raider was based on the Dodge Dakota, but the former managed less than 22,000 sales across the five-year period, versus more than 265,000 deliveries of its cousin.
Mitsubishi will enter the North American pickup market at about the same time as the likes of Hyundai and Kia, with the South Korean brands set to take on the segment by 2030.
Hyundai has already previewed its first body-on-frame platform to be made for the US market, set to be exclusively designed and produced in North America using US steel, debuting underneath a mid-sized pickup.
It’s expected Kia’s offering will utilise the same platform.
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