VIDEO: Mirage's stylish UK press launch

[talldino]

About a dozen Mirages in front of an old courtry house. Woburn Abbey, home of the Dukes of Bedford, was the stylish venue of the car's UK press launch last week.

"Field and Rural Life Magazine" shot a video there. Lance Bradley, managing director of Mitsubishi Motors UK, says in an interview that in the couple of weeks the Mirage is on the British market, one dealer managed to sell 23 units to existing customers! The level three model is likely to be the most popular.

Here is a link to the "Field and Rural Life" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6bql71-Pgc


And the feedback on the Mirage from those at the two-day event was positive.

Phil Huff, from frontseatdriver.co.uk, said: ‘It’s a great city car. It’s a much stronger engine than I expected and it’s got a great gearbox.

‘The Stop-Start works well, it’s so lightweight and easy to drive. It’s everything you want from a car in the city.’

While Olivia Gauch, from motoring.co.uk, was impressed with plans for every Mitsubishi dealership to give away a Mirage for a year as a prize.

She said: ‘The competition to win one for a year is a good incentive to get people to the dealership and look at buying a new car. Some people want an extra incentive to go to a dealership and this is the sort of thing that will do that.’

Olivia added: ‘I like it, it’s a practical car and it’s obviously good value for money.’

In his presentation, Lance Bradley said: ‘We think it’s a very exciting car and I’m glad you are giving us the opportunity to tell you why we think that. This car was designed from the start to be an efficient car.

‘It’s a much lighter car than the competition and that’s important because it makes the car much more fuel efficient, it makes the emissions much better and it also makes the car more fun, because a lighter, more nimble car is better to drive.

‘We think it’s going to create quite a stir.’

[MetroMPG]

Here's the embedded video:

[MetroMPG]

That's a good video, talldino.

[Matt]

Is the "Start-Stop" feature standard? I don't remember reading about that before.

[Daox]

It depends on the trim of the car. The 'Mirage 1' (1.0L) in the UK does not get start-stop. The 'Mirage 2' and 'Mirage 3' (both 1.2L) gets start-stop.

[MetroMPG]

And so far, just the Euro and Japanese cars are getting start/stop on some models.

It wasn't announced for the U.S. or Canada, and we probably won't see it on this side of the pond until the government fuel economy tests are adjusted to show the benefit of the systems. As they work now, the US/Canada tests have little to no idling, so start/stop doesn't improve the test results the way we know it would improve real world results.

The good news is we can just do "manual" start/stop ourselves.

EDIT: the funny thing is, the feature is probably just programming. It's possible the start/stop cars get a beefier battery or starter, but I somehow doubt it. Which means it's probably all in the ECU.

[Alpha_One]

My Mirage has a bigger battery than the 2004 Honda Jazz or 2006 Honda Civic, even though we don't get the auto stop-and-go. Haven't had any issues doing the manual stop-start either, so it's probably purely programming indeed.

[MetroMPG]

Thanks for that info, Alpha. So, you do the manual start/stop regularly?