#MitsubishiEclipseCross

Sorry, sports-car fans with nostalgia for a certain era – Mitsubishi still insists on using the Eclipse name on a crossover. One that’s now restyled.

A plug-in hybrid version will be offered overseas, but not here. The next Eclipse Cross will go on sale in the States in the first quarter of 2021, following launches in Australia and New Zealand.

No, there’s no new Mitsubishi model on the way — just “richer” versions of what we already have. That’s a term the automaker applied to the refreshed 2021 Mirage, by the way.

In announcing across-the-board changes to its North American lineup Wednesday, Mitsubishi seemed to suggest that a brand pull-out in this region won’t occur overnight, if ever. Or maybe this is just the brand’s last consumer salvo.

Mitsubishi burned a lot of what little street cred it had left by taking the name of a once-beloved affordable sports coupe and plunking it onto yet another crossover.

The good news, if there is any, is that the crossover that now bears the nameplate is more than a little quirky.

The bad news – it’s not an affordable, fun-to-drive sports coupe.

Not to mention that the brand may soon be history, at least on these shores.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That adage, from George Santayana, has a less well-known corollary that I just made up: “Those who do remember the past are doomed to watch idly while our memories are sold out to create something much, much worse.”

Take the 2019 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross seen here. When Mitsubishi dusted off a beloved sports car nameplate to slap on YET ANOTHER CROSSOVER, enthusiasts everywhere started screaming. Their memories of late-night cruising and loud exhausts were being trampled by another jacked-up hatchback with no sporting pretense.

Yes, I was one of those enthusiasts hating the name. But then I drove the car, and I recalled that the target Eclipse Cross buyer probably doesn’t remember that not-too-distant past where the stylish Diamond Star coupes ruled the streets, and they’ll simply buy on merit, not memories.

One’s an ancient model that continues to sell in significant numbers; the other’s a fairly radically styled new model in the same compact crossover segment. Together, the Outlander Sport (RVR in Canada) and Eclipse Cross make up two-thirds of Mitsubishi’s utility vehicle lineup.

It seems these two rivalrous siblings — separated by $2,900 and a host of powertrain differences — will share the same segment for some time to come, as there currently isn’t a next-generation Outlander Sport in the pipe. We might wait nearly three years before one appears. In the meantime, anyone willing to shell out less dough for a two-row Outlander Sport can expect to save cash on gasoline, as well.

It may have the smaller engine of the two, the Eclipse Cross has the greatest thirst.

Let’s start this with a disclaimer – it’s always a gamble to rip on a car one has yet to drive. I could end up eating these words someday if I drive the Eclipse Cross and like it. Which, of course, is absolutely possible.

Still, I don’t feel it’s entirely unfair to judge a vehicle based on observations gleaned from an auto show display, as well as from the on-paper specs. Not so long as you disclose, as I did just now, that the assessment is subject to further examination. Hell, if it was unfair, auto journalists would have one less type of story to write after each show.

Between its peak in 2002 and the depths of the recession in 2009, Mitsubishi’s U.S. sales plunged 84 percent. Market share plunged from more than 2 percent to less than half of 1 percent. Could the company survive in America?

The loss of product gave observers even more reason to doubt the brand’s staying power. Bigger SUVs such as the Montero and Endeavor disappeared. Mitsubishi’s midsize sedan, the Galant, generated its final sales in early 2014, a decade after the Mitsubishi Diamante departed. The discontinuation of the Eclipse and Lancer Evolution spelled the end of Mitsubishi’s performance bona fides. Then Mitsubishi also ended the Lancer, leaving the Mirage G4 to fight America’s sedan battle.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi’s plans to bolster its U.S. lineup haven’t always translated to reality. The Outlander plug-in hybrid was initially bound for the U.S. market in 2014 or 2015 — it’s still not here. As for U.S. production, which Mitsubishi’s president Osamu Masuko said in 2013 would not end, the final U.S.-built Mitsubishi rolled off the Illinois line last year.

Despite the heavy load of evidence that would support the belief that Mitsubishi Motors USA was on its death bed, Mitsubishi is on track in 2017 to sell 100,000 vehicles in the U.S. for the first time since 2007, having enjoyed five consecutive years of growth. Settling in for the long haul, Mitsubishi has also signed Mini’s old ad agency, Butler Shine Stern & Partners.

Though the 10th-generation Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution is barely cold in its grave and the Lancer on which it was based is also being put out to pasture, Mitsubishi does intend to replace the brand’s former Subaru WRX STI challenger.

In 2023, or thereabouts. Maybe as early as 2020 or 2021.

But the next Mitsubishi Evolution is not likely going to be a proper rival for the WRX STI.

Mitsubishi COO Trevor Mann suggested to Motoring that the next Evolution won’t be a sedan-based performance car, but rather a high-end variant of an upcoming SUV. “In terms of the brand, I think it would be interesting to bring something back that’s a bit more sporty in the future,” Mann said. “You’ll have to wait and see what that is.”

We know Mitsubishi has little regard for former nameplates being restricted to their former class designations. So it’s time you prepared yourself for the 2023 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross Evolution.

Ahead of its world debut at the Geneva Motor Show, Mitsubishi has lifted the curtain on a new compact crossover with a familiar — but now confusing — name.

Yes, the 2018 Eclipse Cross bastardizes the memory of that sporty coupe your 18-year-old co-worker once owned, but the name is the least of anyone’s concerns right now. Shoehorned into the lineup to give Mitsubishi a new player in a scorching-hot segment, the Eclipse Cross sports styling that can charitably be described as controversial.