On Wheels by Brooks Peterson

Saturday, July 1, 2000

New Montero enters brave new world

It is in the nature of things that sport-utility vehicles project a certain air of aggression: It's a macho thing, serving to convince urban drudges that they, too, can be Jeremiah Johnson even as they tote groceries or shuttle the kids to and from soccer games.
   The new third-generation Mitsubishi Montero, however, ups the ante dramatically. Other SUVs may broadcast attitude, even belligerence. The Montero, fresh from its makeover, radiates homicidal intent. Were you to round a corner and find yourself facing one of these babies, you might recoil in alarm before reassuring yourself that, after all, it's only a big box on wheels. Nothing, heh heh, to worry about. Still . . .
   There's that carnivorous grille: Want to keep small children and pets away from that, for sure. Then there are those, ah, distinctive bulges atop the front fenders that recall nothing so much as the second-generation AMC Javelin - vehicles which until now most of us had succeeded (mercifully) in forgetting. Oh, and how about that upward-sweeping line on the hindquarters? Is there just a touch of tailfin there? Surely not.
   Downright brave
   I'm not suggesting here that a Montero could face down a Hummer, but it could give the big guy a bit of a tussle, looks-wise.
   Now, to business: In fact, there is more - a lot more - to this re-do than cosmetics. While the Montero was plugging happily along in its segment, it wasn't exactly setting the market on fire. Accordingly, the masters of Mitsubishi decided to get downright brave about hyping the Montero's appeal - and straying beyond the conventional wisdom in SUV-world.
   How brave? Get this: Up to now, if you wanted your ute to have credibility as a real go-anywhere off-road brush-buster and canyon-crawler, you would see to it that your vehicle hewed to the age-old format: body-on-frame, in which the superstructure is plunked down atop nice big beefy beams modeled fairly closely on railroad tracks. Unibody construction - the sort you see now on almost all passenger cars - was strictly for poseurs and drugstore cowboys.
   'Exoskeleton of a lobster'
   Until now. Mitsubishi decided to go with a unibody for its reborn ute - and the company makes no apology whatever. In fact, Mitsubishi's public-information corps revels in the departure. Comparing the unibody to "the exoskeleton of a lobster," Mitsu exults that computer-aided design has enabled the engineers "to use the body itself as the vehicle's load-bearing member."
   And there's more: Where once your serious mountain-man SUV would have beam axles front and rear - or at least in the rear - the cocky new Montero has independent suspension at both ends.
   Can you say "heresy?"
   Downright nimble
   There's more - plenty more - but that's the big stuff. How does it play out? Since I couldn't make time in my busy schedule for a dry-creekbed tour or an off-road assault on Pike's Peak, I had to base my assessment of the new Montero on the kind of around-town and highway driving 95 percent of its owners will do almost exclusively.
   And it works. This vehicle is a quantum leap from the first Montero I drove back in the late '80s: That thing, with its tall, tippy layout and its woeful handling (calling to mind "The Wreck of the Hesperus") left me wishing I'd packed Dramamine in the official test-driver survival kit.
   By comparison, the new Montero is downright nimble - and the ride is gentled down enormously. You'll never mistake the vehicle for a Ferrari Testarossa, but you'll find it vastly more accommodating than a lot of the competition.
   Covering all the bases
   The engine, a 200-hp 3.5-liter V-6, isn't exactly a powerhouse (particularly since it's propelling well over two tons of sport ute), but it's smooth and amiable - and nicely matched to the four-speed automatic transmission.
   In the Limited, by the way, the AT has one of those let's-pretend arrangements whereby you can shift "manually" if you wish.
   Far more significantly, the Limited gets you Mitsubishi's ActiveTrac, which lets you dial up rear-wheel drive, full-time all-wheel drive, and four-wheel-drive in both high and low range with locked center differential. You are covered, dude.
   With quiet authority
   Plaudits for the brakes: discs at each corner with standard ABS. They bring you to a halt with the kind of quiet authority you'd expect in one of those German autobahn rockets. Just the thing to evade that rockslide that's getting under way in front of you.
   The interior - particularly on our high-buck Limited tester - would stand up to many a luxury sedan: leather, nice lusty stereo, power everything. Oh, and get this: a third seat in back. Nice touch, that, particularly since a lot of the competition doesn't offer it even as an option.
   Solidity and strength
   About the only discordant note in the hi-lux department is the climb up into the passenger quarters: No doubt a running board of some sort is optionally available. For the seriously petite, this would be a must-have item.
   It's going to take a while to learn whether Mitsubishi's brave leap into the future will pay off in the boonies where the going gets seriously rough. Given the impression of solidity and strength the whole vehicle conveys, though, I wouldn't bet against 'em.
  
  

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