The Mitsubishi Shogun Review & Road Test
The Mitsubishi Shogun is a proper, grown-up SUV. We spend a week with the Mitsubishi Shogun LWB 3.2 DI-DC Elegance to review and road test. Good on road and off?
Is the Mitsubishi Shogun the only car to be named after a television programme? It’s said that the multi-named Shogun got christened Shogun in the UK because of the huge popularity of a TV mini series by the same name (starring Richard Chamberlain – Dr Kildare, if there’s anyone left alive who can remember).
Mitsubishi thought it a good way to get a Japanese SUV accepted. It worked. And it worked a bit better than the original name, Mitsubishi Pajero, which means wanker in Spanish slang – so the Shogun gets called Montero in Spanish speaking countries. And India, for some reason.
But whatever Mitsubishi’s big SUV gets called elsewhere, we Brits love the Shogun. Launched in 1983 it was the first real 7 seat SUV (not straight away – the 7 seats came a couple of years later) and has kept a place in the hearts of UK buyers. But is it still relevant today? Can it stand up to competition from Land Rover’s Discovery on and off road or with the latest offerings from the likes of BMW’s X5?
Big and square. That’s the impression the Shogun gives. And it still looks big and square even when you get inside. But there’s lots of room; acres of the stuff, especially in this LWB Elegance model. Somehow the size of the Shogun is inspiring. You feel like you’re sat in a proper, grown up SUV. None of this namby-pamby car-like SAV nonsense. This is the real thing. A Tonka toy for grown ups.
There’s a proper, full sized spare wheel bolted to the back door. A back door that opens like a back door, not upwards like a tailgate. The big alloys are trimmed with even bigger, almost balloon-like tyres; all the better to mud-plug. There’s not a fey little gear lever to stick it in drive nor a set of flappy-paddles to blitz through the ‘box. Oh, no. You get a big, man-sized lever for the gearbox and you also get a second lever for low ratios and 2/4 wheel drive.
And the spec all looks pretty good. There’s the extremely good Mitsubishi HDD navigation system with music server, leather seats – 7 of them – Climate, Sunroof, Cruise, Heated Seats and a Rockford Fosgate Premium Sound System amongst other goodies. This is a proper, upmarket spec – even though the Shogun Elegance is only the mid-ranking trim – and stands up to any of the competition.
But the Shogun is a 4×4 from the old school, although Mitsubishi has certainly updated it over the years. The current generation – the fourth – was introduced in 2007 with the choice of a single 3.2-litre, four-cylinder direct injection, common-rail turbodiesel engine. Which sounds more than suitable. After all, BMW and Land Rover offer similar sized engines in their offerings.
However, if you’re expecting an engine in the Shogun that is smooth and refined like the latest 3.0 litre TDV6 in the Discovery, you’ll be disappointed. It’s not like that at all. In fact, particularly at low speeds, it’s noisy and harsh and a bit unpleasant.
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