Mud Wrestler. Review on Mitsubishi Pajero

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST WRITTEN BY ME FOR BUSINESS STANDARD MOTORING, WHERE I WORKED FOR TWO YEARS, AS ROAD TEST EDITOR

There's something about SUVs which makes grown men, even regular 9-to-5 cubicle dwellers, want to strap on their chunky Casio G-Shocks, don those US Army-style camouflage trousers, round up a bunch of motorhead buddies and go off-roading! More than anything else, it is after all the image which makes SUVs sell. For gaining a semblance to the rough-and-ready Marlboro man, what better than a butch-looking set of wheels! You might only use it to ferry the kids to and from school, or take the wife shopping, but somewhere in the back of your head you can still hold on to all those romantic associations with the Paris-Dakar rally-raid. Sure, you probably wouldn't be setting off to the wastes of Gobi desert anytime soon, but with an SUV, it's not that you would, but that you could. Someday. Just maybe...

Okay, let's cut to the real world, and see what we have here. And that, is nothing less than the legendary Mitsubishi Pajero 2.8 GLX, with an intercooled turbocharged 2.8-litre diesel engine. If you like motorsport, and watch a lot of TV, you are likely to have seen heavily modified versions of this car being bashed through innumerable desert rallies, driven through countless mountain streams and slung sideways through a thousand mud trails. And this, the Indiana Jones of 4-wheel-drive SUVs, is now being assembled here in Chennai. The 2.8 GLX which we are talking about here, is the older generation Pajero which uses a ladder-type chassis (the most current version uses monocoque bodyshell construction), and is your best bet for hard-core off-road usage. Imported Pajeros are a common enough sight on our roads, and looking at the made-in-India version, there was an undeniable sense of deja vu. Right from those 'Intercooler Turbo' stickers on the flanks, to the chunky cladding on the sides, and the white-painted 15-inch steel wheels (shod in rather weedy-looking 235/75 Bridgestone Dueler H/T rubber...), this car looks familiar. And if we might say so, even a bit dated. This 5-door Pajero certainly makes no bones about the fact that its origins date back to the early-80s, which actually might be a good thing for traditionalists who are in love with this off-roader SUV icon!

Tradition notwithstanding, how is the Pajero to drive? Let's see now. For starters, all the right tacke is in place - there's that 118 horsepower 2835cc diesel powerplant that puts out 29.8KgM of torque at 2000, and shift-on-the-fly 4WD which you can select on the move. During normal road driving, the Pajero remains rear-wheel-drive, and power is delivered to the back wheels via a 5-speed manual gearbox, which is how things should be. Get inside, fire up the engine, and despite all the sound insulation, diesel clatter is all there and accounted for. Slot it into first (clutch action is clean and progressive), and the car motors off without any fuss whatsoever. The very first impressions are of a very firm (but precise) gearbox, and a large turning circle. This is a big, heavy (it weighs 2720 kilos!) vehicle and you need to be careful while inching through heavy traffic. Also, this your typical slow-revving tuned-for-torque diesel, and overtaking moves need to be planned in advance. If you let the revs drop low and then try to accelerate without shifting down to a lower gear, there is considerable driveline drone, and the thing begins to bog down a bit. However, once it gets moving, once the turbo starts spooling hard, and once the rev-counter needle swings past 2000, the Pajero 2.8 doesn't really feel short of grunt. The steering feels nicely connected (not over-servoed like, say, the Mahindra Scorpio...), and the car can be hustled along at a fair old pace. As expected, there is a considerable amount of body roll even while cornering at barely moderate speeds, but it doesn't threaten to get out of hand. Relaxed cruising is what the Pajero is best at, and even though the speedo is marked all the way to 200 km/hr, we think this machine would be happiest cantering along at no more than 140 or thereabouts.

Off-roading is the Pajero's raison d'etre, and it's suitably equipped for a bit of dirt slinging. Four-wheel-drive can be selected by moving a lever next to the gearshift, and can be done even while on the move, at up to speeds of 100 km/hr. Of course, since low-ratio 4WD exists only to extricate you from particularly tricky situations, it can only be selected when the car is standing still. This mode is handy for going up very steep inclines on tricky terrain - just slot it into low-ratio, keep your foot off the throttle, and the car will crawl up safely - you just need to steer the thing in the right direction! There is also a lockable centre diff, which, when employed, makes sure power is meted out to all four wheels evenly. Ground clearance is a very reasonable 19 cms, and scraping the floorpan should never be a problem for most!

Quality of interiors is acceptable, though if you are spending Rupees twenty-seven lakhs (which is what the Pajero 2.8 GLX will cost, after you've paid registration and insurance charges etc.), you might expect more. The dash is one large chunk of grey plastic, though you do get plastic-wood inserts to brighten things up a bit, and a CD-player is standard fitment. We must admit though, that there is no getting away from the fact that the whole package feels about a decade old.

The bottomline is, this older generation Pajero remains as supremely competent an off-roader as it ever was. It will bash through mudbaths, tackle the toughest of terrain, climb the steepest inclines, and will happily go as far from civilisation as you dare. In most off-roading situations, the car will be more capable than the driver, and progress will likely never be hindered because the car wasn't capable enough. Anything but. However, most buyers are simply not likely to indulge in the kind of intense off-road driving which the Pajero is optimised for. Let's face it - the average urban cowboy who buys these things wouldn't even know what to do with lockable centre diffs and the such! And on tarmac, the car simply isn't refined enough to justify its cost. If you mostly drive on roads, and expect luxury car-like behaviour from your super-expensive SUV, then Mitsubishi has another option for you - the current generation Pajero, which uses monocoque construction, will likely be safer in a shunt, and has more car-like driving characteristics. The catch is, the 'new' Pajero, powered by a direct-injection 3.2 litre turbodiesel mill, will also cost a good Rupees ten lakhs more than the 2.8 GLX, and then, pricewise, you are Mercedes Benz E-Class territory. For some, even that wouldn't be too much money for buying into the action-man image, but think carefully before you splurge out...