The Mitsubishi Triton Raider will arrive in Australian showrooms this year as a racier flagship for the popular ute range.
Mitsubishi is being coy about its new Triton flagship, releasing few details and only a single shadowy teaser that reveals a vehicle that looks little different from the Triton GSR.
“Inspired by rally raid competitions and with Australian engineering ingenuity at its core, the new Triton Raider recently tackled the legendary Flinders Ranges – including this Arkaroola sandstorm – as part of its final pre-launch testing program,” the company says in its release.
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The Raider teaser appears to show a black sports bar that looks like the one used by the GLX-R.
While we can’t see the wheels in the teaser, these could be different to those seen on other Tritons.
As for mechanical changes, we’d expect retuned suspension but no extra grunt over the existing 2.4-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine, which produces 150kW of power and 470Nm of torque.
In fact, it’s unclear just how much the Triton Raider will be changed over lesser Tritons.
The spectrum of ute flagships in Australia runs from variants like the Mazda BT-50 Thunder, which adds extra equipment for a tougher look but which has no mechanical changes, all the way up to the Ford Ranger Raptor which features a raft of mechanical enhancements including a dramatically upgraded chassis and an entirely different engine.
Mitsubishi trademarked the Raider name locally back in 2022, which had been expected to be used on a special swansong edition of the previous-generation Triton.
That ended up being the short-lived, Walkinshaw-fettled Xtreme, which featured revised suspension, new wheels and tyres, and minor cosmetic tweaks.
The Japanese brand hasn’t mentioned any involvement with Walkinshaw for the new Triton Raider.
Mitsubishi has used the Raider name before, though not in Australia. It was applied in the US from 2006 to 2009 on a restyled version of the Dodge Dakota, and followed the earlier use by Dodge of the name on a rebadged Mitsubishi Montero/Pajero from 1987 to 1989.
Indeed, the Raider name gets around. It was used in Australia by Ford from 1991 to 1996 on an SUV based on the Mazda B-Series.