I’m vacationing in Manila in the Philippines soaking up the rays. A pleasant change from the winter chill back home.
Sitting at a Starbucks (almost one in every corner) watching the cars go by I noticed a lot of cars with the Mitsubishi logo but didn’t recognize their names nor the make.

Adventure, Fuzion and Strada to mention a few.

Sure they may have just been renamed/rebranded this being a different country.

A peek into their website showed that Mitsubishi has 14 makes here as compared to 8 we have back home. Those don’t include their delivery truck and mini buses.

Still, a Lancer is still a Lancer and a Galant a Galant.

The 2.4 liter 4G69 Mivec engine is the same engine that powers the Galant here as in the States.

The Lancer sports the same 2.0 MIVEC 14 engine though back home it’s either the Lancer DE, ES or ES Sport. Here it’s the Lancer EX.

On a test drive with a friend, I found the Galant to be quite energetic though handling was rather stiff and in curves slipping happened way too sooner than I expected-just like back home.

All in all, this is a pretty good car for the price both here and stateside.

In between the Montero Sport, and the larger Montero SUV is the Endeavor.

A midsize crossover SUV, it was also the first vehicle in the company’s “project America” series. It was designed and built in Normal, Illinois.

On a test drive, I found the Endeavor (SE AWD) to have a quiet and relatively comfortable ride.

The automatic model has a Sportronic mode that allowed me to manually shift gears when I wanted like when in traffic wherein quicker shifting is needed.

With its Active Skid and Traction Control, on sand (and snow I assume), I found the AWD quite capable.

On the inside, it has a driver multi-adjustable power seat, power windows and it has a very spacious rear seat.

Front and side driver and passenger airbags are standard.

The one thing it doesn’t have is a navigation system.

Possibly another downside is that the Endeavor has a 3.8 liter V6 225hp engine that runs only on premium gasoline.

Fuel economy is a respectable 17mpg city and 23mpg on the highway.