Hindustan Motors have announced that they will launch an automatic transmission on the Pajero Sport next fiscal. The announcement, reported by Economic Times, was made at an annual general body meeting of the company yesterday.
The Pajero Sport was launched in India in early 2012 as a CBU (Completely Built up Unit) product. Shortly thereafter, HM commenced local assembly of the SUV at their Tiruvallur plant near Chennai (which by the way could be sold off).
The Pajero Sport in India is available with a single engine option only. A 2.5-liter diesel engine is paired to a 5-speed manual transmission and produces 178 bhp and 400 Nm of torque. The SUV comes with Mitsubishi's Super Select 4WD system.
The automatic transmission unit could be the 'INVECS-II 5-speed automatic with Sportronic'. This automatic gearbox is paired to the same diesel engine, and is available in the Thai market (from where India gets the Pajero Sport's CKD kits).
In July last year, HM launched an anniversary edition on the Pajero Sport. However, cars such as the Outlander, Cedia Sports and Evo X were discontinued from the Indian market. Mitsubishi's current product portfolio in India encompasses the Pajero Sport and Montero.
Apart from the Pajero Sport automatic, Mitsubishi will also launch the 2014 Outlander in India this year.
[Source - Economic Times]
