All eyes are on Paris

The Pajero heads Mitsubishi's renewed four-wheel-drive line-up. It also celebrates 70 years of four-wheel-drive technology and 25 years of Pajero.

Motoring industry executives are playing a guessing game going into this week's Paris Motor Show: will Carlos Ghosn lead his Renault/Nissan alliance into a partnership with General Motors or Ford?

This show is one of the major showcases for a car industry whose mainstream manufacturers are struggling to cope with slack demand, chronic overcapacity, a vicious price war and high raw-material prices.

New models - which help relieve pressure on carmakers to put heavy discounts on their products - are set to glitter in Paris, but the mood is tentative while the automotive world awaits the possible birth of an industry juggernaut.

Ghosn, the industry's brightest star - who is CEO of both France's Renault and Japan's Nissan - and GM CEO Rick Wagoner will both be on hand, but not Ford chairman Bill Ford or new CEO Alan Mulally. GM and Ghosn have given themselves until mid-October to decide whether to join forces, and Ford is waiting in the wings should the talks collapse.

Reports suggest GM is balking at the sweeping partnership that Ghosn has in mind.

A global alliance that includes a major US carmaker would shift the industry landscape.

"If the deal goes through, the biggest impact could be on Europe," said one investment banker who believes Europe has two carmakers too many.

Hit by US customers' sudden aversion to fuel-gulping pick-ups and SUVs, GM and Ford are retrenching heavily to stop the bleeding in North America. The Chrysler group was swept off the same cliff, forcing the group last week to warn that profits would fall short of its 2006 forecast by about $NZ2 billion.

Despite the clamour for fuel-efficient cars amid near-record prices at the pump, headline grabbers in Paris are mostly high-performance muscle cars such as the Peugeot 908 RC diesel race car, Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione and Audi R8 super car.

Under pressure to cut fleets' carbon dioxide emissions or face European law forcing them to, carmakers are also showing innovative vehicles including a diesel hybrid concept from Citroen and a Peugeot 207 Epure powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Toyota's Lexus is displaying the LS 600h car, a hybrid with a V8 engine.

Crossovers that combine characteristics of cars and SUVs are on hand from Daihatsu, Honda, Nissan and Mazda, while new SUVs arrive from Mitsubishi, Opel and Renault amid booming European demand.

South Korea's Hyundai and Kia will show models they will make in new plants in central Europe, a reminder of Asian carmakers' rising manufacturing prowess in Europe and their ability to penetrate the regional market.

And if the competition in Europe weren't tough enough already, models from two Chinese entrants will be on display - a Landwind minivan and an SUV made by Jiangling Motors, and a Great Wall SUV and pickup.

The new Mitsubishi Pajero heads the carmaker's renewed four-wheel-drive line-up - led in New Zealand by the crossover Outlander and commercial Triton ute - and celebrates 70 years of four-wheel-drive technology (1936 PX33 four-wheel-drive torpedo) and 25 years of Pajero.

The three- and five-door Pajeros will be launched in Japan next week and in New Zealand in February/March, although is it understood Mitsubishi here hasn't decided whether it will take the three-door.

The new model moves away from the bulging-mudguard look of the current model and returns to the design defined by the 1979 Pajero concept - tall, vertical, with a nearly flat windscreen, and a side-hinged tailgate.

The front grille also returns to a typical Pajero rectangular crosshair pattern (horizontal bars over thin vertical strips), but incorporating Mitsubishi's trademark Mount Fuji signature treatment of the Three-Diamond logo, prolonged by a spine-like character line stamped in the centre of the hood.

Inside, the cabin gets a full overhaul, with a no-frills contemporary design and what Mitsubishi calls a gimmick-free dashboard.

The monocoque body with built-in frame has been retained but is now more rigid, to the benefit of both handling and noise, vibration and harshness levels, says the carmaker.

The same goes for the electronically controlled Super Select transmission, except that a lockable rear differential is now available for better off-road performance. Traction and stability control systems are also standard.

Front and rear independent suspension systems retain the previous layout but have been re-calibrated for a smoother ride, less body roll (improved by 25 per cent, says Mitsubishi) and better high-speed stability.

Pajero buyers will have have the choice of two engines - a 3.2-litre four-cylinder common-rail turbodiesel mated to either five-speed automatic or manual gearboxes, and an automatic 3.8-litre V6 petrol unit.

The oil-burner is expected to deliver around 380Nm of torque and the petrol unit about 340Nm.

Mitsubishi has sold more than 2.5 million Pajeros since it appeared in 1981.