There is a huge market for cheap and basic personal transportation around the world, and so many of the world’s automotive giants, especially the Asian ones, have long been producing small cars that are relatively simple and which can be sold at affordable prices. Part of the way to keep the price down is to build the cars in low labour cost countries, but it is equally important that the cars are not over-burdened with technology and equipment and they tend to have much simpler engineering. From time to time, manufacturers try to sell some of these offerings in Western and developed markets, but the result is rarely successful. Nissan tried it with the fourth generation Micra of 2010, but decided for their fifth generation that a better way of controlling costs was increased platform and component sharing (with the Renault Clio) resulting in a car far more to Western market tastes. Not long after that Thai-built K13 generation Micra, Mitsubishi went down a similar path with their new small car that, for most markets, they called the Mirage. Launched at the 2011 Tokyo Show after a concept version had been seen earlier in the year, this was also a Thai built car and in the local market it was an immediate success, doubling the brand’s sales in a very short space of time. The rest of the world was less convinced, and European assessments, whilst welcoming the value and the space available, found the car uncompetitive in most other respects. Much to everyone’s surprise, Mitsubishi decided to offer this Mirage in North America, launching it at the 2013 Montreal Auto Show and sales in both the USA and Canada started for the 2014 model year. Mitsubishi clearly thought that there was appetite in the market for a very cheap small car that would rival the Nissan Versa as well as a slew of slightly costlier rivals such as the Hyundai Accent, Kia Rio, Chevrolet Sonic and Toyota Yaris. With annual sales in the USA in excess of 20,00 units a year, their belief that there was a demand for a low-priced car seemed somewhat justified, even if, one by one those other rivals have all, with the exception of the Nissan Versa, ended production and not been replaced.

I sampled a US market Mirage in 2016, and was not exactly impressed. Since that time, as well as a couple of facelifts that have changed the frontal appearance, Mitsubishi have added the three box G4 version to the range and augmented the equipment levels a bit including some of the now expected or mandated tech. Whilst I was curious to see whether a car that was somewhat below par in 2016 would stand any chance in 2024, my expectations were so low that when a new batch of Mirages appeared in the Hertz US fleet in 2022 and 2023, I did not exactly prioritise taking one of these, but finally curiosity got the better of me on what would be a shorter rental day in Los Angeles as I was due to fly out to Phoenix in the later afternoon. I spotted this car, complete with its attempt to try to look a little less dowdy, with its black alloys and red trim inserts, a Mirage G4 Black Edition, and decided to take it for a few hours. It could not be that bad, could it?

A conventional key is needed to start the Mirage. You will instantly wish you’d not bothered. Power, what little of it there is, comes from a 1.2 litre three cylinder engine that puts out just 76 bhp. It vibrates a lot when you start it up and gets no better when you are on the move. This is a thrashy unrefined engine pretty much all the time. Even allowing for the fact that the Mirage is both small and light, 76 bhp really is not enough – a lot less than you will find in any of its rivals – and the car feels underpowered at the best of times with modest acceleration, with a quoted 0 – 60 time of over 13 seconds. I took the Mirage up into the mountains, where I often go with test cars and there it really struggled on even the more modest inclines. It really had to be worked hard just to maintain even modest progress. The transmission does not help as it always seemed to be somewhat behind what was called for, a not uncommon problem with CVT transmissions. I only subjected my self to 94 miles behind the wheel, and the car needed 2 gallons to fill it up, which works out at 47 mpg US or 56.15 mpg Imperial, which is a good result especially given how hard I had to work the car, and the reality may have been even better than this if the car was only “rental car full”.

Thankfully that dire engine is the worst attribute of the driving experience. The rest of it is just fairly unremarkable. The steering is extremely light and lacks much in the way of feel, but for a car that is more likely to be used on urban journeys, manoeuverability and ease of parking may be more of a consideration than a sporty and engaging experience. Handling is absolutely fine for a car of this type, with plenty of grip and a propensity to understeer long before you are likely to get into trouble. The Mirage comes on some fairly small and narrow 185/55 R15 tyres which means that the ride can actually be quite compliant, but there were also surfaces where it was annoyingly jittery. The brakes worked as you would hope and there is a traditional pull-up handbrake between the seats. All around visibility is pretty good and the stubby dimensions mean that the car is easy enough to position on the road. There is a rear-view camera and this has been a bit better integrated that the truly comedic placement on the boot of the hatch versions. You won’t get frustrated by any ADAS features here as there aren’t any of the annoying ones even on the options list.

The interior of the Mirage would probably have been declared as perfectly acceptable were this review to have been done 12 – 15 years ago, but by today’s standards it looks very old-fashioned and it goes without saying that is also formed from a lot of cheap and hard plastics for which a bit of cloth on the door casing cannot really compensate. The Black Edition trim does give you a leather-wrapped moulded steering wheel. The instrument cluster is very simply with two large overlapping circular dials for speed and rev counter with a dot matrix style fuel level in the central trip computer area. It looks like it comes from 1995. There are two column stalks and surprisingly they include auto lights and auto wipers. There are buttons on the steering wheel boss for cruise control and audio repeaters. The centre of the dash has a very simple 7” touch screen for the audio system, which still relies on traditional knobs and buttons. You do get Apple Car Play and Android Auto as well as Bluetooth and there are four audio speakers. Beneath this is the climate control system, and this proved rather feeble in output terms.

The seats are upholstered in a sort of cheap cloth and the Black Edition trim gives you some splashes of red colour flocking which look almost out of place in such a budget car. Seat adjustment is all manual and for the passenger that does not go as far as a height adjuster. Even where you do have that, the driver still feels to be perched quite high in the car though thankfully there is still ample headroom. The steering column does adjust so I was able to get a good driving position and the seat itself was comfortable enough for the time I spent sitting on it.

The rear seat area is quite spacious for a small car. There is good legroom, even with the front seat set well back, and there is negligible intrusion from a central tunnel, though of course the car is not really wide enough for three adults to fit comfortably. There is a drop-down armrest and a single seat-back map pocket but no bins on the doors.

Not surprisingly, there is no external key for the boot and the lid feels cheap and flimsy as there is a single skin and no lining. The figures will tell you that there is less space here than in the hatch model but even here, for a small car I would say that boot capacity is good. The rear seat backrests are fixed in position, though but there is a small cat-flap sized connection through. Things are not quite so good inside the passenger compartment, with just a modest glovebox, small door pockets and two cupholders and a small tray under the base of the central part o the dash.

The 2022 Mitsubishi Mirage comes in hatchback and G4 sedan forms, both of which offer four trims: ES, LE, Black Edition and SE. All trims feature a 76 bhp three-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive. The entry-level model gets a five-speed manual transmission and is available with a continuously variable automatic (CVT); the CVT is standard on the other trims. Every ES rolls on steel wheels. Standard features include cloth upholstery, a six-way manually adjustable driver’s seat, a four-way manually adjustable front passenger seat, automatic climate control, remote keyless entry, a 12-volt power outlet, forward collision warning, forward automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection, a rearview camera and a 7-inch touch-screen infotainment system with Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, a four-speaker stereo, a USB port, Bluetooth and voice recognition. Front and rear parking sensors are available. The LE comes with alloy wheels and a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT). Otherwise, it mirrors the ES in equipment. Black Edition models have black-painted alloy wheels and side-mirror caps, a black roof spoiler, some red interior details and grille stripes, rain-sensing windshield wipers and a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob. The SE gains LED headlights with automatic high beams, heated front seats, a driver’s seat armrest, partial synthetic leather upholstery, proximity keyless entry, push-button start and lane-departure warning.

The Mirage G4 really is not a good car. About its only redeeming feature is the low price. So if you really really must have a brand new car, maybe it is worth consideration, but truth be told, you would be much better off buying a late model version of just about anything else. In an era where cars don’t rust any more, the argument for buying brand new as opposed to a year or so old has largely evaporated, and honestly, absolutely anything would be better than the Mirage G4.