2014 Mitsubishi Outlander Scores Triple-digit April Gain

With Suzuki out of the picture and two credible crossover choices on the roster—in the shapes of the 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander and Outlander Sport—one of the country's lower-volume brands has been seeing some sky-high sales improvement recently. That would be Mitsubishi, of course, which just followed up its 70.1 percent March sales gain with a 46.6 percent spike in volume in April.

Now, we're still talking fairly small volumes, as the brand totaled 6,542 deliveries last month, but that did put Mitsubishi essentially on par with Lincoln (6,803 April sales) and comfortably ahead of names like Fiat, Volvo, MINI and Porsche, none of which topped 4,700 deliveries last month.

As mentioned, it's the brand's two crossovers that are doing much of the heavy lifting here, and that continued in April, when the midsize 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander crossover delivered 1,168 units in this country. That result marked the highest April sales total for the Outlander in the past six years and translated into a 125 percent advance in volume versus April 2013. Then, the Outlander's stablemate, the compact Outlander Sport, earned 2,619 sales in April to fall just 15 units short of an all-time monthly record for volume. As it was, the Outlander Sport grew sales by 24.1 percent in April and is running ahead of last year's sales pace by 37.5 percent through the first four months of 2014.

Mitsubishi continues to see some modest success with its new subcompact, too: The 2014 Mitusbishi Mirage, in its first April at U.S. dealerships, pitched in with 1,331 sales. Again, that's not a lot of deliveries, but it was almost twice the total achieved by the Mazda2 (752 units) last month and nearly caught the Toyota Yaris that only sold 1,450 units during April.

And while the news is unlikely to have a major effect on business, the brand also had some further sales news for April, announcing some relatively minor adjustments to its destination and handling charges. The 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander and Outlander Sport have their charges bumped $25, to $850, while the Mirage, along with the Lancer family, see $15 increases to $810.

Destination and handling for the 2014 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, after a full dozen April sales, is unchanged at $850.