Mitsubishi Montero 3.2 DI-D (Old)

Floor the throttle and you are struck by the sheer responsiveness of the engine. The over two-and-a-half ton Montero surges ahead with effortless ease. You always feel you have an abundance of power — irrespective of the gears — and the engine is quite rev-happy too. Besides, it doesn’t tail off rapidy near the red line like other diesels.

Acceleration is superb and the Montero can maintain a pace that would leave many luxury saloons floundering in its wake. All the controls like the steering, gearshift and pedals feel light. In fact, the Montero feels quite car-like to drive, both in town and on the highway. The engine has been tweaked too, putting out a 165bhp; a marginal increase over the earlier model.

The performance is adequate and the new Montero feels significantly slower than the older model. That's because the new model with all the safety kit and other bells and whistles has swelled to 2,310kg, which is 185kg more than before. Still, the short first and second gear help make the car quite driveable in the urban crawl. There always seems to be sufficient power on hand and turbo lag, though present, does not prove to be too much of a problem, the Montero lunging forward smartly with a tap of the throttle.

In our city cycle, the Montero could do no better than 7.3 kilometres per litre (kpl) while on the highway it just about got into double-digits. The huge 88-litre tank gives the Montero decent range.