Next-gen 2026 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport marinating

Despite the latest Triton having been here for well over a year now, the corresponding Mitsubishi Pajero Sport is still a while off and probably won’t arrive here until at least the middle of 2026.

That was the indication given by Mitsubishi Australia CEO Shaun Westcott and product strategy general manager Bruce Hampel at last week’s 2025 Outlander launch, with the pair revealing a new Pajero Sport is indeed coming, just not soon.

“We’re a company that believes in suspense,” Westcott said.

“And I guess that’s been from bitter experience where we’ve released information too soon – you get fatigue and people stop reporting in by the time the real product lands.

“What I can confirm is there will be a replacement for the Pajero Sport … I can also tell you is it’s looking really, really good.”

The next-generation 4x4 wagon was widely anticipated to debut and arrive sometime this year, roughly 12-18 months after the introduction of the latest Triton as per the typical ute-SUV dynamic employed by most other brands: Ranger and Everest, D-MAX and MU-X, HiLux and Fortuner etc.

But the new Pajero Sport was absent from a 2025 product roll-out timeline shown to media on the launch, with Hampel then clarifying there’s still plenty of stock of the existing model.

“We’ve got enough stock of the current Pajero Sport to the end of next year,” he said.

“The intention was that we’ve purchased enough stock, we’ve got wheels on the ground here to get us through to the end of or into 2026.”

The comments shed some light on the seemingly non-existent timeline of Mitsubishi’s upcoming Everest and MU-X fighter seeing as the brand can no longer import the now decade-old current model due to the March introduction of ADR 98/00 (mandating car-to-car AEB), meaning it’s been stockpiling units to ensure its presence in the ladder-frame SUV segment until the new generation arrives… seemingly in the second half of 2026.

By then the dust from the first 12 months of NVES penalties (and credits) will have settled and in turn kicked up a notch, meaning manufacturers will have to pay increasingly close attention to their powertrain line-ups.

Mitsubishi Australia has already confirmed its portfolio will comprise petrol, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric offerings by 2030, and it seems the new Pajero Sport could be ripe for electrification.

Hampel described the new model as a “flagship SUV product” for the brand and alluded to it benefitting from Mitsubishi’s newly established local ride and handling program, and with the Triton destined for some form of electrification in the coming years, it would make sense for the brand’s halo family hauler to follow suit.

“Coming back to our use cases around utes and where we’re going to go in the future, that’s one (plugless hybrids) of the considerations,” Westcott said, referencing the current shortcomings of current battery-electric and plug-in hybrid pick-up trucks.

“We believe that we need that breadth or combination of powertrains to meet market needs.

“We have to stay alive by selling cars, by bringing product that consumers want and that meet their needs.”

Adding a hybrid or even a mild hybrid powertrain to your flagship SUV seems like a no-brainer in the current climate given the rampant success of Toyota’s established line-up (Prado included), the pending introduction of a hybrid LandCruiser 300 Series and the continued popularity of GWM-Tank’s hybrid models, not to mention the obvious implications of NVES.

To that end, a mild hybrid set-up looks the most plausible short-term solution given there’s no arguing with the long-established cruising, off-road and towing capabilities of turbo-diesel engines.

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