Steady as she goes for next 380

Mitsubishi has conceded that any large car in the Australian market must have a stability control program to succeed.

The company's 380 model doesn't even provide the automotive industry's silver bullet for road toll reduction as an option, but both Commodore and Aurion offer the system as standard across the range. Falcon offers it as an option and you can bet your boots the Project Orion Falcon will up the ante.

That leaves the 380 out in the cold...specifically in the cold of a northern hemisphere winter, being pounded around icy roads, testing brake-based dynamic stability systems.

According to Mitsubishi's Robert Chadwick, the timing for the local release of a 380 with standard stability control "depends on the winter testing -- that's slated to be around mid to second half of next year, provided all the testing gets done in time.

The introduction of stability control for the 380 will coincide with a significant raft of changes. These are not fully decided within Mitsubishi, but the company expects the upgraded 380's specification to be set in concrete by the end of the year.

In Chadwick's words, "We've got a lot of things in the pot...and then we'll put them all together as a package and come out with what we want for the model year."

"When we get to the end of the year, we'll know what we're locking into..."

Whether the upgraded 380 -- which was only recently released as the Series 3 upgrade -- is marketed as 'Series 4' also remains undecided. There's a school of thought within MMAL that the upgrade should be a new model year designation -- '2009 model year' in this specific case. That's how the car is likely to be known in-house, but whether that's the way it's promoted to the public is uncertain.