The latest incarnation of the Triton was launched today and addresses issues buyers had with the current model. In particular the tray is now 180 mm longer and 55 mm higher and active stability control and traction control have been introduced. There's also an all-new heart for Triton, a high-torque 2.5 litre common rail direct injection turbo-diesel that not only gets better economy than the old 3.2 litre diesel engine, but significantly improved power and torque. The new engine generates 131 kW of power, but more importantly has torque to burn with 400 Nm at 2000 rpm.

Mitsubishi launched the MY 201 0 Triton in northern New South Wales, including serious off-road testing at Crystal Creek, south of the Gold Coast. “The Triton has shown that it is more than a rugged work vehicle than can take all the hard knocks thrown at it,” said MMAL president and CEO, Robert McEniry. “It is now recognised for it's outstanding four-wheel drive capabilities and car-like comforts.” Mitsubishi claim the new engine returns 8.3 litres/100 km, a nine per cent improvement, in manual transmission variant. Automatic variants get lower torque at 350 Nm to fit in with driveline needs and return 9.3 litres/100 km.

The new long-bed tray for dual cab models offers a total tray length of 1505mm and total tray height of 460mm, and improvement of 14 per cent in both directions. The two-wheel drive range retains the 2.4 litre petrol engine and the 2.5 litre diesel engine from the current model. The petrol engine develops 94 kW of power at 5250 rpm and 194 Nm of torque at 4000 rpm. Mitsubishi claim economy of 10.9 litres/100 km from the petrol manual variant and 8.2 litres/100 from the diesel manual and 8.6 litres/100 km from the auto. The diesel engine generates 100 kW of power at 3800 rpm and 314 Nm of torque at 2000 rpm.

Mitsubishi has simplified its Triton range with eight two-wheel drive variants. These are the petrol-powered manual GL cab chassis and GLX dual-cab, and automatic or manual diesel powered GLX cab chassis and GL-R dual cab. The new high-powered 2.5-litre engine is available on four wheel drive models in either manual or automatic transmissions in GLX single cabs and dual cabs or GLX-R dual cabs. Two automatic transmissions are available on 2.5 high-powered variants – a four speed on the GL-R and a five speed on the GLX-R.

We were able to road test the five speed manual GL-R Triton dual cab 2.5 high powered turbo diesel off-road at Crystal Creek and the five speed automatic variant GLX-R on road. We have to say we had reservations about a 2.5 litre diesel – turbo charged or not. The current 3.2 litre seemed a much better match for this workhorse. How wrong we were. Mitsubishi engineers have done a great job with this engine. The improved performance – in an engine around 25 per cent small in capacity – is remarkable. Improvements include changes to the combustion chamber shape, optimized injector specifications, adding a variable geometry turbo charger and increasing the turbo charging pressure. In trying off-road conditions the engine displays superb torque. We used second gear low range to tackle many steep hills which saw the engine idling over at around 1000 with no sign of either stalling or lacking in grunt if needed. Engine braking was pretty good using first gear low range on steep descents. We also tried a key-start on one steep hill and the starter motor/ engine responded as a good fourby should ... effortless forward movement until the engine kicked over.