The wonder of an effective marketing campaign is that it sticks right in your head, whether you like it or not.  And while Vinchie and the rest of the Parokya ni Edgar strut their stuff, kissing and rapping their way to the beach, I can’t help but imagine a similar scenario climbing onboard the 2004 Mitsubishi Adventure.  While I have no intension of kissing a fellow man, I do have every intension to test this heavily revised AUV in a field it does best: ferrying people.  When the need of carrying 7 people to the Car of the Year Awards – Philippines test venue was raised, guess which one was the vehicle of choice: the Mitsubishi Adventure.

Of course, the fact that this Adventure is eligible for the awards anyway is a factor, but not the decisive one.  The reason for choosing the Adventure is because it’s the AUV that combined a sense of style with practicality and a hint of performance.  There’s no denying the fact that it’s the sportiest, especially with the 2.0-liter gasoline engine, of all the AUVs.  Now, couple that performance potential with the new corporate nose and the revised suspension make the Adventure one great people carrier.  Only, for this weekend, I wasn’t going to drive the Galant-sourced, 114 horsepower SuperSport, no sir.  Mitsubishi added a dash of practicality into the mix and instead gave me the keys to the range-topping Grand Sport diesel.

The 84 horsepower output didn’t exactly look enticing—as that’s only 1 horsepower more than the puny Toyota Echo.  Still, if there’s an award for surprisingly good performance, it has to go to this car.  Despite Isuzu’s claim to the diesel fame, the Adventure offers a much more refined engine with much better power delivery and grunt.  As far as diesel AUV goes, the Adventure with its normally aspirated 2.5-liter diesel is by far the best I have ever sampled.  The driving pleasure doesn’t stop there.  And unlike even the Ford Everest, the 5-speed manual transmission of the Adventure offers precise and short (for an AUV) making the Adventure easy to drive, even during heavy traffic and even if I’m not that familiar driving a diesel.  The Adventure’s lower gear ratio and peppier diesel engine does have a drawback though: lower fuel mileage.  It delivers roughly 9.5 km/L compared to Isuzu’s 12.3 km/L in a mixed city/highway use.

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