Mitsubishi is back selling vehicles in the UK just five years after the company withdrew from Europe. Models will be on sale through a number of the company’s extensive after-sales showrooms, that have operated fully throughout the absence.
At the launch of the L200 pick-up and Outlander PHEV models at Thruxton Race Circuit, we caught up with Toby Marshall, Managing Director for Mitsubishi Motors in the UK.
And the smile couldn’t have been wider on the man who has Mitsi running through his veins. Toby joined the Colt Car Company (CCC), as it was called back in the day, almost immediately after leaving university and worked his way up through the ranks. He was appointed Sales and Marketing Director in 2011, and then promoted to MD when International Motors bought the Mitsubishi Motors UK aftersales business.
What was your early career at Mitsubishi like ?
So I joined CCC (which is what we were previously called) back in 98, so 28 years ago and I came in pretty much as a graduate. I had a couple of roles before then, but came in number-crunching and analysing dealer territories and trying to help dealers understand the type of person that was buying the Carisma or Space Star. So that was good. I then had various different roles moving around every two or three years.
Then we got the bad news that Mitsubishi were pulling out of Europe.
What was it like when you heard Mitsubishi were stopping sales in Europe in 2021?
Oh, it was a real shock. Rob Lindley who was the MD at the time was called to the meeting. It was during COVID but it was at a stage where people could travel. Yeah, he was called to a meeting and we thought it was going to be bad news. We thought they were going to be late with the new Outlander or something.
And he came back and called us all in to the office, because we were all working from home, and said it was bad news, they're pulling out of Europe and then it went public a couple of days later. It was a complete shock.
So, I was After Sales Director at the time so the company had to restructure obviously. I became MD of the After Sales business. Then International Motors bought the after sales assets and so we got moved over.
What does the after sales business actually do?
So, I was moved over along with, basically most of the after sales team, the technical guys and girls, the warranty guys and girls, customer service team.
We've always tried to give amazing service to our dealers because we do that and they'll give amazing service to the customers. And we knew that we had to work doubly-hard because the park was getting older.
We wanted people to keep coming into our dealers to have their cars maintained. We wanted customers to keep on returning.
What was it like hearing Mitsi was returning to sales in the UK?
Oh amazing. We heard the news October, November time last year. We got the dealers in and told them about it and put a quick press release out about it as well.
Everyone is super excited. You know there's a big smile on lots of faces. We invited people who have been working at the coal face down to Thruxton last week. There were 50 dealerships here - we didn't necessarily want the dealer principals; we wanted the boys and the girls who work on the shop floor.
But what really stuck out for me was that excitement across the network.
And will it ever return to the glory days of years gone by?
I don't know. We are a UK distributor so we can get as many cars as we want. Equally, we're not going to fill up airfields like some brands. So that's quite a nice position to be in.
We’re trying to operate it in the same way as we used to in that we can keep two or three months’ supply at Sheerness. That way, we've got relatively short lead times if people want a car but not too many vehicles down there.
Why have you chosen the L200 and Outlander PHEV as the two models to sell?
The L200 and Outlander PHEV are what we were best known for in the most recent years. So it's where we'll definitely be starting.
They accounted for most of our sales in the last ten years with about 10,000 a year of each of them.
Where will customers be able to buy a new Mitsi?
We've got 120 after sales points around the UK right now, 50 of them increasing to 60, will sell the vehicles as well.
Do you think the likes of the L200 will attract customers from existing IM brands such as the Isuzu D-Max?
I actually don't know. I think that pick-up truck customers are very loyal to their brand. I think there are loads and loads and loads of people who are very loyal to L200. So, I think definitely it'll be the people who know L200 and have wanted another one who will be our first customers.
Will the taxation changes impact on the enthusiasm for pick-ups?
Well, the big change is BiK, obviously, but there's some confusion because VAT and other things haven’t changed and that's what people don't understand. It's still VAT qualifiable. But BiK has changed, so we're also doing a commercial vehicle version of both of them, the Barbarian and the Titan. That way, if people genuinely do need a work vehicle and therefore benefit from a lower BiK, there's that model as well. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there.
Finally, with so much history with the company, how excited are you to see Mitsubishi bringing new models to market again in the UK?
We are all super excited. It’s just got such a strong history hasn’t it? The energy is just through the roof.