See why the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete pickup truck is my choice for a lifestyle vehicle
Okay, I will preface this entire thing by first mentioning that I have never driven a pickup truck before the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete and to be honest, never considered pickup trucks in general. However, after almost a week with this car, I think pickup trucks are probably the most ideal lifestyle vehicle. Let’s see why.
Okay, so obviously a pickup truck can be intimidating to most people, myself included, as I am used to smaller and lower slung cars like sedans. The Mitsubishi Triton Athlete helps alleviate some of the anxiety of first time pickup truck drivers by adding cameras on all sides to help maneuver in tight spaces.
Moreover, being a big and very long thing, the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete can easily accommodate four to five adults as well as a weekend’s worth of camping equipment and luggage making it ideal for long distance holidays, hiking trips, camping or fishing trips and everything in between. The versatility of the loading bed also helped.
The Mitsubishi Triton Athlete is also very well equipped but also provides a good balance of retro and modern with a bunch of safety features as well as convenience features such as a lane departure warning and Android Auto while maintaining a conventional gear selector and handbrake.
Powered by a 2.4-litre turbocharged diesel MIVEC engine, the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete is more than capable of off-roading while having good power on the road with its 178hp of power and 430Nm of torque. Plus at RM141,500, the level of kit along with additional features like orange stitching in the interior is very good.
On top of that, driving something so big and long was intimidating at first, and the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete rides so high off the ground, it took some getting used to. Still, the ride was smooth and the car managed to impress me with how similar it felt to driving a smaller SUV so it became very easy to handle very fast.
Yes, it will never truly be able to emulate driving a smaller car but then again, having felt the power one inherently gets on the road when driving a pickup truck like the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete as other cars tend to just get out of your way to make space for you, the experience was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be.
Both my videographer and I did need to adjust a bit when we first started driving the Mitsubishi Triton Athlete, but it was surprisingly easy to adapt and with its versatility and practicality, I think pickup trucks are more ideal lifestyle vehicles than ever before. It’s safe to say the days where pickup trucks are purely utilitarian are over.
