Originally Posted by
4-G-rim
Simple.....no market here in the U.S. during the 7g and 8g generations.
MMCNA decided to bring the 6g GVR4 here in the states is because at the time the 6g had a awsome reputation since it won the North America Import Car of the Year award beating the Accord the Camry. Galant sales were high and Galant GSX's ( n/a 4G63 AWD) were selling very quickly. So...in addition to the new performance oriented Eclipse and 3000GT..Mitsu decided to bring a limited amount of Galant VR4's to sell here in the U.S to take advantage of the hot Galant GSX sales and improve their "Performance brand" persona.
Well...Mitsu realized that its a tough market to sell a $30k Mitsu Sedan where you could spend that type of money into a BMW, Mercedes, etc etc. Eventually in 92 they only decided to bring over a 1000 and eventually 93 not to bring over any GVR4's to the states.
Simply during the mid 90's and early 2000's...there wasn't a market for "high performance" sedans in the U.S. The BOOM were SUV's here in the U.S. and Sedans were marketed as reliable and value. This is why we never saw early generation of Evos, WRX's, Skylines, FTO's, etc etc. Japanese car makers here in the U.S. were already having a hard enough time selling their flagship vehicles in their lineup which eventually came their end in the late 90's like the Supra, 3000GT, RX7, 300ZX, etc etc