The Slowest Car In America

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Slowest Car In America

© 2021 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross facelift PHEV (CC BY 2.0) by Rutger van der Maar

Among the things most car buyers examine when they buy a new car are price, reliability, fuel range, MPG, and horsepower (hp). Some people want fast cars. They look at engine size, performance, and how fast a car travels from zero to 60 miles per hour, which is usually the speed yardstick. A fast car can travel from zero to 60 in five seconds. An extremely fast one covers the same ground in under three seconds. Based on these speed metrics, some cars are remarkably slow. The slowest one in America is the Mitsubishi Mirage, which takes 12.1 seconds to make the short trip.

According to CarHP, the Mirage has a 1.4 liter, 3 IH. That means it has an engine with three cylinders in one line. The engine puts out 78 hp. It is rare to see a car that is under 100. According to CarHP, the Mirage did not come with an automatic transmission. Rather, it has a five-speed, manual transmission. Its top speed is 102 mph. Many American cars top out at 120 or even higher.

Mitsubishi Motors does not sell many cars in the US. Last year, the total was 85,810 vehicles, down from 102,037 in 2021. Mitsubishi sold 15,816 Mirage units, down from 22,741 the year before. These are the best-selling cars in America.

The Mirage is priced under $18,000, less than half what most new cars sell for. It has a 10-year warranty, which is unusually long. Mitsubishi recently replaced the five-speed manual transmission with a much more common automatic.

The Mirage tends to get poor reviews. Car and Driver gives it a grade of 2.5 out of 5. Its reviewers write, “Interior furnishings reflective of the price, is that an engine or are those gerbils under the hood?”

The Mirage is slow but a good way to save money on the price and great gas mileage.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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