Surviving a 100km/h-plus impact with a semi
Minnesota Mitsubishi dealer proudly shows off a totalled ASX that saved a customer's lifeWhen US resident Sarah Dittrich impacted an oncoming truck travelling at 105km/h in her 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport – which is essentially a Mitsubishi ASX in Australia – it could have barely been expected she would walk away from the incident.
Apart from a bloodied nose however, she did survive. And she has gone on to become something of an icon for White Bear Mitsubishi in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, the selling dealer, which now features the totalled SUV outside its service drive as a validation of the car-maker's safety credentials.
According to a report in Automotive News, Dittrich's Outlander Sport had been bumped across the median strip into the path of oncoming traffic – which included the semi bearing down at 100-plus km/h. In a TV commercial for the suburban Twin Cities dealership, the unscathed driver credits the Outlander Sport for saving her life.
The wrecked Outlander Sport has become a big marketing tool for the already booming dealership (White Bear Mitsubishi ranked in 2013 as the third most successful Mitsubishi dealership in the USA) which now, according to Automotive News, sells more of this model a month than any dealer in the world.
Automotive News quoted the dealership's general manager Richard Herod III, who paid US $5250 for the totalled Outlander Sport, as saying "Whenever we run that commercial, we do really well. The advertising value of it has far exceeded what I paid."
As we reported over a year ago, the Outlander Sport was one of just two cars at the time to have passed the small frontal offset crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
Sarah Dittrich's case may not be the first time a crashed car has been used to promote a brand, but the ploy is a consistently effective means of bringing safety to the fore; just ask Mercedes-Benz.
You can watch the YouTube video of the TV Commercial below. Beware, it's a bit cheesy.
Picture courtesy of White Bear Mitsubishi
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