Mitsubishi Returns to Rebelle Rally 2020 with the Outlander PHEV
Last year, Mitsubishi Motors started its Small Batch Initiative, a marketing plan set forth with a solid idea in mind – benefiting the community. The idea was simple – produce a small batch of vehicles from the lineup, not for retail sale, but to use in ways that benefit others, be it something as simple as using these vehicles to help teach a National Teen Defensive Driving Program, helping with disaster relief, or donating vehicles to charities like the Goodie Two Shoes Foundation to assist their charitable efforts in the coming year. Towards the end of 2019, one of Mitsubishi Motors’ first larger impacts of the “Small Batch – Big Impact” Initiative was during the Rebelle Rally, and returning for 2020, Mitsubishi Motors plans to make history.
This time, we’re going electric. Last year, Mitsubishi donated a modified Eclipse Cross vehicle and donated to a team dubbed “Record the Journey” (RTJ), a military veterans’ nonprofit organization. The team was made up of military veterans Karah Behrend from the air force who had to retire for medical reasons after a degenerative neurological disease led to the loss of major motor function in her lower legs and parts of her hands, and Record the Journey charity founder and team navigator Rachael Ridenour, a U.S. Army combat veteran with 31 years of service. The Eclipse Cross was modified for Behrend, making history in the Rebelle Rally as the first disabled athlete to compete.
For those unaware, the Rebelle Rally is a long-standing competition in the lower 48 states of the nation. In total, it’s a 2000-kilometer race of off-road navigation, and not only the first all-women’s off-road rally but also the longest competition in the U.S. (in terms of those 48 states). After taking the modified Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross to second place in the Crossover class and earning the 2019 Rebelle Rally Team Spirit Award, Mitsubishi donated the vehicle, named “Rosie the Riveter”, to Record the Journey permanently, now used as a support vehicle for charity programming with other veterans and their families.
2020 is a year that will go down in history books, so why not ride the coattails and make a little of your own history? Mitsubishi Motors has the right idea, returning to the Rebelle Rally with a new vehicle to break the barriers. Led by the same Ridenour of yesteryear, Team Record the Journey will get behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. In fact, the entire Rebelle Rally went electric for 2020, and added a special designation to honor the highest-finishing battery-powered electric vehicle (BEV) and hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) in each class (with allowances for on-course rapid charging), in addition the 4×4 and Crossover classes of competition. Now is the time to show what the Outlander PHEV is made of, and it all starts October 8-17, through the slopes of Lake Tahoe, California, culminating in the Imperial Dunes of Glamis, east of San Diego.
“The Rebelle Rally shows us what is possible when we have the courage and ambition to do more with the cars in our driveway, and we all need that inspiration now more than ever…We are thrilled to continue our support for Team Record the Journey this year with the world’s best-selling plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, and to continue to prove our legacy of quality, dependability and reliability.” MMNA Chief Operating Officer Mark Chaffin
Here’s hoping for first place. Follow along with Mitsubishi Motors Small Batch Initiative on University Mitsubishi social media.
