TL Magna

No amount of nose or tail lifting could hide the seven-plus year age of the competent but ageing Magna and Verada.

The fact that Mitsubishi international forced the Adelaide engineers to graft a nose that divided buyers was no help, especially as the reborn BA Falcon and always-popular Commodore were flying high, along with a fresh Toyota Camry.

Cabin trim was revised, and Executive and Altera vanished for ES and LS nomenclature.

There were worthwhile improvements to the steering, ride and handling, the long-lived 155kW/316Nm 3.5 V6 was always a peach (143kW/296Nm in LPG models), while up-spec models like the sporty 163kW/317Nm VR gained the luxury Verada’s five-speed Tiptronic-style auto instead of the four-speed version.

And then, two months later, there was the Magna’s unique all-wheel drive Magna sedans (154kW/310Nm AWD and 159kW/318Nm VR and its VR-X AWD replacement from August ’04).

But despite massive discounting and glowing AWD reviews, buyers lost interest and faith in a company that constantly lived under the spectre of shutting up local manufacturing.

And the 2005 all-new Galant replacement was still too far away…