2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport starts at $19,275, tops out near $38K! [UPDATE]

Shortly after finding ourselves strapped in the driver's seat of the 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport, we called it "a right-sized CUV that takes the core components of its bigger brother (the regular Outlander) and distills them into a smaller, lighter package."

Smaller and lighter doesn't necessarily mean cheaper, though. While the Outlander Sport's starting price of $19,275 (*after destination charges) undercuts the Outlander's by about $3,500, it's not terribly difficult to option up a Sport beyond the $30,000 mark.

In fact, ticking off very available Outlander Sport option on Mitsubishi's Build & Price page will darn near double its base MSRP (none of those options is an engine upgrade, either - all Sports use the same 148-horsepower four-cylinder). Granted, a more realistic set of options still keeps the Outlander Sport well under $30k, but even that pricing seems remarkably close to the bigger, more powerful Outlander V6. Hat tip to Clayton!

UPDATE: Turns out you can't really option up the Outlander Sport to $38K in real life. Mitsubishi's online configurator isn't all that smart and will let you add individual options to the car that are already included in other option packages. Thus, if you check all the boxes like we did, you'll end paying twice for expensive items like the navigation system.

[Source: Mitsubishi]