Mitsubishi has blamed a poor first half of the year performance on the global success of its new models. Simply put, the Japanese firm claims it can't get its hands on enough stock to satisfy supply. Sales are down in the UK by almost 18%, despite the acclaimed L200 going on sale.

"Fleets have been taking the second wave of vehicles from retail dealers, this has meant shortage of higher series L200s that attract user-choosers and the majority of our fleet business," said Mitsubishi's fleet boss Andy Wertheim.

"If we had the high series trucks we would have easily matched last year's sales figures," added Wertheim.

A similar lack of supply has affected the recent coupe convertible Colt that has had a surprising uptake with fleets, with Wertheim exclaiming "we simply can't get enough of them".

Mitsubishi has continued to lobby for more units and an extra 1000 vehicles are expected to be allocated to the UK for the second half of this year. With the majority thought to be L200s, the firm is still hoping to match last years sales.

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