After Japanese Mitsubishi-tuner Ralliart announced early this morning that it would shut its doors for good, Mitsubishi wants to clarify that the closure will not affect Ralliart branded Mitsubishi models sold in the United States. According to PR boss Maurice Durand, Ralliart vehicles will continue to be produced and, “this doesn’t mean there won’t be any future Ralliart vehicles either.”

The reason that the closure won’t have much of an affect, is that the closure only relates to the Ralliart subsidiary in Japan, which produces high-performance parts for street and race cars. In other markets where Mitsubishi licenses the Ralliart name to different companies, only those companies that import official Ralliart Japan products will be affected. According to Durand, in most markets the Ralliart parts are actually re-branded parts from another tuner (like HKS).

The parts used on official Ralliart models sold in the U.S. are developed seperately and so will not be affected.

“While the demise is sad,” says Durand, “this is a part of the economic reality. There just isn’t much of a market for elite high-performance products, especially in Japan right now.”

If you’re in the market for one of Mitsubishi’s Eclipse Spyders and prefer the control a manual transmission gives you, then act now. Mitsubishi has quietly removed the optional five-speed and six-speed transmissions from its lineup for 2010.

We stumbled across this bit of news on Mitsubishi’s consumer site, which lists both the 2009 and 2010 Spyder models for sale. Mitsubishi’s Product MP manager Maurice Durand confirmed it with us.

The consumer site doesn’t list any info for the 2010 coupe model, but Durand told AutoGuide that the manual transmission will continue to be offered for the coupe.

With the introduction of the new 2010 model Mitsubishi is also eager to move its 2009 inventory, offering $2,000 off on any model, meaning you can get a five-speed four-cylinder GS for $24,669 or a six-speed V6 GT for $27,869.

These deals sound even better when you consider the 2010 models see a price increase, with the base 4-cylinder automatic running $28,494 (a $1,545 increase) and the V6 automatic now priced from $33,523 (a $3,374 increase). Part of the added price comes from the fact that the GS model now gets a 5-speed auto-box rather thean the old four-speed unit, while the GT model gets a new 6-speed auto.