Mitsu Evo a nutcase of a car and addictive
The phone rang. It was my husband with two questions. “What’s for lunch,” and “Can we get this Evo?”
Oh no, I thought, I could feel an intervention coming on.
The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution gets into your system like a virus and then destroys your ability to reason.
It’s the steering, precise as a laser cut; the power like a jolt of electricity with each press of the pedal; and the pedigreed Brembo brakes that keep the Evo from falling off the edge of the world.
It’s a nutcase of a car and I fell in love with it too.
It’s edgy, twitchy, chippy, and a little scary, everything a sports sedan should be.
My tester was a $51,798 Lancer Evolution MR. It’s lost its circus trapeze rear spoiler, gained a credible interior, and tuned out some excessive engine noise with extra insulation. Refinements for sure, but not so heavy-handed that the Evo’s brawling personality is diminished.
The MR is a step up from the Evo GSR (base price $41,998). The MR has a twin clutch transmission, and comes with a handling package that includes Brembo brakes, swell looking BBS alloy wheels and the essential Bilstein shocks and Eibach springs.
Now when Mr. Bilstein meets Mr. Eibach, they take no prisoners. The Evo turns every tar strip into a 2x4. Thump, thwack, and ping goes the Evo over rough roads. The slaphappy driver will not notice the commotion, but a passenger may compare it to cycling over the cobblestones in the Paris-Roubaix road race.
I drove the Evo between some high horsepower brutes, the Porsche 911 Turbo S and the Mustang Shelby, both packing horsepower northward of 500. The four-cylinder Evo — turbocharged, intercooled, waxed, polished and blown dry — makes full use of its 291 horses and 300 lb.-ft. of torque. You don’t feel hard done by.
Though I remain fully committed to manuals with a clutch, the Evo’s “automatic manual” is a perfect match for the transmission. Though it can be shifted using steering column mounted paddles, the Evo in Sport mode does a fine job without human intervention. Most satisfying is the bracing way it downshifts, matching revs and acting all serious even if it’s just turning into a suburban cul-de-sac.
In addition to Sport mode there is Normal, which is useful for hunting down yard sales, and S-Sport, which is not for public roads, cautions the owner’s manual.
Only occasionally would the six-speed transmission get goofy. This would happen when the car was winding down in first gear, and given some throttle it would protest with a confused clank. Other notable traits include off-the-line hesitation where the Evo would feel like a horse refusing a jump.
But the fast shifting Evo is bloody great fun on the open road, and with all-wheel drive, brakes like a bear trap, and whippet fast steering, it handles our boring roads with arrogant ease. It’s also fun to speculate how capable the Evo would be in winter with its rally roots.
I like that it has some weird traits — it gives it personality. The engine doesn’t shut off right away when you turn off the ignition as the gears in the twin clutch need time to disengage so it will start smoothly next time. Sometimes when you stop the engine, it pops and pings, sounding like June bugs hitting a windshield; and when the engine’s hot, the cooling fans carry on like they’re venting a domed stadium. It’s a mechanical concerto-Mitsubishi style.
The premium package, which is standard on the MR, is well padded with upgrades, such as Rockford Fosgate audio system, GPS, Bluetooth, and seriously snug Recaro seats. It’s absurd though that there is no seat height adjustment for the driver — discriminatory even. How much money does that save on a limited production car?
The interior is fine, but the two sculpted humps over the instrument panel look like frogs eyes, and the plastics on the thresholds seem to scuff easily. There’s adequate room in the back for two, and generous headroom.
Trunk space is on the small side (195 litres) since both the battery and wiper fluid reservoir are stored there to improve weight distribution.
Though fuel consumption is rated at 12.7 L/100 km city and 8.9 L/100 km highway, I rarely saw the average fuel consumption dip below double digits.
It was hard to take a homely photo of the Evo. It’s a tightly packaged beast, with well-balanced design, and a boldly aggressive front end. The rear view, however, has too much essence of Camry for my liking.
The Evo MR is taking some knocks for its $50,000 plus pricing. But it’s interesting that it’s being comparison-shopped against a wide array of competitors, like the BMW M3, the BMW 1-series, and Mustang Shelby. A truer side-by-side would run the Evo against the Subaru WRX STi, but stylistically I much prefer the racy wedge shape of the Evo over the STi’s dumpling profile.
Racecar driver David Empringham is behind the wheel of an Evo in a series called Time Attack; his car has 800 hp, not an option you can tick off at the Mitsubishi dealership. I asked him how it felt to drive. “It’s the most exhilarating car I have driven,” Empringham relates. “It will spin all four wheels at 100 mph!”
Well I was driving the Evo on our 905 roads, and obeying the law but it still tattooed a smile on my face at each shift behind the wheel.
Oh, by the way, the answer to my husbands questions? Tuna fish and no.
Freelance auto writer Kathy Renwald can be reached at
2010 Mitsubishi Evolution MR
PRICE: base/as tested $51,798/$51,798
ENGINE: 2.0 L inline-4 turbocharged
POWER/TORQUE: 291 hp/300 lb.-ft.
FUEL CONSUMPTION: city 12.7, hwy. 8.9 L/100km (xx/xxx mpg)
COMPETITION: Subaru WRX STI, BMW 1-series
WHAT’S BEST: Knife edged steering, excellent dual clutch transmission, monster brakes
WHAT’S WORST: No seat height adjustment for the driver
WHAT’S INTERESTING: Like that it’s fiesty and uncompromising and rough around the edges.
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