A beast in the ‘burbs
There are many things to enjoy about the Lancer Evolution, Mitsubishi’s egregiously overpowered perversion of its four-door family sedan: its swallow-your-tongue acceleration (0-60 mph in about 5 seconds); its Power Rangers-on-meth face; the prospect that, in Kansas and Florida, state law requires that you call it the Lancer Creationism.
My absolute favorite is the child-seat anchor system in the back. Taking baby Cody to the Whole Foods in this thing would be as wild as a ride in the clothes dryer.
This car is a Size 14 foot crammed in a Size 8 pump, 50 pounds of smack in a 5-pound gob, a 105-millimeter Howitzer round crammed into a .25-caliber Beretta. Or maybe it’s another piece of munitions entirely: You don’t drive the Evo so much as pull the pin, count to three, and throw. “One ... two ... BOOM.”
For a test drive, drag your recliner up to the nearest PlayStation 2. Digital versions of the Evo and its direct competitor, the Subaru WRX Sti, slug it out on Sony’s World Rally Championship 3 video game with screamers like the Peugeot 206, Citroen Xsara and Ford Focus RS.
An aside: I am amazed that WRC racing is not more popular in the United States (the races are shown on a cable channel called Speed TV). In these timed-stage rally races held around the world, highly modified compact cars with all-wheel-drive rocket over hill and dale and, occasionally, off cliffs. Rally racing requires consummate car control and no detectable levels of self-preservation. You think eating worms has a fear factor? I once asked Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher -- no coward in a race car -- if he thought maybe he would like to try world rally. “Certainly not!” he said. “In a formula car there are only a few places on a track where bad things can happen. In rally, bad things can happen everywhere.”
The Evolution VIII -- the heraldic numerology denotes the eighth iteration of the Evo, though the car came to the U.S. in 2003 -- is a reasonably civilized version of the race car. The full-race Evo is about 557 pounds lighter and 30 horsepower more puissant. The race car has bigger brakes and wheels, full-race suspension and an interior stripped to the steel walls.
Even so, the street-legal Evo feels plenty racy, from its tooth-chipping ride to its deep-bolstered Recaro seats that grab you around the ribs like King Kong cuddling Fay Wray. The steering feel is darty and hypersensitive, like that of a big go-kart, requiring only two turns from full left to full right lock. The ventilated Brembo brakes -- with their showy red calipers peeking from behind the Enkei alloy wheels -- are amazing, precise and powerful. This car looks naked without a big number decal on the door.
First impression: The car is as solid as a granite headstone. Every panel in the unitized steel body is seam welded -- as compared to spot welded, the practice in the regular Lancer -- and the chassis is heavily reinforced from the suspension mountings to the floor pan. When you slam the door the sound is like a sledge striking a tractor tire -- doompf.
The Evo’s styling is similarly like a sledge, right between the peepers. Cops will follow it like it’s trolling with doughnuts. From the windshield forward the bodywork is Evo-specific -- the swollen fenders and hood are aluminum, not steel, and the lower front fascia has three oversized inlets. Behind the center aperture you can see the huge air-to-air intercooler that helps chill air being fed from the turbocharger (cooler air is denser and nets more horsepower).
One of the Evo’s unique features is its water-spray system. You can spritz the intercooler by way of a console-mounted switch to help lower engine intake air temps -- it’s also fun if you want to spray people in the crosswalk. And for those whose doctors recommend more carbon fiber in their diet, a foot-high spoiler is an option.
Beautiful? Heavens, no. It’s a pig in a tracksuit.
Inside, the Evo is pretty straight-ahead, a cheerless, black-and-gray arrangement of climate and audio controls in the central stack (the “RS” competition package deletes the stereo system in the interests of weight saving). A small competition-style Momo steering wheel and handball-sized gearshift knob enhance the go-fast ambience.
None of which prepares you, really, for the moment you spark the fuse of the Evo. Under the hood is Mitsubishi’s 2.0-liter dual-overhead-cam four-banger (alloy head, iron block), race-prepped with forged aluminum connecting rods and pistons churning a forged steel crank. Under the magnesium valve covers, most of the valve train has been lightened to reduce reciprocating masses and increase revs. A twin-scroll turbocharger force-feeds air into the engine like it’s making horsepower pate.
It all adds up to 271 horsepower that comes on with the gentle modulation of a Dremmel tool -- zzzziiiIINNNGG!!!!
Never has ugly been so fast.
Snick the short-throw five-speed into first gear and slip the clutch. The car is noisy. The clutch churrs, the synchros whine and the all-wheel-drive running gear scuffs like sandpaper across the back of a violin. The Evo has plenty of low-rpm turbo lag, but just keep your foot down. When the revs climb into the power band (about 4,500 rpm) the car goes into banshee mode. The feeling of the steering wheel pulling away from your hands is like the sensation of a water ski towrope pulling you off a dock.
Our test car -- a 2003 model that had been soundly thrashed by every disreputable car buff book in Southern California -- was utterly unfazed by abuse. The five-speed slotted with greasy precision in every gear gate, and soon thereafter a wild blurt of velocity followed. Mitsu claims the car has a top speed of 150 mph, which seems a bit high for a five-speed with a 4.529 final drive ratio. In any event, few four-doors have the casual criminality, the license-losing licentiousness of the Evo.
Because it’s all-wheel drive, the Evo isn’t easy to launch cleanly. All that traction under the 17-inch Yokohamas tends to bog the engine at launch. I tried to verify the manufacturer’s 0-60 mph acceleration in an empty parking lot. I came close (5.2 seconds), but I had to cruelly drop the clutch at over 4,000 rpm to do it. Ouch.
The AWD system (viscous-coupling center differential, open front differential and a limited-slip diff in the rear) apportions torque 50-50 between the front and rear ends of the car. In the dry-pavement paradise of L.A., you have to cook the car pretty hard to really get much handling benefit out of the AWD system. Meanwhile, the soft-compound tires feel magnetized to the asphalt. The cornering loads in this car must be close to 1 G. When I started my test run I had a full can of Coke. Now I can’t find it.
The Evo’s suspension -- Macpherson struts in front, multi-link in back -- comprises forged aluminum wishbones, control arms and links, and all manner of heavy-duty bushings, stabilizer bars, strut braces and lateral cross-members. All this suspension work gives the car a tensed, hard-edged feel. Ditto the ride: ride compliance, such as it is, seems to be coming from the bushings.
On a road course, this thing will chew the hind end out of a Porsche Boxster and a Nissan Z-car and half a dozen other cars that like to think of themselves as fast. Isn’t that delightfully perverse?
I think one of the things that makes the Evo -- in fact, all the little tuner cars -- so fascinating is the spectacle of metamorphosis. The Evo is a dumpy little Lancer that’s run into a phone booth, George Reeves style, to emerge faster than a speeding bullet, a strange visitor from another planet.
Don’t we all want to do that?
*
2003 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII
Wheelbase: 103.3 inches
Length: 178.5 inches
Curb weight: 3,263 pounds
Powertrain: 2.0-liter DOHC inline four, intercooled and turbocharged, five-speed manual transmission, viscous-coupling center differential (50/50 torque distribution), open front differential, mechanical limited-slip rear differential
Horsepower: 271 horsepower at 6,500 rpm
Torque: 273 pound-feet at 3,500
Acceleration: 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds
EPA rating: 18 miles per gallon city, 26 mpg highway
Price, base: $29,999
Price, as tested: $29,999
Competitor: Subaru WRX STi
Final thoughts: Primal scream therapy for the whole family
Source: Mitsubishi Motors North America
Automotive critic Dan Neil
can be reached at dan.neil@latimes.com.
