Proof is that you won't have an aneurysm if a stray shopping cart makes contact with an Evo door. It is both a reasonable everyday sedan and a supercar. Gorge yourself on its contradictions: It costs a mere $30,000. Its proving ground was the WRC rallying circuit. It seats four. There is enough headroom for a helmet. It has a four-wheel-drive system but relatively little corruption of steering feel. Despite all its dualities, associate editor Joe DeMatio correctly states that the little Mitsubishi sedan "unapologetically, uncompromisingly, unequi-vocally provides the most performance for the money of any car in the world."
Yet the Evo is not without fault. Because of the tight packaging of the turbo's intercooler (it is wedged behind the front bumper), there is little room for a bigger one and therefore little tuning headroom on the cars, meaning that you won't see any 500-horsepower Evos marauding your city's streets at night. Depending on your station in life, this might be a good thing. A bigger issue is the extreme buzziness of the 271-horsepower, four-cylinder engine. Long trips, we've noticed, can be tedious, and were it not for the car's extremely supportive seats, most long-haul Evo drivers would exit the highway and power-slide directly into the lush confines of their nearest mental hospital.
There is an undeniable yet welcome coarseness to this car, a sharpness that hasn't been dulled by the inevitable regulatory processes and focus groups that break the spirit of an automobile. The Evo has survived with its rallying essence intact. There are few competition-bred cars--even production-based ones--that have made the transition from the rally stage or racetrack to the road as seamlessly as the Evo. Only the aborted Le Mans racer now known as the Porsche Carrera GT and the stealth F1 car called the Ferrari Enzo lay their cubic-dollar racing technology on the street with the same authority. The big difference is that the Mitsubishi is affordable and usable once it gets there.
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