We never tired of driving Mitsubishi's rally-bred performance sedan, but it wasn't cheap to run.
We've just finished a one-year test with a 2003 Lancer Evolution, but we've actually been on a much longer journey with Mitsubishi's World Rally Championship-bred sedan. After all, we first told you about a Nrburgring drive in the European-market Evo VI in March 2000, and in May 2002, European bureau chief Georg Kacher stormed over Bavarian back roads in both an Evo VII and a Subaru Impreza WRX STi to celebrate the announcement that Mitsubishi's most (only?) exciting car at last would come to the States. In June 2003, we compared U.S.-spec versions of the top-tune Lancer (effectively the Evo VIII but called the Lancer Evolution here) and the Subaru WRX STi and gave the Evo the nod. The Evo then power-slid its way into our October 2003 megatest of $30,000 sedans, and in January, it turbo-boosted its way to victory as our 2004 Automobile of the Year.
We've never tired of telling you about the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, because it's a car we've never tired of driving. Twelve months and 27,636 hard and fast miles have only confirmed that the Evo lives up to all the hype we and others have disseminated about it.... Read full article