Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart: new arrival

Arrived: Apr 2009
List price (including options): £12,349
Average economy: 39.5mpg

The Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart has been -

Busy as hell since it arrived here at Yahoo! Cars. Has an entire month already passed? It's hard to believe. In that time it's been at virtually every London airport as we escape the country to drive new cars abroad. It has also been down to McLaren's Technical Centre to hear of Ron Dennis's road car plans and then the Colt scooted back home for the day to Mitsubishi's Cirencester HQ when we sneaked an early drive of one of its faster Evo X relatives. It's been in the hands of my parents for a few days too. That explains the 39.5mpg fuel consumption figure, my parent's fuel receipt and mileage the only numbers I can currently place my hands on. That's only 1.4mpg less than Mitsubishi claims on the official combined cycle. We expect to get nothing near that from now on, the little 1.5-litre 147bhp turbocharged unit having an easier time in the hands of my mum and dad than it will in mine.

We're loving the -

...1.5-litre turbocharged engine's performance. The blown four-cylinder unit is just so flexible and responsive and it feels very muscular at low revs. It's a rapid little car the Ralliart, capable of reaching 62mph in just 7.4 seconds if you're quick through the gears and brutal with the accelerator. It's swift enough though even when you're not punishing it, its powerful engine making it a surprisingly capable motorway machine.

The tiny dimensions are a boon too, especially after our last massive Mitsubishi - a Shogun. That means finding parking spaces is a cinch, even on the busy roads outside my place in North London. It's possible to squeeze it into some very small spaces, though the steering is a touch on the heavy side when doing so.

But not so impressed by -

Those tiny dimensions might make it easy to park but it does mean that boot space is lacking. In fact the boot is tiny, meaning unlike most of my long term cars I'm unable to use the boot as additional storage for kit like golf clubs and the likes. I've yet to try but I reckon I'll have to drop the rear seats to get my sticks in. Our other gripe also involves the boot - or more specifically the parcel shelf. It's not attached to the boot lid so needs lifting manually; so it's then prone to falling out of its fixings or being inadvertently left in its up position and restricting rearward vision.

The ride is also firm, meaning the rather plastic trim does reveal the odd rattle, though nothing has yet fallen off.

We're looking forward to -

Taking it out for a proper drive in the country. It's been up and down motorways and buzzed about in town traffic but we've not driven the Ralliart on country roads since we first experienced it on its launch a few months - before ours was delivered. It looked great back then with its doors and rear hatch completely misted in road muck, giving it the rally look its name suggests. We'll be out looking for some suitably wet, winding and enjoyable roads to get it filthy before the sun comes out properly for the summer.

Kyle Fortune