Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback Ralliart

Expert Rating:

Introduction

The Lancer Sportback Ralliart sits between the regular Mitsubishi Sportback range and the barking mad Evolution X, seeking to combine the practicality of the hatch with the rally-derived excitement of Mitsubishi's supercar-baiting saloon.

Ralliart is Mitsubishi's official tuning arm - think of it as AMG to Mercedes or M Division to BMW - and it should be familiar to anyone who's played the Gran Turismo games on PlayStation, thanks to some heavy in-game product placement over the years. Add to that the Lancer Evolution's reputation for being slightly, well, mad, and you've got a tantalising hot hatch prospect here.

What are its rivals?

It's a hot hatch, plain and simple. Thus, its rivals are the usual crop of high performance shopping trolleys, including the new Volkswagen Golf GTI, the Honda Civic Type-R, the Subaru Impreza WRX-S, and quite soon the new RenaultSport Mégane. In other words, it's mixing with some of the most talented and exciting cars available today, so it will have to be quite special just to compete.

How does it drive?

The way the Ralliart turns corners is close to astonishing. Plant your foot, turn the circular thing in your hands, and tyres cling to the road as though buried in it. It grips like a bodybuilder's handshake due to a four-wheel drive setup derived from the Evo and a sophisticated traction control system, more than capable of handling the Ralliart's 237bhp power output. The steering helps too, which gives you as much feedback as a Marshall stack turned to, oh, about eight.

But to enjoy that stuff you have to endure all that's lacking about the Ralliart, including a strained and unpleasant din from the four-pot turbocharged 2.0-litre engine. It will officially use its horses to get to 62mph in 7.1 seconds, but it never feels that fast, and the gearbox is a lesson in how make something really clever behave really foolishly, like getting Stephen Fry really drunk. The SST automatic uses two clutches, like VW's DSG system, so that the next gear is pre-selected for super fast changes. And it does that just fine when you're asking it to snick through the gears at full throttle, but during the majority of normal, low-speed driving, the gearbox bizarrely chases the highest gear it can possibly find. Put your foot down thereafter, and after a long, lazy pause - while it decides which of its six gears to select - the car will finally lurch forward.

What's impressive?

Apart from the aforementioned cornering ability, it certainly looks imposing - despite a slightly large and ungainly back end. It shares its nose with the Evo proper, getting the 'jet fighter' grille of its big brother and accompanying bonnet vents, giving it a familiar appeal. Ralliart spec adds a nice body kit including a rear spoiler and a lovely set of black 18-inch rims. All-in-all it's a bit of a head turner, especially for blokes in other cars who can't get close enough to realise it's not actually an Evo.

What's not?

It's tiresome to drive, the interior is bland and feels cheap, the boot isn't actually very big because the floor is high, and it's too expensive.

It costs £24,149 in range-topping GSR SST spec, which is frankly too much despite getting a lot of kit bundled in. Consider that you can get the class leading, better driving, higher quality VW Golf and furnish it with a few nice options for the same money, and it's case closed. The Golf will depreciate more slowly too. The Lancer is also in group 17 for insurance, spits out exactly the same amount of CO₂ as a diesel Range Rover Sport (243g/km), and will return just 27.7mpg on the combined cycle.

Should I buy one?

Sadly, the Ralliart is a strong contender for a 'most disappointing car of the year' award, on account of being so far below the promise of its underpinnings. It's not an awful car per se; it's just comprehensively bettered by most hot hatches on most levels - when really it should have been great - that we can't recommend it. We so wanted to like it too, because we're massive fans of the Evo, but it just doesn't have the quality, outright pace, drama or day-to-day usability to compete with the best.

Mark Nichol