Here is today’s “Car of the Day” — if I was to go out and purchase a car today with a $35,000 budget, it would be a Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR.
The Evolution or Evo as it is fondly referred to among enthusiasts is a civilized rally car. It has a super trick AWD system complete with Active Yaw Control, but the heart of this Evo is its 2.0 liter 290hp engine. This little car has enough grunt to cover the 1/4mile 13.6 seconds. If the 60 mph benchmark is how you measure speed, then you would be done measuring speed before your stopwatch hit 5 seconds.
The styling isn’t for everyone; actually the car isn’t for everyone. If performance is on the top of your priority list and you prefer 4 doors, this offering from Mitsubishi is a very attractive one. The Evo X has actually received a little negative press for being a little softer than the previous Evos. However, the previous Evos could stand to be a little softer, they were a little too closely tied to their rally race car brethren. This made an Evo a challenging car for a daily driver.
The newer Evo has resolved some of the pains that plagued the Evo IX.
There are other ways to get near 300hp in the $30,000 price range, the primary option that comes to my mind is the Infiniti G35. The G35 is a fine car, but is not quite the purpose built performance machine that the Evo is.
To some the Mitsubishi Evolution is just a tarted up econobox, but those that get the Evo, those have driven one, those that appreciate the Evo know otherwise and understand that an Evo is a like a Japanese Audi RS4 for half the price.
$35,000 may not sound like a deal for a car that started life as a Mitsubishi Lancer, but it is a deal for a car that has all of the high performance bits of a street legal rally car.
