Mitsubishi Engineers Still Want Lancer Evolution To Return

Mitsubishi engineers are expressing their desire to bring back the Lancer Evolution and suggested that the company hasn’t entirely abandoned the notion. However, there seems to be some debate about whether it would be a true-to-form, sport compact inspired by the world of rallying or some electrified passenger car carrying the Evo name.

“We have a dream, of course, for Lancer Evolution,” Mitsubishi engineer Kaoru Sawase told Drive Australia during the Tokyo motor show. “It's my personal dream.”

Bringing back the Evo is apparently a dream shared by many of the company's engineers.

However, Sawase-san noted that Mitsubishi now has “a variety, a range of technologies on-hand,” suggesting that the resulting vehicle could be a plug-in hybrid. That could mean hub motors driving all-four wheels.

“Naturally, considering the global [environment], the times, that will be the direction that we will be going,” Sawase said in regard to electrification.

Based upon Mitsubishi’s previous handling of the Eclipse, we’re understandably suspicious. The “Eclipse Cross” revival went over poorly with enthusiasts and spoiling the second coming of the Lancer Evolution would go over even worse. We’ve also endured years of rumors that the Evo would return already, with nothing of substance to show for it.

Sawase developed the advanced all-wheel drive systems that went into the original Evo models and has continued his work on other Mitsubishi’s modern passenger vehicles. He asserted that advancements in electrification could make for an even-better AWD system.

While an electrified Evo would undoubtedly have certain advantages in terms of shifting power to the correct wheels, plug-in hybrid systems add quite a bit of weight and not being portly was one of the original Lancer’s biggest perks. While the model bulked up as the years rolled on, with the Evo X (below) peaking at 3,638 pounds, earlier Lancers rarely surpassed 3,000 pounds.

There’s also the question of homologation. With the World Rally Championship having recently abandoned hybrid powertrains, it doesn’t sound like Mitsubishi would be building homologation cars intended to compete in motorsport — at least not WRC.

There’s a subset of automotive enthusiasts that firmly believe rally homologation rally cars are synonymous with automotive perfection, myself included. Often based on small economy models, the resulting all-weather, all-wheel-drive, hi-po variants offer real-world performance that can embarrass vehicles priced several orders of magnitude higher. While many boast large wings and other motorsport-derived accouterments, much of that can also be removed to help them fly under the radar.

Sadly, drivers located in North America saw far fewer examples than those living elsewhere. As Europeans basked in countless homologation specials over the years, those of us living in Canada or the United States had to be satisfied with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Subaru WRX STI (below).

However, Subaru withdrew from the World Rally Championship in 2008 — three years after Mitsubishi did. While their WRC inspired cars would persist for several years, the Evo has been absent for a decade and the WRX no longer has the ultra-potent STI variant. Enthusiasts have had to make due with the standard WRX (which still competes in Rally America, SCCA ProRally, and ARX Rallycross) or purchase a Toyota GR Corolla because we aren’t offered the homologation GR Yaris.

But plenty of former Evo fans migrated toward other brands, presumably picking up a sport compact model bred beyond the confines of rallying. While you might assume others pivoted toward rear-drive sports cars, the sales numbers don’t suggest this — perhaps indicating that they abandoned fun-to-drive cars entirely for something more practical.

Mitsubishi needs to decide whether or not those people will come back if it actually builds another Evo.

As a recovering Mitsubishi fan who previously owned a 4G63T engine in his youth, fetishized the Evo, and still watches WRC, I’m undoubtedly the target audience. However, the recipe has to be just right and too much electrification could taint the sauce. Electric drive motors could introduce the kind of low-end torque that would help launch the vehicle like it’s been shot out of a cannon. But making it purely electric (or even heavily electrified) feels like a big mistake if Mitsubishi wants sales.

The Evo’s greatest strengths were that it made all the right turbocharged sounds, delivered a staggering level of performance for the price, didn't weight too much, and was capable of accepting loads of performance modifications on stock internals without immediately destroying itself. When you think of tuner cars, it’s probably somewhere near the tippy top of your list. That’s probably something the manufacturer needs to consider before putting anything into production.

But the engineers are just talking and have made no concrete statements beyond expressing their strong desire to develop a modern Lancer Evolution.

It’s hard to determine where Mitsubishi leadership stands. As one of the largest companies in the world, the business opted to pivot its automotive subsidiary away from affordable performance cars years ago. Now, the brand is tied up with Nissan and Renault — which could work both for and against the engineers goal of developing another rally car.

Here is what we know for certain. Mitsubishi has applied to trademark the name “ Lancer Sportback” inside the United States and has revived the Ralliart performance division as it has expressed a desire to return to motorsport. However, the resulting vehicles have been little more than appearance packages thus far.

Meanwhile, Subaru has recently shown off the Performance-B STI Concept and the vehicle looks pretty close to being production ready. It seems like Subaru is willing to re-enter the space and make problems for Toyota’s very excellent GR Corolla (above). We cannot say whether that alone will light a fire under Mitsubishi, however. While the GR Corolla is selling rather well, it’s still a low-volume specialty model catering to a very specific type of driver. Subaru WRX sales have also been coming down.

But it’s hard to say if that’s the result of economic conditions, changes made to the model to give it a broader appeal, or people simply not embracing the segment.

This might be one of those situations where there’s a massive fanbase for a vehicle that everyone wants to see built but only a few might actually purchase. As much as the fans just want to see Mitsubishi go for broke and revive the Lancer Evolution immediately, it’s probably wise for the automaker to tread carefully.

[Images: Txus Lopez/Shutterstock; RMT51/Shutterstock; Mitsubishi; WildSnap/Shutterstock; RMT51/Shutterstock; Toyota; Michele Morrone/Shutterstock]

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