The Australian website Drive says that a top Mitsubishi engineer still thinks that a Lancer Evo is possible and that he personally wants one. Any new Lancer Evo would be electric, and Mitsubishi has a history of making EV concepts that work well. It’s getting boring for Mitsubishi in the US, since most of its products are now SUVs. Reading about Mitsubishi Motors’ past is like making a map of a family that was once rich and noble but has lost its way. It makes me think of FX’s Shogun, which makes sense since Mitsubishi used to make an SUV called that. The Shogun family had a long history, but it is no longer used due to global changes. But the company that has won several Paris-Dakar races and always done better than Subaru in WRC racing isn’t giving up on the sport just yet. At this year’s Tokyo auto show, Kaoru Sawase, an engineer at Mitsubishi, told Australian reporters that the company still planned to build a copy of one of its famous fast cars. He said, “Naturally, we still have aspirations for the Lancer Evolution.” “It’s my personal dream.” If you had to work on cars like the mid-range Outlander crossover, you might also picture Finnish rally racers driving turbocharged all-wheel-drive sedans over dirt roads. Mitsubishi isn’t doing anything exciting right now, even though it’s holding on to its market share. The triple-diamond banner has been falling for a while. The company’s accounting department is probably cautiously positive about the balance sheets and thinks that the Eclipse name has been put on a little crossover that people who have never seen a Fast & Furious movie bought. Mitsu’s engineers will not be happy that the whole range is pretty weak green tea. When questioned about the possibility of producing a new Lancer Evo, Sawase explained that they “possess a wide range of technologies at their disposal.” Sawase is the reason why this might not just be an expert missing the days of pumpkin-shaped turbochargers that were on fire. He is the chief engineer in charge of Super All-Wheel Control, Mitsubishi’s better all-wheel-drive system that regularly beats Subaru cars on both paved and gravel roads. Most people don’t understand electricity as well as the triple-diamond does. Mitsubishi set the EV record at Pikes Peak more than ten years ago by driving a race car with more than 600 horsepower up the mountain. As part of their partnership, Nissan and Renault can help Mitsubishi learn from their experiences. A performance-focused plan would give the company a much-needed boost. Many fans grew up playing video games like the Gran Turismo series while driving the Lancer Evo. This means that the car has more fans in the US than sales data would suggest. People might choose to buy a Mitsubishi Outlander over a Nissan Rogue if it seemed the company was working hard to preserve and expand its history. The words of Sawase, on the other hand, show that Mitsubishi has not fully put out the fire. Some Mitsubishi employees are hanging on to the hope of a revived Lancer Evolution, even though it’s just a dream.
