Although Mitsubishi, as a brand, has faded as near completely from the U.S. market as can, it does still build one interesting car: the high-performance, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive Lancer Evolution. Ignore the bargain-basement Mirage, oddball Outlander, ho-hum Outlander Sport, and forgettable Lancer—the Evo is the only Mitsubishi worth devoting any thought to at all. And it’s about to get a lot more interesting, if a report from Motor Trend is anything to go by.
Today, the Evolution is, for all intents and purposes, a highly worked-over Lancer sedan, at which Mitsu throws its fancy all-wheel-drive system with rear-axle torque vectoring, turbocharged 2.o-liter four, and a neat body kit. Motor Trend‘s sources indicate, however, that the next iteration will break from its Lancer roots, at the same time becoming a showcase for Mitsubishi’s plug-in hybrid technology. Details are fuzzy, but it looks like the Evo could get some form of a hybridized powertrain with electric motors front and rear, a 1.1-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, as well as a ton of lightweight materials. The ultra-specialized propulsion system apparently will require its own bespoke platform, which MT says will lead to the car dropping the Lancer name, and potentially the Evo badge, too.
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As exciting as the proposition of a unique, hybridized neo-Evo is, we’re skeptical that Mitsubishi could pull off such a car. Just look at Subaru, which originally intended to take its Evo competitor, the WRX, off of the Impreza platform for 2015—only to backpedal and end up sprinkling some high-performance gear and a new front end over the Impreza sedan. And, unlike Mitsubishi, Subaru is actually doing well financially, so the idea that the small, beleaguered manufacturer could build a relatively low-volume performance car with tons of new technology on a bespoke platform is nothing if not ambitious. Of course, we’d love to be proved wrong, but we’ll have to wait until 2016 at the earliest to see.