On this episode of Ignition
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MotorTranscript
00:00 If you had asked my younger, more impressionable self
00:02 what the best all-around car in the world might be,
00:05 I might have said this to Lancer Evolution.
00:08 To a teenager, it was the stuff of dreams,
00:10 a multi-purpose sports sedan with true rally car heritage.
00:14 It had one of the most advanced all-wheel drive
00:17 system of its time.
00:18 It was inexpensive relative to its incredible performance.
00:21 And crucially, it wasn't available in the United
00:23 States, meaning the only way you could experience it
00:26 was by riding hours and hours into your favorite video game.
00:29 It was a dream.
00:30 But the thing with dreams is that they always
00:32 have the chance of crumbling when they become reality.
00:35 So now, older, slightly wiser, we
00:37 can see if the Evo still holds up.
00:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:42 [ENGINE REVVING]
00:45 [TIRES SCREECHING]
00:48 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:52 [ENGINE REVVING]
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01:05 We'll start with what the Evo always excels at,
01:09 and that is performance numbers.
01:11 Now, for acceleration, we have all-wheel drive.
01:13 We have a manual transmission.
01:14 We have a clutch.
01:15 And launching this thing with any speed
01:17 means a lot of clutch slip.
01:18 You can launch at about 5,500 RPM.
01:20 You can actually rev more than that.
01:21 The engine limits you.
01:23 And then you just slip the clutch painfully
01:25 out of the hole.
01:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:28 [ENGINE REVVING]
01:29 Ooh.
01:30 [LAUGHS]
01:33 It takes a couple of gear shifts to get to 60.
01:35 You'll be in third gear past 60, which you'll hit in 4.8 seconds.
01:39 And you'll actually hit the quarter mile in fifth gear.
01:42 You go through all the gears in the quarter.
01:44 That's how short the gearing is in this car.
01:46 And we'll do that in 13.4 seconds
01:48 at just over 100 miles an hour.
01:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:53 Now, for 60 to 0 braking, our result was not, I don't think,
01:59 indicative of what the Evo can actually do.
02:01 [TIRES SCREECHING]
02:05 It took 118 feet to stop from 60.
02:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:11 [TIRES SCREECHING]
02:14 The thing about the Evo is it behaves so differently
02:19 than pretty much every other car you may
02:21 throw around a handling track.
02:24 You have understeer if you don't know the feel of this car.
02:27 But if you commit to the throttle,
02:30 the cool thing about this all-wheel drive system
02:32 is that it overdrives, like in this left-hand corner,
02:35 the outside front tire, the inside rear tire.
02:38 So you keep your steering angle set,
02:40 and the car just sort of claws its way around a corner.
02:43 You can actually get the car in pretty big drifts, too,
02:46 if you're big on the steering inputs.
02:48 A little bit of countersteering, and you basically
02:50 keep the steering wheel straight while the car's
02:52 going around a corner.
02:53 It's huge fun, and it's also pretty fast.
02:56 I mean, the lap time this GSR put down
02:59 was a tenth slower than the last MR we tested.
03:02 But it's still in the territory of the BMW M3, the Lexus IS F.
03:07 I mean, it might even be up there a couple tenths behind
03:09 a Porsche Cayman or a Boxster.
03:12 Not bad for a $30,000 sedan.
03:29 So the Evo performs rather amazingly at the test track.
03:32 I mean, it lays down a handling number
03:34 on a figure-eight course that would embarrass
03:36 a lot of the German sports sedan rivals.
03:39 And this is about half the price of some of those cars.
03:43 On the road, you figure out why, because it's basically
03:46 half the car.
03:47 It's the performance half of this car.
03:49 This may be a sedan.
03:51 It has technically four seats, but it's not
03:54 the most comfortable car in the world.
03:56 It's far from it.
03:57 This thing is rather sharp riding.
04:01 You get a big drone from the engine.
04:03 This thing is definitely not made to be ridden in comfort.
04:07 Of course, you don't expect that head on the Evo.
04:09 You expect this to be a raw performance sedan,
04:12 and that's exactly what you get.
04:14 But it is funny noting that difference.
04:16 This car was one of my dream cars
04:25 when I was a teen, the G-Wiz, the GT-R, the RX-7, the NSX,
04:28 and so on.
04:28 But what separated this car was that it was attainable.
04:31 It didn't cost a lot of money.
04:33 And driving it now, you realize why.
04:36 But you also see why this was such a favorite
04:39 amongst enthusiasts.
04:40 And it's because of how focused it is, how fun it is to drive.
04:45 Sure, you look at it before you drive, afterwards,
04:48 and you think, yeah, it's got bad gas mileage.
04:50 The ride's not that comfortable, and so on.
04:52 But I tell you, when you're driving it,
04:54 you start making arguments to yourself
04:55 about why you could own one, why you should buy one.
04:58 And that's simply due to the fact of how much fun it is.
05:01 It's precise.
05:02 It's agile.
05:03 It just wants you to have a good time.
05:06 On the road, you also realize just how short the gearing
05:08 is in this 5-speed.
05:10 When you're on the freeway, you're doing 70 miles an hour.
05:12 The engine's buzzing about 3,500 RPM, maybe a little bit less.
05:16 And because of that, it goes through fuel
05:18 at an alarming rate.
05:20 You're lucky to get 200 miles to the tank out of this thing.
05:23 I mean, a Tesla Model S will take you further.
05:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:28 The thing of it is, in today's world,
05:34 291 horsepower doesn't seem like a lot,
05:37 nor does 300 pound-feet of torque.
05:39 I mean, the Mazda Speed 3, the Focus ST, make nearly that much.
05:43 And they're just front-drive economy cars.
05:46 But for some reason, this feels more capable.
05:49 I'm able to hold higher speeds.
05:51 I'm able to plunge in corners faster and come out of them
05:54 faster as well.
05:56 And I think that's partly to do with the extra grip
05:59 that you get with power application
06:00 and also the way the drive system is helping
06:03 you come around corners.
06:05 But it certainly doesn't feel like just 291 horsepower.
06:09 The whole car-- I mean, you're getting a lot of vibrations
06:12 and impacts from rough road.
06:14 But it's not the stuff that ever jars you from your path.
06:17 It's stuff that communicates loudly,
06:19 but communicates nonetheless what the road's doing
06:21 and how you should follow it.
06:23 This car doesn't have much roll.
06:25 It doesn't have much dive.
06:26 It just sort of stays flat.
06:28 And it's really easy to control because of that.
06:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:34 We started this episode attempting
06:45 to think about the Evo rationally.
06:47 But doing so does this car a disservice.
06:50 Don't let the extra seats and doors confuse you.
06:52 This is not a rational car.
06:54 It's not meant for fuel economy or comfortable commuting.
06:57 No, it's too focused.
06:58 It's too aggressive.
07:00 But that's why it's so wonderfully unique.
07:02 The manic way it devours roads and tracks makes you addicted.
07:07 Driving it feels like getting away with something.
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07:55 you