2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart Road Test

2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com)

I've got one minor complaint about the interior, in regard to the instrument cluster. The red color used as backlighting is supposed to be easy on one's eyes, though personally I'm not very fond of it, and I know many share my opinion. In this particular case, the numbers simply aren't bright enough and that makes it hard to read the dials. The needles are too bright, casting their light over a large portion of the instrument faces making the dim lettering and numbering even harder to read. In the daytime, the instruments are black against white and look fantastic.

No amount of aesthetics can make a car a shred sportier, though we often see those who disagree. So, to back up the sporty look, Mitsubishi has installed a 2.4-liter MIVEC (Mitsubishi Innovative Valve timing and lift Electronic Control) engine which creates 162 horsepower and as much pound-feet of torque, and spins the front wheels via a 5-speed manual gearbox.

2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com)

Just a second now, but that isn't really a huge amount of power from a larger four-cylinder engine, is it?

Here's the thing.

Once one decides on the amount of power a vehicle should have, they have two ways to go about generating it. The four-cylinder engine could take one of two forms. The first one is a bit like Richard Simmons: a smaller displacement unit which is highly stressed, generally noisy and not very smooth. The smaller-displacement, higher-output engines tend to need to be revved up to, say, 7 or 8 thousand RPM to do their job. The other alternative is to create a larger-displacement engine that doesn't break a sweat to do the same thing, and doesn't need to be revved up like a motorcycle to send you on your way. The choice to use a larger engine is often a wise one, especially in the case of the Lancer Ralliart. The bigger engine never works as hard to do what it does, and so it has an easy life. For this reason, it's peaceful, pleasant and very smooth. It's also so quiet, in fact, that if you listen to the stereo at any sort of volume, you would be hard pressed to hear the engine doing its work. A full throttle blast to the redline doesn't mean a pause in your conversation. The 2.4-liter unit provides plenty of low-end grunt, making passing a breeze even without a downshift. There is a pleasant, eager, peaky band of power even approaching redline as well. Mitsubishi's clever timing system allows the

2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com)

engine to have both the noted low-end power as well as higher RPM eagerness. Given this engine's quiet and smooth operation, eagerness to rev, pleasant attitude and respectable highway mileage (just over 7 liters per 100 km's), I think I have found one of my new favorite Japanese 4-cylinder engines.

The 5-speed manual gearbox is a good match for that engine too, with a fairly short throw calling up evenly spaced gear ratios that have no trouble bringing the engine to life with a downshift or two. The gears are heavily synchronized, meaning no jerky, jolting gearshifts but only smooth and consistent ones, even when you are in a hurry. The shifter is easy to manipulate, though perhaps not as precise as a Sentra SE-R or a Mazda 3. Metal pedals have been installed too, spaced apart perfectly for heel and toe work should you be into that sort of thing. Trouble is, if you are, you won't be able to hear the throttle blips since the engine is so quiet.