Mitsubishi Evo X

This bid to mature the Mitsubishi Evo into something a tad more high end hasn’t really worked. But what we care about is bags of grip and grunt, which is still definitely in situ.

• Comfort

  If you're looking for comfort you're looking in the wrong place, although this new generation of Evo is more supple and refined than the car it replaced in 2007. The seats are a bin-end bucket affair, designed to be replaced by yourself at a moment's notice.

  

• Performance

  It goes without saying that the Evo X is quick, but it'll take the tweaking we got used to in the last gen ‘FQ' range before anyone is sufficiently sated. There's 291bhp here, against 400bhp in its previous guise.

  

• Cool

  There's little that's cool about the sort of car that educationally sub-normal dole scum onanise over during those rare idle moments that pepper their days, but if you own one you'll be going too fast, or being too arrested, to care.

  

• Quality

  The Mitsubishi Evo X isn't going to break, but it feels quite seriously crappy in terms of basic tactile quality. Saying it's an improvement over the old car is like telling your mates to favour KFC over Chicken Cottage.

  

• Handling

  Er, yes. Rather more than most in fact. The Evo X handles like nothing else on sale, courtesy of a low kerbweight, four-wheel drive and hi-tech chassis. Steering is also superbly accurate.

  

• Practicality

  It's a saloon for starters, a car that is inherently impractical in these days of crossover hatchbackery, and it's also not a particularly spacious one. But if you're buying one, for £30k mind, you already know this and don't care.

  

• Running costs

  Er yes, there will be a few of these. It'll hit you hard to insure, it'll chow through the fuel like Peter Docherty does/did the crack pipe, and when you come to sell it no-one'll want it for half what you paid. Caveat emptor.