Mitsubishi Evolution X FQ-400 news - - 2009

See more FQ-400 pics

Run for the hills. Mitsubishi has unleashed the fastest Evo X yet – the FQ-400 – and it’s frankly beserk.

Let’s start with the numbers: 403bhp, 387lb ft of torque and a 0-62mph time of just 3.8 seconds. That’s faster than a Ferrari F430, Aston DBS and Porsche 911 Turbo. That’s fast.

And all from a two-litre engine. The FQ-400 gets the same basic turbo four-pot as the, er, standard Evo X, but bumped up to fighting weight with high flow injections, a bigger intercooler and exhaust, a revised ECU and, of course, a massive new hybrid turbocharger.

Naturally, you get all of Mitsubishi’s clever four-wheel-drive gubbins – Super All-Wheel Control, Active Centre Differential, Active Yaw Control and, er, Active Volcano Monitoring (OK, we made the last one up) – along with bigger brakes and stiffened suspension.

Visually, it’s even pointier and more aggressive than the FQ-330 and FQ-360, with revised lightweight front and rear bumpers, and new side skirts and a rear wing that, says Mitsubishi, echoes the styling of the legendary Evo VI.

All of which we like. The only bugbear is the FQ-400’s price: a significant £50,000 when it goes on sale in the UK next month, edging the Evo dangerously close to Nissan GT-R territory. Then again, it’s dangerously close to GT-R performance… and if you order one, you’re more likely to receive it before, say, 2018.

Tempted? 

Now watch the boys try to make a family car quicker than an Evo with just a few homemade mods: