That’s the old-school turbocharged experience, and one you might reasonably expect to find here. Let’s see just how ‘FQ’ it really is… How does it drive?
And the ‘FQ’? Popular wisdom dictates this stands for ‘f***ing quick’, something Mitsubishi has never officially denied. As the badge suggests, it packs 440hp: an incredible 220hp per litre from a 1,998cc four-cylinder turbo. The (deep breath) Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X FQ-440 MR we’re driving today is perhaps the ultimate Evo, one of 40 built to mark 40 years of Mitsubishi in the UK – and the end of the Evo bloodline. Yet their spirit lives on in cars such as the Ford Focus RS and Volkswagen Golf R: four-wheel-drive hot hatchbacks that push 300hp+ performance even further into the mainstream. By the time the tenth-generation Evo X arrived in 2007, these road-going rally cars had fallen from fashion. New Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross will be a used car star.And they influenced popular culture, too – including the Gran Turismo games and Fast and Furious films.
They fought on the stages of the World Rally Championship and on the streets of Saturday-night suburbia. The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Subaru Impreza Turbo (latterly WRX) used four-wheel drive and highly-tuned turbocharged engines to deliver Porsche-baiting pace. Impreza: the battle of Japanese super saloons. History is littered with great rivalries, yet few have been as hard-fought or divisive as Evo vs.