The new Sport­back and Sport­back Ral­liart have debuted online prior to the Paris Motor­show in a series of stun­ning images.

Aimed squarely at the pop­u­lar hatch­back and sedan Imprezas, the base Sport­back will come in four cylin­der 1.5L, 1.8L or 2.0L tur­bod­iesel mod­els, with the Sport­back Ral­liart reciev­ing a 2.0L, 177kw/​321nM tur­bocharged MIVEC four.

The Evo­lu­tion X’s AWD sys­tem, Twin Clutch SST and Active Cen­tre Dif­fer­en­tial round out the Sportback’s impres­sive list of features.

[Source: Net­CarShow ]

2009 Mit­subishi Lancer Sport­back Ralliart:

 

2009 Mit­subishi Lancer Sportback

 

The Con­cept RA has appeared in Detroit look­ing like a cross between the new Lancer EVO and (per­haps) the lat­est gen­er­a­tion USDM Mit­subishi Eclipse, or even an Audi TT.

The strictly con­cept only (Sorry, guys and girls) Con­cept RA sports a 2.2 litre, DOHC 16-​​valve 150kw/​201HP/​420nm high out­put, clean burn diesel engine, as part of Mitsubishi’s new drive towards eco-​​friendly per­for­mance sports cars.

In order to achieve low con­sump­tion while not sac­ri­fic­ing per­for­mance means the Con­cept RA fea­tures Mitsubishi’s pro­pri­etary MIVEC vari­able valve con­trol tech­nol­ogy, an all alu­minum space frame, vari­able diffuser/​variable geom­e­try tur­bocharger, peizo­elec­tric injec­tor sys­tem and also sports some impact resis­tant, recy­clable plas­tic resin pan­els as part of it’s construction.

Envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures include a new cat­alytic con­verter sys­tem that com­bines a diesel oxi­da­tion cat­a­lyst (DOC), NOx trap cat­a­lyst (NTC) and diesel par­tic­u­late fil­ter (DPF) in addi­tion to the highly effi­cient 2.2 litre clean burn­ing diesel.

Of course, the Con­cept RA sports Full­time 4WD, Twin Clutch SST Trans­mis­sion, and the new S-​​AWC (Super-​​All Wheel Con­trol) most notably seen on the new EVO. As men­tioned before on IJ, S-​​AWC is a com­bi­na­tion of exist­ing tech­nolo­gies, Active Cen­ter Dif­fer­en­tial, Active Yaw Con­trol, ABS and Active Sta­bil­ity Control.

Unfor­tu­nately though, all this is to be shelved as the car is designed purely as a con­cept, and won’t chal­lenge either Honda’s offer­ing in the new CRZ (CRX) or Toyota’s rumored new ‘AE86’.

 

The new Evo­lu­tion X has been made offi­cial in a new press release from Mit­subishi, with cars hit­ting deal­ers in Japan today, Octo­ber 1st, 2007.

Here’s a quick run­down of the juici­est fea­tures on the new Evo­lu­tion X

• Engine
  • New, com­pletely redesigned alu­minium block ‘4B11’ 16-​​valve, 2.0L DOHC MIVEC inter­cooled tur­bocharged engine — 12kg lighter than the out­go­ing 4G63.
  • Power: 295HP, Torque: 422 Nm @ 3500rpm (300 lb-​​ft)
• Two trim lev­els: RS, GSR.

• Trans­mis­sions:
  • Twin Clutch SST 6-​​speed auto­mated man­ual on the GSR or
  • 5 speed man­ual also avail­able on the GSR
  • 5 speed man­ual on the RS only (No SST)

• 4WD S-​​AWC (Super All Wheel Con­trol) on the GSR
  • ACD (Active Cen­ter Differential)
  • AYC (Active Yaw Control)
  • Sport ABS (Sport Anti-​​lock Brake System)
  • Active Sta­bil­ity Con­trol (ASC)
• Suspension/​ Tyre /​ Brakes
  • MacPher­son strut front and multi-​​link rear suspension
  • (GSR) 18-​​inch Enkei 12-​​spoke high-​​rigidity cast alloy wheels. 18-​​inch BBS light­weight alloy wheels are also avail­able as a factory-​​fitted option
  • GSR comes stan­dard with Brembo 18-​​inch front and 17-​​inch rear ven­ti­lated disc brakes. (Unsure if this is a mis­take. Though that’s what’s stated on the PR! — ED )
  • Bil­stein sin­gle tube shock absorbers and Eibach coil springs

• Inte­rior
  • Pre­mium Rock­ford Fos­gate audio, factory-​​fitted MMCS option with 30Gb hard disk drive audio/​navigation sys­tem and 7-​​inch LCD screen on the GSR.
  • Recaro seats
  • Var­i­ous inte­rior upgrade option pack­ages, includ­ing leather
  • High con­trast instru­ment cluster
  • Leather wrapped steer­ing with audio controls
• Pric­ing:
  • GSR: 3,750,600 yen with 6speed Twin Clutch SST
  • GSR: 3,495,450 yen 5 speed M/​T
  • RS: 2,997,750 yen with 5 speed

And of course, required read­ing — the Press Release itself . This car has tonnes more fea­tures, admit­tedly more than we expected. The Impreza WRX STi has a bat­tle ahead of it with the new Evo.