It turns out that Mit­subishi Europe has qui­etly released details on the Ral­liart Lancer.

Mit­subishi doesn�t state whether the Ral­liart will be based on the 4door Lancer or the upcom­ing 5door hatch, how­ever Carscoop states the USDM Ral­liart will be based on 4 door lancer sedan, whereas Europe will get the 5 door hatch. Since Aus­tralia clas­si­cally gets the clos­est equiv­a­lent on the JDM, we can expect to see the 4 door on our roads.

The Ral­liart is expected to run a detuned 177KW, 240PS ver­sion of the EVO X 2.0L, dual valve VVT turbo 4 cylin­der. Cou­pled to this is the mag­nif­i­cent 6-​​speed Twin Clutch SST trans­mis­sion, and AWD with Active Cen­tre Dif­fer­en­tial and Active Yaw Control.

The final form of the Ral­liart in Aus­tralia is unknown, but given the com­pe­ti­tion between Sub­aru and Mit­subishi in this seg­ment we can expect the Ral­liart to slot firmly into posi­tion against the stan­dard Sub­aru Impreza WRX — leav­ing the Evo X to tackle the WRX STi.

Being some­what given to fan­tasy here at IJ, we’d love to see that Sport­back con­cept repro­duced in full for the hatch­back. Given the stan­dard new Lancer is being hailed as a run­away suc­cess for Mitsu, a return of the Ral­liart Lancer is sure to be noth­ing less than a added cream in Mitsu’s prof­its in an age of high demand for fast, small, fuel effi­cient cars.

[Source: Carscoop]

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.