A gentle breeze rising up from the sea did little more than tremble in the grass by the roadside. Higher up the damp morning air distilled into tendrils of misty cloud slipping silently up the mountain's shoulder. Wales – land of myths and heroes. There gathers a sound, a distant murmur rising like the banshee’s call from across the Irish sea. And there it is, bursting from the treeline, howling in a growing crescendo as if all the demons of hell are following it up the valley.Square and silver as if hewn from a block of steel, the Evo X is gathering pace as the road snakes up into the open moors. All four wheels rip the 1.5-tonne car forwards, its turbocharged two-litre engine milling out 354bhp and 363lb/ft of torque in an attempt to catch up with the horizon.Here, in the land of warriors and angel song, is a car that combines brute power with saintly manners. Here at last is a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution that can be driven comfortably at sedate speeds, yet leave smoke in the face of performance cars costing three times as much and more. The X is the ultimate Evo and the first one of the family that I've properly admired and loved. This version is the FQ-360 GSR – the daddy of them all.The first thing to realise is this ripsnorting motorcar is quicker off the mark than almost everything on the road. It'll reach 62mph sooner than James Bond's Aston Martin DBS, Audi's elegant R8 and Ferrari's iconic F430. Despite this it costs under £40,000, has five useable seats and a reasonably sized boot, and it's capable of giving you a genuine 28mpg fuel consumption on a sensible cross-country run. What's not to like?Other Evos have been quick, but this is the first one I've driven that I'm certain I could live with. In the past they've been as rough as a sack of spanners until you get above the speed limit when they suddenly start making sense. Fine for track days, but utterly pointless for the rest of life. Not so with the Evo X.The first impression as you slip into the body-hugging suede and fabric seats is that this is a nice place to live. Okay, there is a lot of insubstantial looking plastic in the in-between bits, but there's leather on the steering wheel, carbonfibre and aluminium on the gearknob and handbrake, and sensible and functional buttons and knobs in all the right places across the dash.Starting the engine doesn't rattle the neighbour's sashes, slipping it into the first of the five cogs doesn't feel like you're cocking an M16, and easing the clutch doesn't snatch your sanity away. Sure, everything feels machined and tuned, and yes, the suspension is as solid as English oak, but the beast isn't straining at the chain all the time. It can happily pad along like a panther, but when you slip the leash – by God it takes off. FQ by name, FQ by nature.The acceleration from standstill or from a roll can best be described as ferocious. This I found out on an airport perimeter road somewhere in Cornwall. I loaded it with revs, stood on the trigger and off it shot. Stuffed back into the Recaro, hand barely off the cog-stick, it blurred the landscape as it snapped up through the gears. I didn't push it to the 155mph limited top speed, but as the strip ran out and I stood on the stop pedal, the bright red Brembos gripped the tray-sized discs and the deceleration was just as impressive.You don't have to live with this concussive driving style, but when you're overtaking, emerging at junctions into traffic or just switching lanes on a busy motorway, it's comforting to know the performance is there if you need it.I've got to mention the looks of the car too because it really is the most aggressive looking thing on the road. It scowls out at the landscape, its gaping maw looking for all the world like it would have your leg off if you stood too close. There's a carbonfibre spoiler to hoover the thing down onto the road, the bonnet is ventilated with two small exit grilles and one central nostril, the flanks swell with muscularity around the wheelarches and there's a massive wing mounted on the tail.Multispoke 18" alloys with low-profile Yokohama tyres, twin exhaust ports, tinted rear glass and frowning back lights bring the whole thing to a masterpiece in Brutalitarianism.Indoors I loved the music system that's given extra oomph by the huge sub-woofer in the boot and given extra elegance by the way it records your CDs to memory so you only have to feed them through once and your music's there till you delete it. I loved the seats almost as much. I'd get out after a full day's driving feeling as fresh as the moment I'd got in.After almost a thousand miles, up through the heart of England, across into Snowdonia, down to the Severn and out into the West Country, I became emotionally linked to the car and honestly wished the road could go on for ever. I was proud to be seen in it, it was so easy to place on the road that I felt I was driving well and I could even live with the fuel economy . . . just about.Only a handful of things worried me about the car; first, the tax disc with its £400 price stamp; second, the wing on the boot that's perfectly placed to blot out any sensible view of the cars behind; and third, the theft alarm that's a bit too sensitive and can apparently be triggered by the rumble of a passing lorry.Accommodation and equipment you could discuss for hours, but Evos are primarily about performance and pound for pound the FQ-360 is astonishing value for money. It's easy to see why police forces across the country are deploying the Evolution X as an interceptor. In the hands of a trained driver there's almost nothing under £150,000 that will escape it. Engine 1998 cc, 4 cylinders Power 354 bhp @6500 rpm Torque 363 ib/ft @3500 rpm Transmission 5 speed manual Fuel/CO2 19.9 mpg / 328 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.1sec Top speed mph Price From £36800.00 approx Release date 01/03/2008
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