When you think of Mitsubishi, what do you think of? Chances are, one of the first things that runs through your mind when Mitsubishi gets a mention, is the turbocharged, AWD, rally-car-for-the-road Lancer Evolution series. For decades now, the Evo has provided Mitsu with some desperately-needed sense of identity, although it never really reflected a brand philosophy the way Subaru’s WRX/STI series did for its AWD lineup. And now, it seems, Mitsubishi is done trying to build a brand on a rally replica. Autocar‘s Matt Prior recently sat down with Motsu’s global product director Gayu Eusegi, and he heard some rather jarring news:

The Lancer Evolution X, Eusegi told me, will be the last Evo. “There is still a demand [for the car],” he said, “but we must stop.” Eyebrow up.

“Our influence now is EV technology,” Eusegi said, adding that the decision was a “policy change”.

It seems Mitsubishi, which is going to introduce eight full electric or hybrid cars by 2015, has decided its image is about lowering CO2, not making lurid replicas of rally cars that don’t go top-level rallying any more.

Eusegi said that customers would find it “easier to understand” what Mitsubishi was about if it was no longer in this motorsport-inspired market.

Eusegi goes on to apparently confirm that the Evo X will be the last of the line, until such time as rally racing goes electric. Which means  that if you’ve always wanted to buy a new Evo, you might want to think about picking one up soon. After all, an EV-heavy strategy may not be the silver bullet for Mitsubishi, but the Lancer Evolution has had its chance at playing halo. Change can be painful, but it is the only constant… and Mitsu has to evolve or die. Even if that means the Evolution dies first.

OK, so so we weren’t immediately thrilled at the prospect of Alfa coming to the US as the sick man of Europe. But with news that Alfa’s 4C, a Dallara-developed, 1,800 lb mid-engined coupe could become the flagship for the brand’s return to the US, we’re starting to warm up to the Alfisti bandwagon. But, there’s a catch (of course): at the suggested €45k price point and 15k-25k unit production plan, this aluminum-and-carbon vision of Elise-meets-8C loveliness won’t be doing much to solve Alfa’s financial difficulties. Still, that’s the Alfa we want to come to the US: the extravagant, over-the-top, money-losing Alfa, not the cynical Fiat-rebadge Alfa. This 4C is a good start down the financially-draining but emotionally-rewarding road Alfa should never have been forced to abandon.

Ever since Toyota and Subaru announced they would be building a rear-drive sports coupe together, one question has torn the Subaru faithful apart, casting their forums and message boards into an dark age of strife and conflict. That question: will the Subaru version retain the brand’s signature all-wheel-drive? Since the car’s running gear is Subaru Legacy based (or, it was to start with), it should have been obvious from the get-go that the Subaru version would rotate all four wheels. But, as these images from the Autoguide‘s coverage of the Geneva Auto Show reveal, Subaru seems to have deliberately played up the confusion. While calling its display a “concept model of Subaru’s rear-wheel-drive sports car now under development,” the display even says “its new platform incorporates Subaru’s signature Symmetrical AWD.” Confused yet?

One of the first rumors to come out of the Fiat/Chrysler tie-up was that Alfa-Romeo would replace its expired 166 flagship with a large, RWD sedan based on Chrysler’s updated LX platform. But with Lancia getting its own rebadge of the new Chrysler 300, and a possibly LX/LC-based entry-level Maserati in development, it seems that Alfa’s opportunity for a flagship rear-drive sedan has passed. Auto Motor und Sport reports that, rather than developing a large Alfa flagship, the brand will top out (in sedan terms) with its forthcoming, 159-replacing Giulia front-drive D-segment effort. That might not come as terribly shocking news to the brand faithful, as Alfa’s have been almost exclusively front-drivers for some time… but the fact that no fizzy, crackling Alfa-typical V6 is planned for the brand’s midsized flagship might come as a letdown (instead, look for turbocharged four-bangers making between 120 and 235 HP). All of which is very interesting in light of CEO Sergio Marchionne’s recent diagnosis of Alfa’s woes, in which he argued

I mean it’s got this incredible appeal which goes back, you know, to the time they used to be on the racetrack, and it’s the embodiment of a lot of things which are typically Italian; sportiness, lightweight, and everything else. And what happened is that when Fiat bought them back in the end of ’86 we Fiatized Alfa. Fiat was front-wheel drive; Alfa was rear wheel drive. So now all the Alfas are front-wheel drive. And we put Fiat engines inside the Alfas, and Alfa started losing more and more of its DNA as a car company.

Lamborghini was clearly hoping to tease its fans with a long, drawn-out release of pictures of its new Murcielago-replacing Aventador, as pictures of the supercar’s greasy bits were released today. But, in the era of global media, even the most-complicit outlets can accidentally let loose images of new supercar hotness… and that’s apparently what happened with the latest Lamborghini.  EVO Magazine’s Croatian edition leaked the first image of the Aventador to Car and Driver, and it’s now making its way across the web. But really, aren’t the pics featuring the Aventador’s carbon fiber tub, pushrod suspension and other non-styling features the more interesting photos?

Nissan raised a tempest in a chatroom (or 20) when it claimed a 7:29:03 Nürburgring lap time for its GTR, and taunted Porsche that this time beat its 911 Turbo. Porsche took the bait, claiming that its drivers couldn’t replicate the GTR’s lap time and that Nissan must have used non-stock tires. Nissan fired back, and as the controversy became mired in he said-she-said nonsense, the fanboys gradually lost interest. And now, years later, Nissan is literally shoving the controversy into the faces of Porsche owners in hopes of getting even more mileage over one of the sillier controversies in the world of performance cars. But can you imagine this nearly three-year-old taunt actually stinging Porsche owners into considering a GTR?

Porsche’s greatest strength may well be that, in this era of automotive homogenization, it maintains its unique technical traditions. Until Subaru brought out a rarely-optioned 3.6 unit to market, Porsche was the only automaker who offered a flat-six engine, a powerplant that was both unique and traditional. But now, it seems that Porsche may have to give up its unique engines in the name of corporate strategy and its goal of remaining the world’s most profitable automaker [sub]. When asked by EVO magazine if, in the future, Audis could use Porsche’s brand-defining boxer-six engine, Porsche’s R&D boss Wolfgang Dürheimer responded

I think so, especially for the V8 side, but I can also see some applications for the Porsche flat-six and future flat-four engines across the VW group. I think it cannot hurt Audi to have a Porsche powerplant in its cars.

Yes, but what about Porsche? We’d heard a version of this rumor before, but this latest revelation seems to indicate that plans to share Porsche’s greasy bits are moving forward. Given that we’re moving towards the last hurrah of the internal-cumbustion engine, we’d hope that Porsche would hold onto its tradition of unique engines a bit longer. Apparently not.

EVO Magazine’s Chris Harris was recently taken to task here at TTAC for daring to diss the Mazda MX-5, a move that had many of our readers bemoaning the out-of-touchness that seems to come with access to the world’s fastest, hottest cars. Now, however, Harris is lashing out the ultimate sacred cow of the performance car world: Ferrari. In a lengthy rant over at Jalopnik, hotshoe Harris lays into Ferrari’s “bullshit-control-edifice,” revealing that Maranello custom-tunes its cars for track tests, fitted non-stock rubber for a 430 Scuderia dyno test, and “turn[s] up at any of the big European magazines’ end-of-year-shindig-tests with two cars. One for straight line work, the other for handling exercises.” Ferrari even prevents its “approved” journalists from borrowing private Ferraris. And, concludes Harris,

The control freakery is getting worse: for the FF launch in March journalists have to say which outlets they are writing it for and those have to be approved by Maranello. Honestly, we’re perilously close to having the words and verdicts vetted by the Ferrari press office before they’re released, which of course has always been the way in some markets.

Should I give a shit about this stuff? Probably not. It’s not like it’s a life-and-death situation; supercars are pretty unserious tackle. But the best thing about car nuts is that they let you drive their cars, and Ferrari has absolutely no chance stopping people like me driving what they want to drive. Of course their attempts to stop me makes it an even better sport and merely hardens my resolve, but the sad thing is its cars are so good it doesn’t need all this shite. I’ll repeat that for the benefit of any vestige of a chance I might have of ever driving a Ferrari press car ever again (which is virtually none). “Its cars are so good it doesn’t need this shite.”

Obviously, this is exactly the kind of media manipulation that has been tolerated by the motoring press for too long. And, based on the fact that a number of online reviews of the new Mclaren MP4-12C have been written without attribution, the pressure put on testers of high-po metal comes from more than just Ferrari. Kudos to Harris for calling out the spin, and here’s hoping these poor practices continue to be brought to light.

What do Dodge and Hyundai have in common, besides a Mexican Accent? They’ve both just unveiled large, V8-powered, rear-drive sedans at the Chicago Auto Show. I realize the whole “who would have thought Hyundai would be here by now” storyline may be getting a bit played out by now, but seriously, who imagined that Hyundai would be slinging a 429 HP rear-driver boasting a V8 with specific output  of 85.8 HP/liter? Not this blogger. Of course, because the 2012 Dodge Charger SRT8 offers an extra 1.4 liters of displacement more than Hyundai’s new “Tau” 5.0, it makes a hefty 465 HP and 465 lb-ft of torque to the Hyundai’s 429 HP and 376 lb-ft… but then the big Hyundai beats even the 370 HP Charger R/T on fuel economy, getting 17/26 MPG. Oh, and the two cars couldn’t look more different either. The question: which will America prefer?

Rather than bringing back the long-running Z28 label for its new top-of-the-line Camaro, GM has reached back even further into the history books for an even more prestigious heritage label: ZL1. GM’s presser (more here) for the 6.2 liter supercharged, 550+ HP, Brembo- and Magnetic Ride Control-equipped ZL1 explains:

When the muscle car war was at its peak in the ’60s, enterprising and racing-minded dealers did everything they could to get more powerful cars from the factory. Some Chevrolet dealers discovered that the company’s special order system known as COPO – the acronym for Central Office Production Order – could be used for higher-performance powertrains. It was intended for dealers to place custom orders for things like special paint packages for fleet vehicles, not building factory hot rods. Nevertheless, Camaro-hungry dealers used the system to request larger, 427-cubic-inch engines and other equipment that wasn’t available in regular-production models.
(Read More…)

With a new entry-level Maserati prancing about, presumably based on the Dodge Challenger’s shortened version of the LX platform, news of a new Alfa-Romeo sports coupe initially had us thinking that we were about to see more fruits of the Fiat-Chrysler Alliance. But not so, as Automotive News [sub] reports that the forthcoming 4C GTA will be a lightweight sports coupe developed on a platform from a little closer to Turin. Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM provides the basis for the 4C GTA in the form of its X-Bow trackday special, which was designed by Italy’s Dallara racing team, the firm that is also developing the 4C for Alfa. AN [sub] reports

Dallara developed a carbon fiber cockpit for the 4C GTA, which features front and rear aluminum sub-frames to house the engine, as well as carry the pushrod suspensions and to absorb deformation in crash tests….

Thanks to an innovative construction method, which combines carbon fiber and aluminum, the 4C GTA will be very lightweight. Alfa is targeting an 850kg (1,784 lbs) curb weight for the car.

The 4C GTA would have an impressive power-to-weight ratio below 3.5kg/hp despite being powered by the 1.8-liter, four-cylinder gasoline direct-injection engine offered in the Giulietta with the horsepower boosted to more than 250 hp from 235 hp.

That would give the €40k 4C GTA, due out in late 2012, a power-to-weight ratio greater than the Porsche Cayman S. Alfa envisions 20k-25k units of production for the in-house-styled 4C GTA, but for now

A Fiat spokesman confirmed that Alfa is working on a concept car, but said its unveiling at the Geneva show is still uncertain because of “delays in the concept model construction.”

Needless to say, this is exactly the kind of car that would have us abandon our concerns and welcome Alfa to the US with open arms. We will be watching this car closely.

Yes, everyone loves to hate on the BMW 3 Series’ success… but nobody loves to hate it like the Mercedes C63 AMG. And with a new version for 2012, Benz’s Bavarian-burner has about as good a shot as anything else on the market of convincing Mr Prospective Sports Sedan Buyer out of an M3. Meanwhile, it also serves as a stern, 481 HP warning to Jaguar, Cadillac and the assorted Dreier-chasers: when you’re chasing such a coveted market segment, you have to go big or go home [nauseating technical details for the 2012 C-Class can be found here].