2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X GSR vs. 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI Comparison Test
Lancer Evolution Photos
It wasn’t by chance that our West Coast office happened to have the Lancer Evolution X GSR and Impreza WRX STI booked during the same week, but we wouldn’t be telling the whole truth if we said luck didn’t play into it. As fortune shone its brilliant radiance upon us, there we were in a pristine valley just east of Vancouver, numerous paved and gravel roadways before us in their circuitous perfection, and two fully gassed, wholly willing super sedans prepared to fill us with thrills.
The Evo and STI have been wowing enthusiasts for the past decade and then some, and with each incarnation get more enticing. Traditionally three-box designs, the most recent generations have seen dramatic visual changes. First of all, the Evo has gone from looking like some teenager got hold of grandma’s frumpy grocery getter and tacked on ducts, spoilers and wings to his heart’s content, to a stunningly attractive four-door that rivals the premium brands in its overall design. The STI, on the other hand, has gone from an aggressively penned sedan with obvious economy car roots, to the ultimate muscle-hatch, its five-door sheet metal near bursting with rippling guns, not to mention enough scoops and airfoils to make a Lamborghini Countach owner jealous. Introverted, these cars are not. But if you want to make a good impression with a particularly targeted demographic of Need for Speed gamers and autocross or drifting aficionados, these are the rides to have. Drive down Main Street in any minor or major city and you’ll experience everything from appreciative nods to pure outspoken enthusiasm, unlike the leers of envy BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG owners are used to receiving.
We know this, of course, because we regularly tests such cars, and while these two Germans are brilliant machines on their own, the two Japanese rockets pictured in these pages are so impressive we could easily see enthusiast buyers stepping down from their lofty premium rides into these entry-level brands. So without further adieu, the comparo of comparos, the face-off of face-offs, the duel of the sport compact titans you’ve been waiting for:
To be honest, the Evo had already won over most of our staffers before this coming together ever occurred, the less powerful regular-aspirated WRX underwhelming us with its too-soft suspension and comfort-oriented persona and the X GSR leaving our editor gushing about overwhelmingly brilliant poise no matter the weather conditions (see Trevor Hofmann’s Evo X GSR story for further praise), so the Evo had the solid advantage going in. But then the STI arrived at our West Coast office and spent a couple of days redeeming the WRX name, totally impressing everyone who drove it or rode shotgun. In some ways, actually, the STI eclipses the Evo, so it became apparent that Mitsubishi wasn’t going to merely walk away with the prize when these two cars came head to head.
From a styling perspective, it totally comes down to personal preferences, with some on our team appreciating the sporty five-door shape, more subtly integrated but equally large rear wing spoiler, quad tailpipes, LED taillights and more aggressive hood scoop and fender flares of the Subie, and others preferring the elegantly drawn angles, more dastardly front fascia, more sinister squinting headlight clusters, complex threesome of intake and exhaust hood ducts, and deeper rear diffuser of the Mitsu. They’re both overtly impressive, but each goes about intimidating in an entirely different way.
Both are just as intoxicating to look at under the hood too, with the Evo winning points for its clean, uncluttered engine bay, thanks to a particularly pretty red and silver shroud, and the STI getting kudos from others for its scarily complex melee of wires, tubes and mechanical bits, also embellished with rosso paint. And crunching the performance numbers shows that each car delivers output ratings in an almost equal and opposite formula, with the Evo X punching forward with 291 horsepower and 300 lb-ft of torque, and the STI jabbing back with 305 horsepower and 290 lb-ft of torque. Where the drivetrain differences lie, other than the Subie’s carryover 2.5-liter horizontally opposed configuration and the Mitsu’s more diminutive and conventional but all-new 2.0-liter inline cylinder arrangement, comes down to the former car’s six-speed manual and the latter vehicle’s five forward gears.
Odd, I know, that Mitsubishi chose to launch its flagship car with such an “antiquated” gearbox. After all, any performance car worth its salt deals up a six-speed unit this day and age, with five-speed boxes reserved for entry-level models. Right? Yes and no. In this case marketing was given the back seat, with engineering and therefore performance being Mitsubishi’s sole reason for going with the five-speed manual. While it looks a lot better on the spec sheet to speak about six gears than five, the fact is the Evo’s gearbox allows for quicker acceleration thanks to fewer shift points. Think about it. When the clutch is engaged there’s no forward thrust, so the more times you’re forced to engage the clutch and shift gears the more interruptions on the way to maximum velocity. This principle only works, however, if there’s ample output across the rev range. If an engine makes all of its power over a small 1,500 rpm “sweet spot”, then the more gears the merrier. Not the case with either of these cars.
No, there’s plenty of power at takeoff in both, with the nod, as mentioned, going to the Evo, as there’s virtually no turbo lag at all and the capability of needing only one shift before hitting 60 mph; you’ve got to shift the STI twice through the same process, slowing forward momentum. Both gearboxes feel great to row through the gears, mind you, the Mitsu’s almost as smooth shifting as a Civic’s five-speed, although capable of dealing with a great deal more kick, and the Subaru’s six-speed great fun to slot from cog to cog, albeit needing a little getting used to. Rather than pushing and pulling the lever straight up and down in a double-H pattern, it requires a bit of an outward push when feeding it forward and an inward tug when pulling back. Yes, a little strange at first, but tremendous fun once you get the hang of it. We had some complaints that the STI’s gearbox was balky and difficult to work with at first, but once given this procedure it was all smiles.
Out on the road it was tough to tell which car was quicker. Off the line it seemed like a dead heat, the slight advantage the Evo enjoyed probably better felt at a drag strip. This wasn’t the case when the road started to wind, mind you, as the Evo was all over the STI. And it’s not that the STI felt awkward on its own. Truly, this is a fabulous car to drive, sticking to the road like few other cars with four, or should we say five doors. It’s just that the Evo turns on its axis so perfectly that anyone can run a set of curves faster. Additionally, it’s a lot more fun to drive fast. It’ll fling its rear end out at the mere thought of hitting the shopping mall parking lot for the Saturday night drifting competition, and if you keep the throttle steadily engaged it’ll maintain its slide-angle so perfectly you’ll look like a NOPI pro all the way around the corner. The only way to break the Subie’s tail is to wrench the steering wheel violently and hope for the best.
And both cars have identically sized tires, so don’t think that there’s some sort of an advantage in this respect. Yes, Yokohama, respected for making some of the best performance rubber on the market, went to special lengths to infuse more motorsport ingenuity than ever before into the Evo’s OEM Advans, but our guess is that Subaru and Dunlop didn’t exactly play a hit and miss game when they developed the shoes for the STI either.
So why the advantage to Mitsubishi despite the Evo being significantly larger in all directions and heavier by 155 pounds in lighter GSR trim? Drive a regular old Lancer GTS right after a stint in a non-STI-tweaked 2008 WRX and the difference will be obvious. The Lancer just feels more capable through the corners, once again willing to swing on its axis at the mere thought of flicking the steering wheel to get the rear wheels out, and it’s a front wheel drive car. The all-wheel drive WRX, or the regular Impreza 2.5i for that matter, is soft around the edges and therefore understeers to the point of no return if pushed hard, so the quick conclusion is that the Subaru simply doesn’t inherently possess the chassis dynamics to achieve optimal performance. Of course, this may be due to a decision made by Subaru to soften up the lesser Imprezas to give them broader appeal. News of a more powerful and more aggressively tuned WRX for 2009 may be admission that they went a little too conservative with the 2008 model. Either way, the Lancer has the stuff and the Impreza appears to have taken a less enthusiast-oriented approach, leaving us still unsure of the exact reasons for the Evo’s dominance over the STI.
There is the issue of Mitsubishi’s more sophisticated all-wheel drive system. Certainly Subaru has to be given credit for its strong, reliable and very effective symmetrical all-wheel drive technology, featuring some extremely cool tricks all on its own. One of these is a drive bias controller Subaru calls DCCD (Driver Controlled Center Differential) on the lower console that allows you to manually feed power to the front or rear wheels in order to adapt the drivetrain output to suit the terrain, and while we would love to see this switch moved to the steering wheel where we could modulate it on the fly without removing our hands from the 9 and 3 o’clock position, it’s an awesome feature nonetheless. Still, no matter how many DCCD settings we tried, the STI couldn’t keep up with the Evo and its ruddy amazing Active Yaw Control (AYC).
Say what? AYC comes as part of Mitsubishi’s S-AWC (Super All Wheel Control), a technology that also combines the Evo’s stability control system (ASC) and ABS to control the road, no matter the weather conditions. Dry, as it was on our test day, just set the S-AWC switch to Tarmac mode and forget about it. On the gravel we encountered, just by chance of course, we turned ASC completely off and set the S-AWC to gravel mode where it immediately improved everybody’s capability a hundred fold. Where the STI still required full engagement and the need to wrestle it through the corners, sawing away on the steering wheel which was plenty fun, the EVO simply went about its business on our behalf, still wickedly amusing but easier to drive quickly no matter the situation. The EVO MR, which our editor has driven on the road and track, is even more amazing due to its revolutionary TC-SST gearbox.
Another advantage to Evo, Mitsubishi has created a supercar-like double-clutch sequential-manual transmission that if not the best ever made, is right up there with the best. It comes with a beautiful set of magnesium paddles at each side of the steering column, although for fastest track times it’s best to set it to “Full Auto” mode, turn off the ASC and let it work its magic. Just like F1 cars of yore, it’ll row through the cogs at a rapid-fire pace that would be impossible for your body to replicate, and therefore improves lap times whether a competent racer or novice is behind the wheel.
Braking is critical on the track too, and in this regard neither car has any advantage. All eight rotors are dinner-plate sized, resulting in unrelenting stopping power with little to no fade after repeated stomps.
Equal as the brakes are, we can’t move this comparison along without mentioning that the STI’s seats wouldn’t hold us in place effectively enough during aggressive maneuvers due to smaller side bolsters, whereas the Evo’s wrap-around Recaros are phenomenally supportive and plenty comfortable too.
Where the Subie shines is in this last category, however, as its ride is a bit more forgiving and overall comfort levels a little higher. The STI’s interior quality, while nowhere near premium-grade, is nevertheless a step up from the simplistic confines of the Evo. Why Mitsubishi didn’t spend a little more money to give the Evo a more upscale look and feel to go along with its roomier, more accommodating interior is anyone’s guess, as the car is good enough in every other respect to vie for premium compact customers, many of which will be turned off by low rent plastics and rudimentary switchgear.
So, in the end, we’d rather spend the commute to and from work inside the more comfortable and visually appealing WRX STI, but wouldn’t hesitate in grabbing the keys to the Evo X for a quick zip down a winding back road or to the track on weekends. Then again, you can always take advantage of the Evo X GSR’s significant price advantage and much more appealing warranty coverage and hire a professional tuner to lay leather over all the Evo’s interior plastics and revise the center stack for an audio/video upgrade, or better yet, strip out the creature comforts other than the Recaros and replace it all with a roll bar and fire extinguisher, but you’ll never be able to make an STI dance like an Evo X.
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