Once boiled down, the Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart – a new-for-2009 model in the Lancer lineup designed to slot between the base models and the high-performance Evolution – becomes a bit like Dickens’ classic The Tale of Two Cities. Not London and Paris in this case, but more like Los Angeles for the exterior design and Gary, Indiana, for the interior. Well, fine, maybe Hackensack, New Jersey.

On the outside, the Ralliart is pointy, aggressive, a little mean even. Attention-grabbing would work. In a 10-minute span, two gawkers came up to see what the sport compact was all about.

The first was a police officer. Fortunately, my encounter with him was more of an investigation than a citation. Apparently a guy leaning into a car with all the doors opens looks suspicious in Metro Detroit. After explaining my interior photo shoot, the copper drove a circle around the Lancer only to stop again once he took in the view from the front.

“Oh, that’s the best part,” he exclaimed.

He’s right. With its raked hood, canted grill and angular headlights, full frontal is not a crime; it’s encouraged.

The second admirer, a guy in his 40s, came racing up at a red light. He said the car looked fantastic and wanted to know if it was the new Lancer Evolution.

“Not quite,” I said, “but it’s still packing about 240 horsepower and a twin clutch.”

“What’s a twin clutch?” he asked.

“Well….” and then the light turned green. Ah, well, I’m sure he Googled it.

Had either of these guys been sitting in the driver’s seat, their enthusiasm may have waned a bit.

The Ralliart’s interior is Spartan, to say the least. Once inside, it takes only seconds to remember this car’s roots spring from a car with a starting price of around $14,000. Cheap looking, gray plastic everywhere. You know the drill. On the upside, the stock Ralliart seats, the ones that many-a-reviewer say must be replaced with the optional Recaro seats (part of a $2,750 package that also includes Xenon headlamps and a high-zoot audio system), aren’t really that bad. They’re plenty comfortable for an afternoon of motoring.

Our other interior nitpicks include no heated seats or auto-dimming review mirror on the options list. Though as far as the mirror is concerned, the rear wing is so big it blocks half the rear view anyway.

Once the turbocharged, 2.0-liter MIVEC inline-four spools up, you might start forgiving that cheap interior. Because what you’ve got here is a $27,000 car that put down 0-60 runs in the 5.9 second neighborhood during our tests. That’s faster than some of the sedans from Deutschland – not to mention it stickers for tens of thousands of dollars less. Ja, das ist gut.

The shining star of this car is the twin-clutch TC-SST gearbox. While it’s a watered-down version of the transmission you’ll find in the Lancer Evo, it’s still lightning quick. Before your brain can send the signal to your fingers to grab the paddle shifter for a gear change, it’s done. It’s just too bad no one was thinking when they put a very rough, chunky shifter on such a brilliant transmission. Ah well, just stick it in sport mode, use the paddles and never back up.

Under “handling” on the Ralliart’s report card, we’ve got “incomplete,” but we can’t blame the car for that. While this Mitsubishi is powerful in several ways, controlling the weather is not one of them. It’s been a particularly harsh winter in Southeastern Michigan and snow was ever present during our week with the Ralliart. Also present on the car were the high-performance summer tires you get from the factory. Not exactly a Siegfried and Roy combo.

Onto plan B then: Snow drifting. With the traction control off and the full-time all-wheel-drive system with the active center differential chugging away, the Ralliart turns an empty industrial park into an amusement park. In a testament to how good that AWD is, orbiting the end of a cul-de-sac takes little effort, feels awfully controllable and, dare I say, safe?

Reverting to more civilized driving, during a few briefs moments of semi-clear roadways, the Ralliart feels quite planted at corner entry and when powering out of the exit. The firmer sport suspension makes for a bouncy ride, but nothing that will send you to the chiropractor. It’s appropriate given the car’s mission.

With the right rubber for the road conditions, we can only imagine the Ralliart handling well. Hell, we had the exact wrong tires for the conditions and it still felt confident most of the time.

Why you would buy it:
Want to outrun a BMW 328i xDrive or an Audi A4 for $27 grand? This is your car.

Why you wouldn’t:
The interior is low-rent, but with such a fun driving experience, we can forgive it. Discerning buyers stepping down from the Germans might be a little pickier.

2009 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart base price, $26,490. As tested, $27,165.
Destination, $675.

Words and photos by Chris Doane.

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