Test drive Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX 2005 - 2007 sedan
Hot express
Evolution turned out to be poisonous yellow. Fall the checkers on the front doors, put a plastic sign on the roof - you get a taxi. However, being a taxi in the city stream is not shameful if the taxi driver is correct (see Luke Besson films). Being in St. Petersburg traveling from Moscow to Moscow, I arranged a short excursion to my Moskvich friend, who is mediocre with the northern capital. For ten minutes this whirlpool continued - turns on the rear outdoor wheel, side overloads, sharp shocks in the back during accelerations, convulsive intimidation of the floor during braking ... Well, jumping along the known ski tilt of the Kutuzov embankment - as without them. It is unlikely that the horizons of my passenger expanded due to St. Petersburg attractions, rather, he was enriched with automobile impressions. From modesty I will keep silent about my driver’s skill ... 
And before that there were slides in Avtovo (and what brought me there?), Almost a rally slalom along the Peterhof highway to the small city of Pavlovsk, a ferry, not one of the passengers of which still understood what kind of car it was. By the way, an amazing thing - to transport the car by sea for several kilometers is cheaper than rolling it on a lift in almost any Moscow car service! 
Lancer Evo rumbled through the pier, flashed with yellow lightning along the dark streets of Kronstadt and headed for the Primorskoye highway rich in heights - back to St. Petersburg. Cool site, especially if you go at night. The dull time is late autumn, and in the summer the Fortdance festival was held here and there was the sun. However, inside EVO VIII you will never freeze, even if you turn off the stove. He has a very hot filling. And the aura too, which, by the way, is almost more important. 
It all started on Friday evening, when the clean and elegant Evolution left the MKAD and quickly rolled towards the Finnish border. Ahead is several hundred kilometers, in the trunk of canisters with the treasured 98th. Excess weight, but the measure is forced. Civic gas stations end three hundred kilometers after Moscow and begin only a hundred to St. Petersburg. Pour the fifth, causing detonation in a forced turbo engine, blasphemous, and the appetite of the car is oh-th (about 12 liters per hundred, if you feel sick at 3,500 revolutions, and up to 15 or more, if you go properly), so you have to stock up on . 
On a flat road, Lancer flew an arrow. A sense of unity with a car familiar to all or less decent drivers was born five minutes later - the windshield decreased to the size of the monitor, the hands made friends with the wheel due to the perfect feedback (Force Feedback), and the game of overtaking the truck began. There were a lot of trucks, overtaking was easily given. True, forced stops occurred, and the trucks climbed back, but still the distance to the target was inexorably declining. We arrived at St. Petersburg late at night (or early in the morning). Dave Seaman was already finishing playing in the Cadet Corps, it was time to rest. This Evo VIII does not get tired and would easily bring us back to Moscow, but we need to sleep. 
By the way, the suspension as its stiffness as a driver did not annoy me at all (it, by the way, is not so tough, especially on minor irregularities), on the contrary, the chassis tuned in this way made it possible to confidently pass individual unpleasant sections. More speed - less pits? In the case of Lancer Evo VIII, this is exactly the case. 
But the steering wheel must be kept tight. Deliveries are distinct, wide low -profile tires do not like multiple changes in the profile of the route, and the car scribes from side to side. Sometimes you even involuntarily ask yourself rhetorically - is it a bug or a feature? Brakes - no problem. While the new pads were rubbed, the braking had to be performed smoothly, with a margin. But even then everything was fine. When they were injured, it became even better. They have never overheated once, the loss of effectiveness was also not seen, as well as the deterioration of information content. 
The landing is great. The rear passengers receive the space of not the worst golf-class sedan. Sitting in front are endowed with a rather modest Recaro buckets, which nevertheless perfectly fix the body not only with rollers of lateral support, but also due to the texture and elasticity. The body does not get tired for a long time. When tired - stop and warm -up, and then again the pursuit of wagons and kilometers. Yes, Peter is now not the one that was before, but not finally. You roll smoothly along Nevsky or Ligovsky - Europe! Some small streets are also completely restored, others partially, and the third are perfectly smooth roads of the central part of the city - only a drop in the ocean of its roads. And most of this ocean is murderous for the EVO VIII chassis and any sports civil car in general. But there is still an antidote. This is a steering wheel, pleasant to the touch and a very convenient Momo steering wheel. He makes two and a half turning from the stop to the stop and allows you to write out the most intricate snakes at the average speed without unnecessary stress - bad coatings become tolerable, and sometimes even good. And let all this look strange from the outside, the driver at the wheel enjoys. Checked.
The road back was less emotionally saturated. I got used to the tight controls (the only thing to get used to it was difficult to get used to - the infinity suffering from gear), the explosive temper Evolution VIII no longer seemed so dangerous, the work of the elastic suspension was perceived for granted. But they still delighted a full-wheel drive transmission with active center and rear differentials and a perfectly configured Super Ayc algorithm. Indeed, super! It was not possible to check the operation of the all -wheel drive in the snow, but in the asphalt mode - as much as you like, there was also gravel, but in significantly smaller quantities. So, on hard coating, this rally kar clings to the surface much better than some purely asphalt sports cars. In the bend, the maximum moment always enters the rear external wheel, and at the output the car shoots like a catapult! You can provoke slipping. Naturally, time is lost on this, but Fun To Drive is one hundred percent! On gravel, the rally god himself ordered to walk a fan - here Evo VIII is in his element. 
... It's already a wedge behind, Zelenograd flew, and they rolled into Moscow. Again - to sleep, and tomorrow - say goodbye to yellow Bestia. More than two thousand kilometers in three and a little day on Evo VIII is an excellent experience, as well as an exciting attraction. The R-200 train covers the distance between the two capitals is almost twice as soon as possible, but we choose the eighth express. We hope not to explain why? Text: Leonty Tyutelev
A source: Motor magazine [No. 03/2005]
