Mitsubishi Eclipse Ralliart Concept

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What Is It?
Mitsubishi Eclipse Ralliart Concept

What's Special About It?
This is an Eclipse done the way we would have done it. It's from Ralliart, the motorsports division of Mitsubishi and unlike the standard Eclipse this concept looks like it could be a serious driver's car.

Gone is the production model's front-wheel drive in favor of an all-wheel-drive setup pulled straight from the Lancer Evolution. Ralliart went ahead and used the Evo's turbocharged four-cylinder engine, too, but cranked it up with a laundry list of HKS performance parts. A new turbo, 264 cams, a high-flow fuel pump, high-flow injectors — it's all there along with a custom intake and 2.75-inch exhaust from the turbo back. Mitsubishi estimates the engine cranks out around 400 horsepower.

We were glad to see a six-speed manual transmission instead of the paddle shifters that every other concept seems to be favoring these days. The rear suspension was borrowed from the Endeavor SUV while Road Race Engineering provided the coil-over shocks. Brakes are eight-piston Brembos up front, four-piston in back with 15- and 13.5-inch rotors, respectively. Overall weight was reduced by using carbon fiber for the roof, front and rear fascias, hood, mirror housings and front fenders.

The interior of the standard Eclipse is one of its bright spots and the Ralliart designers didn't fiddle with it much. They replaced the rear seats with storage bins and swapped in Recaro seats covered in leather and Alcantara up front. Auxiliary gauges were added to the top of the dash along with a suede-covered steering wheel pulled from the Evo.

What's Edmunds' Take?
This concept not only looks better than the standard Eclipse, we're betting that it's about a hundred times more fun to drive, too. Now if Mitsubishi would only figure out how to build another all-wheel-drive Eclipse it might start selling more than just Evos. — Ed Hellwig