Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback range
Prices: £14,849-£24,149 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 5-17
Emissions: 156-243g/km
Performance: [1.8 VVT] 0-60mph 9.8s / Max Speed 127mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.8 VVT] (urban) 27.2mpg / (extra urban) 46.3mpg / (combined) 36.7mpg
Safety: ABS, twin front, side and knee airbags, ISOFIX child seat mountings
Dimensions: length/width/height mm 4585/1760/1515

BACK WITH A VENGEANGE

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Don’t call it a hatchback, Mitsubishi’s five-door Lancer is the Sportback. Steve Walker reports

Good looks, low prices and lots of equipment will get the Mitsubishi Lancer so far and in Sportback form it offers useful extra practicality as well. It’s not a class leader amongst the mainstream family hatchbacks it’s targeting but purely on a value for money basis, the Mitsubishi puts up a good fight.

Mitsubishi’s Lancer had always been a saloon and that was fine. We British, and our Northern European neighbours for that matter, don’t warm to booted cars in the same way as we do their hatchbacked equivalents but we’ll certainly take one if it’s packing something north of 300bhp and a rally-bred all-wheel-drive chassis - as Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolution models invariably were. The market for road burning Lancer Evos was always going to be limited to the lunatic fringe, however, and so Mitsubishi has attempted to broaden the latest Lancer’s appeal. That, for the UK market at least, meant a five-door Sportback model.

The Sportback’s mission is to increase sales of the non-Evo Mitsubishi Lancers. It goes head to head with the established players in the family hatchback market like Ford’s Focus and Vauxhall’s Astra so it will need to be good. In the past the ordinary Lancer saloons that came to the UK market couldn’t really have been further removed from their fiery Evo cousins but the Sportback sets out to forge a stronger connection to the legendary performance car in the hope of benefiting from some trickle down kudos.

The ‘junior Evo’ angle will no doubt be fully explored by Mitsubishi in their attempts to raise the profile of the Lancer Sportback with customers who’d really like a supercar-slaying Evo X but whose financial situation says no. The engines aren’t quite in Evo territory but with a 107 and 141bhp 1.5 and 1.8-litre petrols plus a 138bhp 2.0-litre diesel, the range is a good fit for the upper end of the family hatch market. The petrol 1.8-litre model accelerates from 0 to 60mph in 10.4 seconds while the diesel can manage the same in 9.6s. The Sportback features the advanced suspension system that’s shared across the Lancer range with MacPherson struts at the front and an independent multi-link set-up at the rear. Buyers can also opt for a sports tuned chassis that includes thicker anti-roll bars, firmer springs and more heft for the hydraulic power st

Those wanting something with a little more firepower can step up to the Lancer Sportback Ralliart which looks and feels far more Evo-esque. Here there’s a 237bhp 2.0-litre turbo engine and performance that will give the usual hot hatchback suspects something to worry about. Crucially, it also features a version of the all-wheel-drive system from the Evo X which provides a serious edge over the front-wheel-drive alternatives. The standard Lancers do drive very adeptly, albeit with nothing like the lightening responses of an Evo. Poor road surfaces are soaked-up very effectively and there’s a lovely punchy feel to the manual gearbox.

Until the current generation came along, the man or woman in the street would have been hard pushed to spot any visual connection between the stock Lancer saloon and its Lancer Evolution relative. The two cars were chalk and some mad from of ultra-powerful high-performance cheese - with spoilers. Today, the link between Lancer and Evo is obvious and even the Sportback has a touch of aggression bubbling under the surface. At the front, Mitsubishi’s ‘Jet Fighter’ grille takes pride of place, as on all Lancer models, but the rear has been tweaked to accommodate the tailgate. The light clusters are longer and wrap around the bumpers while the roof line is toped of with a subtle body-coloured spoiler.

A big draw on the latest Lancer is the improved interior quality. The plastics and design are still probably a notch below the best in this price bracket, but they’re no longer leagues off the pace as they were in the old model. The cowled instruments are a particularly nice touch. Space inside is better than in the previous generation car thanks to the wheelbase and track increases but this Sportback version is no cavernous load lugger, the steeply raked rear end impinging on carrying capacity. Score one to the stylists. What you do get is an adjustable height cargo floor and auto-folding rear seats which help owners make better use of the s