In lost in translation, bill murray plays a jaded movie star adrift and alienated in the maelstrom of Tokyo. Elevators, women, hotel-gym treadmills, foreign alcohol: he can't get his head round any of it. His face is a picture of permanently crumpled cross-cultural confusion.
Right now, I know how he feels. At a test track in the hills high above the northern Japanese city of Obihiro, I've just thrashed seven shades of you-know-what out of Mitsubishi's new Lancer Evo X and I'm suffering techno-shock. As unfazed as I am fazed, the bloody thing has beaten me. Is this the most complicated car ever made or what?
Yes, it has four wheels and four doors and an aggressively sculpted but ultimately conventional looking body. There are wings and spoilers and a rear diffuser that's strictly non-decorative. But we've seen all this before. Inside, expense clearly has been spared and, as solid as it is, Audi's people aren't yet drafting a battle plan. In other words, the Lancer Evo X is a step up from being merely another Japanese automotive white good, but only just.
And then you drive it. Crafty Mitsubishi has built a mini-Nordschleife at its home proving ground, and the Evo X will lap it about as quickly as any vehicle on the planet. Keep your foot in and it'll blast through a thrilling sequence of left-right-left third-gear corners in a way that will have your jowls flapping as if you're strapped into one of those g-machines used to train astronauts. Throttle off suddenly or give the car a quick 'Scandinavian flick' even if it's not a very good one - and the back end suddenly becomes very mobile indeed. The steering and body control are both incredible. And if you're very brave, talented or perhaps just heroically stupid, the Evo X can be coaxed into the most mammoth four-wheel drifts. This car is very fast, astoundingly well-engineered, and barking mad. It does exactly what you want it to do, and yet you have no real idea how it's doing it.
Re-grouping after a sensory overload like this isn't easy, especially when there's a small army of Mitsubishi engineers staring at you expectantly. But what I can confirm is that Chapter loin this saga is probably the most entertaining since the Lancer Evo story went over-ground with iteration number five (or V, if you insist) in the Nineties.
It even looks handsome. I'm not sure if an actual stylist has ever been let loose on any Mitsubishi Lancer before - which is part of the car's charm when you think about it - but this time there's real substance. Its face has all the come-hither allure of Darth Vader's mask, and its body has a truncated look to it. But there's a simple, stoic solidity to the Evo X entirely in keeping with its mission to go as fast as hell rather than to go boldly into the Design Museum for a cappuccino and a chat with a man in a black polo neck.
Exterior designer Norihiko Yoshimine explains his influences: "The front end was inspired by a fighter jet, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero in particular. You can see the intercooler when you look into the grille - I was influenced by what you see when you look into a jet engine on a plane.
"Of course, there is a manga influence on the car too. Have you heard of a character called Gundam? He's a robot warrior, very cool…"
Yoshimine worked up the various aerodynamic bits too, but he admits that while the end product manipulates the air with the standard sophistication, the process wasn't always entirely scientific.
"When we were working with a model in the wind tunnel, part of the rear diffuser wasn't quite right. I gave it a kick. It looked better after that." It's a functional-looking thing this, like a giant metal running shoe. The car's bonnet has multiple ducts to feed in cooling air, and the intakes behind the front wheel arches allow hot air to escape from what is most likely an extremely humid engine bay. There's also a 'twist' in the rear spoiler to assist airflow and maximise rear down force. Torsional rigidity has been increased by 39 per cent, and the centre of gravity improved by lowering the engine.
If anything, the interior is even more straight-forward. The instruments are housed in a simple twin binnacle, with a digital read-out sandwiched in between. Mitsubishi's satnav/media module will probably be standard once the car is on sale, but here there is just a bleak black hole. Aircon duties are handled by three brilliantly simple rotary controls. Nowhere inside this car will you find any evidence of lateral thinking, innovation or a pointless reinterpretation of things that have worked perfectly well for years. No 'key card', back-lit starter button, or bottom-massaging seats. Once again, that invitation to the Design Museum has been put on hold.
Which is good. Because the stuff underneath is so clever it would have Stephen Hawking doing donuts in his wheelchair. Where the hell do you start? Let's kick off with S-AWC. In a car that comes with a bewildering array of acronyms, S-AWC is the daddy, or Super All Wheel Control in its full glory Mitsubishi claims that this is central to its corporate philosophy of delivering 'driving pleasure' with the 'utmost safety,' by combining 'predictable handling' with a 'high margin of performance.' I only quote all this PR guff because the reality is that S-AWC enables you to drive like an absolute lunatic, but then 'drive like a loon' wouldn't really work as a corporate line, would it?
S-AWC consists of four primary components. First is ACD, the Active Centre Differential. This uses an electronically controlled hydraulic multi-plate clutch to sharpen steering response and maximise traction by optimising the torque split between the front and rear wheels.
But you knew that, surely. AYC, or Active Yaw Control, is cleverer still. This improves cornering speeds and traction by monitoring and controlling the torque transfer between the rear wheels. (Keen Evo students probably knew this as well.) Evo X, though, adds a new yaw-feedback control, with sensors monitoring lateral forces on the car and braking inputs in real-time, then acting on your behalf in response to driver inputs.
AYC really is the Lancer Evo's principal party trick: it first appeared in the Evo IV back in April '%, and received a major upgrade in 2003 in the Evo VIII when a switch from bevel gear to a planetary set-up doubled the amount of torque it could handle.
Now, in 2007 for iteration 10, ASC (Active Stability Control) has been added. Traction control basically, fully integrated to regulate engine power and braking force at each wheel. Interestingly, there's also a chunky 'off' button.
ABS is the final element in the armoury. The four together add up to a system that monitors and compares what the car is doing with what the driver actually wants it to do. Where there is divergence, it delivers harmony. Where there is understeer or oversteer, it serves up neutrality. It's like the United Nations of high-performance driving.
There are other major changes. The Evo X retains the trademark 2.0-litre four-cylinder (engine, but this is a new unit, developed as part of Mitsubishi's 'global engine alliance' with DaimlerChrysler and Hyundai. It's all-aluminium the previous motor had an iron block), has a more muscular mid-range and revised variable valve timing. The turbo is running more boost than before, and will no doubt enjoy further wild upgrades when the tuner brigade gets its hands on the car. The car you see here, though, makes do with around 276bhp (at 7,000rpm) and 422Nm of torque (at 3,500rpm), a healthy baseline from which the real madness can begin. Funnily enough, the man from Mitsubishi looked distinctly unhappy when I told him about the hot Evo FQ400s we're so fond of in the UK (and even less amused when I revealed that FQ allegedly stands for 'fucking quick.' That really was lost in translation).
The Evo's suspension features McPherson struts at the front with a multi-link set-up at the rear, with forged aluminium components. But the real big news is the introduction of a twin-clutch automated manual transmission: Mitsubishi's take on VW's dual-shift gearbox (DSG), the first to rival the Germans' impressively smooth system and beating much bigger players to market.
Odd (1st, 3rd and 5th) and even (2nd, 4th, and 6th) gears sit on separate input shafts, each connected to an individual clutch. By using a twin-clutch set-up rather than a conventional torque converter, Mitsubishi claims reduced power losses through the transmission, as well as a simpler structure.
God knows it doesn't feel that simple when you first try it. The SST (Sport-tronic Shift Transmission) has three modes - normal, sport and super sport - triggered by a small switch located behind the gearlever. Hold the switch for three seconds and you're in super sport mode, which maintains higher revs and provides greater engine braking; all you need to do for a full-bore launch is hold left foot on the brake while the right dials up 5,000rpm. Then ka-boom ...
If your last Evo experience happened to be in a car with 400bhp, then the new one clearly doesn't accelerate quite as explosively. But it's hardly tame. In fact - whisper it - it feels about optimum. Up and downshifts are done via column-mounted paddles, and despite the various forces at work shovelling all that grunt onto the road the shifts are very smooth. Try to out-fox the system by down-changing early and there's an admonitory beep, but it rarely happens: the engine loves revs, and the SST is happy to facilitate them. Evos have always had an unburstable rigour to them; this new transmission has clearly been engineered to cope with big loads. There's also a new five-speed manual gearbox; at the risk of sounding rather more Meccano than Wii, it feels like a better fit with the Evo X's overall character and remit. Like the steering (rack and pinion with hydraulic power assistance), it has a terrifically tactile feel to it. You really can feel the cogs meshing.
Which is the crux of the new car. Because, despite all the electro-wizardry, it's the basics that really matter and they're bang on. Perhaps it's the WRC DNA, or maybe there's a strong purist streak at work. Whatever it is, you just know this is a car you can do serious business in the moment you settle into the Recaro seats and place your hands on the wheel. It feels taut and tough. It's a driving machine, and nothing else.
Takao Matsui, one of Mitsubishi's chassis guys, demonstrates just what fireworks it's capable of in the hands of someone who really knows it, but around a seriously tricky hill-side test route it's not long before I'm driving the socks off it too. Leave the system switched on and it intervenes surprisingly unobtrusively. Turn it off - and you can disable the brake force control too - and the chassis' naked genius is apparent. Power-on oversteer is tricky to provoke, but once the S-AWC has worked out what you're up to, and vice versa, the sensations are uniquely addictive. It really is brilliant. It even rides well, and stays composed even on bumpy surfaces. The brakes - Brembos - are also fantastic.
Sequels are rarely anywhere as good as the first installment, but number 10 in this long-running franchise is a corker. Lost in translation? Things couldn't be clearer...