2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR: Unloved Without A Cause

I love reading posts like this and lvranger's comment is icing on the cake!

A steak among scraps when the preferred choice might be veggies or perhaps a salad?

^Even if veggies and a salad had been available, I still might have gone with the steak.

A man's gotta eat.

-JS

I love owning sports cars as they are so much fun come weeks end, but for daily driving, i prefer something large, soft, and smooth, aka BMW 7, MB S-class, Jaguar XJ. I don't want to feel every expansion joint on my way to work, nor do I need (or care for) grabby racing style brakes in stop and go traffic. Same goes for ridiculous aero packages that make ground clearance a pain in daily driving. I think that IL staff is in love with the idea of a sports car, but the refinement of a more sensible cars. Hence the evos scrap status.

Don't get me wrong though, on week ends its time to fire up the Exige!!

"Even if veggies and a salad had been available, I still might have gone with the steak.

A man's gotta eat."

And too much steak leads to obesity, heart disease and colon cancer. A man's gotta eat, but he's also got to be smart about his health.
-mm

I think I've lost the analogy.

Josh,

Where was the picture taken? GMR?

And you wonder why?

It's call the REALITY CHECK.

Yeah everyone wants to drive a sports car once a while but sometime, if not all the time, we all give into the reality of the A-to-B commute we (at least for those of us who have jobs...) all have to take every single day.

If I am facing an hour-long drive sitting in the I405 traffic do I want to take the Evo with a stiff clutch, a taut ride and a juvenile exhaust note or do I want to take that comfortable Genesis but at the same time isn't as lifeless as grandpa's Buick.

Looks to me the question has been answered with Sadlier's latest blog entry...

Automotive publications like the Edmunds can keep whining about more cars become "soul-less" these days but the reality is that "soul" doesn't sell.

"these days but the reality is that "soul" doesn't sell."

except if you're Kia......ooooooooh yah!

Evo, stiff clutch, taut ride, loud exhaust, every time. I face a 15 mile, 30 minute one way commute every day. I'm one of those people who focus on driving without distraction so the better the car the better the commute.

You are right though, i'm in the minority and any carmaker that wants to make money needs to build an isolation box.

great post. fun responses.

@slowevo,

The picture's from Corral Canyon.

lvranger,

If could average a scorching 30 mph like you do on my commute, I'd also go with a performance car most nights. But the reality here in L.A. is my 6 mile commute takes 30 minutes on a good day (12 mph average), 45 minutes on a bad day (8 mph average speed).

Weekends are when I really get to enjoy driving. To preserve my sanity during the week I'll sometimes use one of my motorcycles for the ugly commute.

Yeah, I bet that manual is a pistol in LA traffic. The evo is geared pretty tall too, making the whole thing worse.

Nice one, dougtheeng. :o)

"To preserve my sanity during the week I'll sometimes use one of my motorcycles for the ugly commute."

Now your speaking my language. I do this whenever i'm not sick or hungover. So maybe half the time. :-)

What I can extrapolate from all these mathmatical calculations, johnnyturbo, is exactly what we've thought all along: Vegas is trying its hardest to be L.A. lite. The congestion, crummy (and constant) road construction and poor drivers, with only half the calories!

When is this thing gonna go head to head with the GTR?!?

Funny! But L.A. easily takes the title of The Worlds Worst Drivers.

Turn signals, red lights, going with the flow of traffic, left lane discipline, merging and (uncommon) courtesy are foreign, confusing concepts to people out here.

Luckily 30% of the license plates I see here are from California and that number doubles on the weekends. So I feel your pain.

To stay on topic, I haven't seen a GSR around town lately. Come on guys, take a GSR Vegas roadtrip! Show those I15 left lane campers whats what!

Traffic is the primary reason I live in downtown, approx 1/2 a mile from my office. I'd rather enjoy a 5-10 minute walk than spend an hour or more a day stuck in traffic wanting to shoot the next person that cuts me off.

Then on the weekends I get outta dodge and drive it like I stole it! If there's traffic on the route...well at least I'm packing heat. J/K

If I had to commute on LA freeways I might have bought a cushy car, but since I don't, who cares :). I do agree with Sadlier on this one though.

That said, I did drive from San Pedro to Brentwood today at 3pm and then back after a stop at Conserv fuels to pick up 30 gallons of E85. My SO had our Tahoe, so I took my Evo X GSR. Suffice it to say, traffic sucked. I didn't get going early enough and ended up sitting in tons of traffic both ways. Average speed was about 22 mph and the whole journey, including gas (sorry, ethanol) stop, took over 1.5 hours.

Anyways, the trunk took all the fuel drums nicely, and the its first major rush hour experience, the GSR handled the traffic quite well. I was really surprised. The turbo lag didn't cause me to leave any big gaps for people to jump into in front of me, the clutch operation was smooth and didn't get tiresome or creaky, and I even averaged 19 mpg with the A/C on full blast and the Sirius cranked way up. And short of a few perfectly spaced expansion joints on the 405 between the 10 and the 90, the ride was quite acceptable for what it is.

The EvoX has really grown on me these last 6 months. With an exhaust and tune it is plenty fast, so my last mod will be an upgraded turbo and I'm done till something wears out (shocks, brake pads, tires). The stock suspension is excellent for back road blasts and even holds its own on the racetrack, yet is quite tolerable for an enthusiast on the street. The brakes rock and the interior has plenty of space. Maybe Edmunds should put the stock shocks back on and put on bigger swaybars to improve the cornering. Their GSR is probably a bit too stiff (and low) these days

I actually like modifying cars as I can fine tune and dial in all the settings to my liking.

Of course a supple ride and quite exhaust note aren't part of that recipe. Snug but comfy race buckets, roll cage, squealing hi-po race pads, immediate chassis/steering response, a suspension set-up that has no additional movement whatsoever, a snickety-snick shifter and an overly eager, ultra refined, ultra responsive small displacement, high revving engine are part of the game. Few cars can match that feeling of spirited driving while being fully enveloped by all those characteristics working in harmony as when it all comes together you feel as if you've personally developed your own "race car" no matter how fast or slow it is.

In the end its not only about increasing a cars performance, amplifying a cars strengths or improving its weaknesses as its also very much about how the car makes you feel. If you return home with a serious grin on your face every time you drive it the project was 100% successful.

After you find and conquer your own and the cars limits its time to do it all over again with something that's very similar in character but with a better and higher performance foundation. Yes, regardless of what the wife says its finally time to unleash S2k's full potential!

I'm with Josh on this one.

+1 Josh.

The heavy clutch, stiff suspension, and noise are what make the car fun to drive. Shunning the car for these reasons is picking gnat shit from black pepper.

If there really are that many folks at IL who'd pick an SX4 over the Evo for a day, then maybe they should go work at Consumer Reports; where they'll get paid to drive boring cars all the time.

Maybe your co-workers were just being nice? :)