Mitsubishi is showing the world the future of performance cars and it’s here now at the Paris Motor Show 2014.
They brought the hot new Outlander PHEV Concept-S, a concept car based on Outlander PHEV, and it’s one of the hottest attractions at the 2014 Paris Motor Show.
But Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) also brought what could be the next-generation Lancer Evolution to the show called Mitsubishi Concept XR-PHEV.
Stuffing your right foot into a motor north of 700 hp isn’t something most people do every day, so getting an invite to do so ranks right up there with getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. We’ve driven race cars with that kind of power before, so we were curious about how Dodge’s powertrain and chassis engineers would balance the sheer terror of 700 hp with the need for acceptable street manners. What they came up was nothing short of astonishing.
Shift-for-yourself types will have to make do with 21 mpg highway from the six-speed manual version. (City figures weren’t released for either transmission.) Massaging those kind of numbers from a two-ton muscle car is an impressive feat, but according to a recent report on Jalopnik, the 707-hp Hellcat engine actually broke the 800-hp mark during development.
A trip to the dyno revealed the Challenger’s supercharged; 6.2-liter, V-8 HEMI puts down 671 horsepower at the rear wheels — well within the expected range for parasitic driveline loss. Torque was equally impressive, putting down 606 pound-feet at the wheels.
And the situation goes for mass-market products as well: in Europe diesel engines have been made as good as their gasoline counterparts only after using turbos – and many automakers are embracing the era of downsizing: smaller displacement engines that use forced induction to deliver power and fuel economy.
