Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross – Ralliart variant is possible

After seeing the freshly unveiled Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, some might have thought that it looked a decent canvas for a sporty, performance model. Me too. As cars are now dead to MMC, which has repositioned itself as an SUV specialist, surely the pent up “Evoness” in the company had to come out somewhere…

Not here, not in Evolution form anyway. According to CarAdvice, the Eclipse Cross could spawn a sportier Ralliart version in the future, if there’s demand for it. That’s an option, but an “Eclipse Cross Evolution” is not, project leader Hiroshi Yamauchi told the Australian website at Geneva.

“[Ralliart would be] one option. But we want to get market feedback, then I will decide which direction it should be. I can do that [Ralliart], but it depends on the market feedback,” he said, adding that an Evo would be one step too far. “Ralliart version is one option, but the Evolution [there] is no plan, because Evolution is completely different from sporty – it’s sports, not just sporty,” he added.

Carmakers are rightly putting fuel efficiency and emissions regulations as their top priority, and that’s a hurdle in extracting more performance from turbo engines. “[For the Ralliart version we would like] to improve the torque, much more sporty, that is my expectation. But of course fuel economy is much more important so I am not sure which direction is appropriate for new Eclipse Cross,” Yamauchi commented. A three-door variant? As usual, “if there is sufficient market demand” is the safe answer.

The likes of Toyota and Honda may be thinking sporty again, but MMC does not have that kind of resources on hand. “I wouldn’t say [sports cars] are no longer on the radar. It’s something that is part of our heritage, but we have to understand what is the right thing to do, and how we make a sustainable future,” MMC COO Trevor Mann told CarAdvice.

“And when you have a sustainable future you can have the nice-to-haves. We have to make sure we have a very strong and robust model line-up that can sustain all the other things that we would like to do,” he added. Enthusiasts, just accept that the Evo is dead and move on already!

GALLERY: Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross

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