Mitsubishi is about to revive one of the most evocative names in rallying history with a car that will never see a special stage.
Instead the Renault-Nissan alliance’s recent Japanese acquisition will attach the name to a sleek new concept coupe at the Tokyo motor show next month.
Instead of being a traditional motor show coupe concept, the new e-Evolution will nod to recent trends and has been turned into a crossover coupe, with a slightly high-rise stance.
The electrified e-Evolution will be built to give hints about Mitsubishi’s future design and powertrain strategies, and is also said to deliver its latest artificial intelligence platform.
Mitsubishi was one of the earliest developers of “fuzzy logic” for automatic transmission shifting, but the new AI platform hints at a major step forward in autonomy (though, with no production Mitsubishi even at the mid-stages of Level 2, that is low-hanging fruit).
The all-wheel drive concept is set to be a flagship, if it ever enters production, marking out very different territory to the last Lancer Evolution Final Edition in 2015.