MT Reviews: Mitsubishi's Evo X

I don't have many regrets about my youth. Except, perhaps, for the period I went around calling myself 'Blade'. And not hiding that I listened to Mariah Carey. And those computer games. I mean, where did all that squinting and joystick waggling get me? Nowhere.

At least, I would have said nowhere until I drove the Evo X and remembered that I first came across it on my PlayStation.

And the knowledge that I gained from doing so - that it is a supremely fast car, despite its lowly price tag and unpretentious looks - means that I can now claim there was a useful consequence to the 40,000 hours I spent playing Gran Turismo.

And the computer games vibe continues in the flesh. The vents on the wheel arches, the big rear diffuser and the oversized wing all look as if they were designed in 1989 on a ZX Spectrum.

And if the manual for the Evo X is anything to go by, with its references to 'girdle reinforcement survival cages' and 'active yaw control', the people who used to write for Your Sinclair magazine are now working for Mitsubishi.

The interior perfectly captures the atmosphere of a teenage boy's bedroom. The sound system comes with no fewer than nine speakers. The graphic equaliser has something called a 'punch level', which didn't do much for my experience of listening to Gardeners' Question Time but, I imagine, greatly enhances today's teenage equivalent of Mariah Carey.

The car comes with a 30GB hard drive, supposedly to store music, but is also powerful enough to let you hack into the CIA in a spare moment. Frankly, you almost expect to find a Kelly Brook calendar hanging in the rear window.

What's it like to drive? I've been informed, perhaps unreliably, that 'FQ' stands for 'fucking quick'.

And that's pretty accurate. It's lightning-fast yet incredibly manageable. Almost like driving a supercar in a computer game. And, of course, it's incredible value when you compare it to, say, a Ferrari or a BMW M3.

All the same, driving it to work will do about as much for your career development as vomiting over the receptionist at your office party after eight pints of Diamond White.

RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS