Unlocked showcase

The two-seater sports coupe, launched at the Detroit motor show, features a snarling shark nose and gaping trapezoidal maw, rising waistline and powerful haunches set off by 21-inch wheels sitting in pumped arches.

Body weight has been kept to a minimum with the use of a rigid aluminium space frame and impact-resistant plastic body panels. The butterfly doors swing up to reveal a wraparound double cockpit of leather with aluminium accents and pared-down instruments.

An opening in the matte black bonnet exposes the cover of a new 2.2-litre four-cylinder common-rail turbodiesel engine that uses MIVEC4 valve timing optimisation and a variable-diffuser/variable geometry turbocharger to give the best possible combination of efficiency and boost across the rev range.

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The unit develops 150kW of power and 420Nm of torque, while a new catalytic converter system that combines diesel particulation with a diesel oxidation catalyst and a nitrous oxide trap catalyst keeps emissions to the US's Tier 2 Bin 5 standards — which are more stringent than Euro 5 and even on Euro 6 with regard to NOx.

The Concept-RA uses the twin clutch auto-manual transmission and Super All Wheel Control drive system from the Evolution X, with active steering and damping, active centre differential, active yaw control, active stability control all working to give the driver more command over torque, steering input, braking and dynamics. Translation: better traction, cornering and stability. Sadly, Mitsubishi says the car is a technology showcase and is not likely to end up on showroom floors.

“It's a one-off concept built for this particular show on a running car that is a Lancer platform,” says Mitsubishi's US product communications manager Maurice Durand. He says the although the initial drawing came from an American designer, Mitsubishi designers from around the world contributed. How long before they might make a decision about whether to take it further?

Aikawa says he “cannot comment”, but Durand says it will be years rather than months.

“But just because it's on a Lancer platform doesn't mean a production version of it would be on that as well,” Durand says. “This is merely for the show car.

“You already have the suspension and the platform engineered with a running car so you can put a show car shell on it.”

There are no plans to utilise any of the Concept-RA in Mitsubishi's Eclispse for the US.

“We're about to launch the 2009 Eclipse in the US, which is a freshened version of the current platform of the Eclipse,” Durand says.