Welcome back to Goo-Net Find of the Week, a series in which we pretend we’re not procrastinating on a Friday afternoon by idly browsing the coolest online used car platform in the world, Japan’s Goo-Net Exchange.
Ever looked at a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and thought to yourself, ‘Great, but I wish it were a bit more practical’? Well, those in the know are aware that Japan did get a rare estate version of the Evo IX, but that was pretty titchy by estate standards. We want to go bigger.
Enter the Mitsubishi Airtrek, the lightly restyled Japanese-market version of the first-gen Outlander. The noughties were a period when the Japanese manufacturers would seemingly make a performance variant of anything, and the car we’re talking about today – the Airtrek Turbo-R – arrived as part of the same wave of hot crossovers as the Subaru Forester STI and SR20VET-powered Nissan X-Trail Turbo GT.
Mitsubishi Airtrek Turbo-R – rear
For the Turbo-R, Mitsubishi transplanted the powertrain from the Lancer Evo VII into the unassuming Airtrek. Okay, full disclosure – it wasn’t a wholesale drivetrain swap. The Airtrek did get the same legendary 2.0-litre turbocharged 4G63 four-pot, but it was detuned to 237bhp from the quote-unquote 276bhp it was making in the Evo to satisfy the Japanese ‘gentleman’s agreement’.
While it did adopt the Evo’s full-time all-wheel drive system, it lacked the donor car’s active centre diff and yaw control, and in perhaps the biggest differentiator, it only came with a five-speed automatic. Despite all this, though, this was still a sensible, practical crossover that would rip to 60mph somewhere in the region of 6.5 seconds, easily keeping pace with, if not out-accelerating, lots of hot hatches and sports cars of its day.
Mitsubishi Airtrek Turbo-R – interior
It was subtle, too – the only real clues you were looking at something hiding the heart of a rally homologation special were some bigger alloys and a bonnet scoop, although this particular car seems to have an aftermarket exhaust system that doesn’t look like it’s on the best of terms with the word ‘subtle’.
Speaking of this example, it’s covered a fairly modest 55,600km, or around 34,500 miles, and is up at ¥760,000. That, rather incredibly, equates to just over £3800 at the time of writing. The Japanese used car market never ceases to amaze us. Excuse us while we sulk about our lack of sub-£4k, low-mileage rally-bred turbo-boosted family crossovers.
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