Mitsubishi Once Built A Diesel Sports Car Concept

There was a time, really not very long ago, when it seemed like diesel really was the fuel of the future, so it’s no surprise that it was being looked into in every corner of the automotive industry, and for pretty much every type of car – sports cars included.

Some of these even managed to make production – both the Audi TT and Mercedes SLK came with the option of diesel power at the height of DERV madness – but plenty of other companies were looking into the idea. Dieselmania had roots in Europe, where the fuel had been pushed the hardest by governments and carmakers, but it had legs elsewhere too, as proven when a Japanese car company debuted a diesel sports car concept at an American motor show.

That show was the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, and that car was the Mitsubishi Concept-RA, a butterfly-doored two-seater coupe that looked like a final-generation Eclipse had been mashed together with the then-new Lancer Evolution X. Just to remind you of the powertrain, the engine’s plastic cover, complete with graphics proudly declaring its appetite for the black pump, poked up through the bonnet.

Beneath said bonnet was a 2.2-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder making 201bhp but, more importantly for an oil-burner, 310lb ft of torque, all sent through Mitsubishi’s SST dual-clutch. The company never gave projected performance figures, but given the Concept-RA was based around an aluminium spaceframe chassis and had various body panels made from lightweight plastic resin – also designed to be easily recycled – it probably would have held its own against the other small sports cars of the era.

It would have handled, too, because underneath was an evolution (pun somewhat intended) of the Super-All Wheel Control all-wheel drive system from the Evo X. This borrowed several systems wholesale from the final-gen rally-bred saloon, including its torque-shuffing active centre diff and signature Active Yaw Control, as well as introducing new features like variable damping and steering ratios.

Inside, it was all very 2008 concept car, with swathes of tan leather and brushed aluminium (or whatever did a decent impersonation of tan leather and brushed aluminium when viewed from behind a velvet rope on a motor show stand), and a wraparound, driver-centric cockpit with a series of befuddling-looking digital instruments.

Mitsubishi never really made any noises about putting the Concept-RA into production, and it ultimately marked both the beginning and the end of the company’s flirtation with diesel as a high-performance powertrain – which is probably for the best. Strong and torquey they may be, but diesels have never offered the kind of zingy response you want from a sports car powertrain, which is why the few that managed to make it past the drawing board were largely bought by people who wanted the look but none of the running costs.

And of course, diesel’s fall from grace over the last decade or so has been nothing short of spectacular, leaving it only as the fuel of choice for those with big miles to cover or big things to tow. The notion of the diesel performance car is basically dead, and any future fast Mitsubishi is now likely to be powered by the thing that replaced diesel as the object of the traditional petrolhead’s ire – electricity.

Still, the Concept-RA remains a fascinating footnote among the great all-wheel drive performance cars Mitsubishi has built over the years, and given the truly spectacular thirst of some of the really fast versions of the Lancer Evo, we’re sure there are some people out there who’d have welcomed it had it made production.