hackish

After driving a car one of the things I always look closely at is the engineering. Many HMT members do their own work so they know what I'm talking about. How well put together is the car, how easy is it to work on?

Compare the EVO to the STi. Oh wait, there is no comparison.

As for performance, at that level it's such a big set of shoes to grow into that the minor differences do not really affect anything. From what I recall the mitsu is very very slightly quicker.

With a car like that, and I know this isn't a popular stance, but the car itself doesn't really need mods. It's the driver that needs mods. It's so quick that you'd have to be a very good and very experienced driver to even fill 90% the performance envelope.

I'd take the STi hands down. Much better designed, much better laid out and in my opinion a really fun car to drive. You really have to drive the car to appreciate it's strong points.

For the record, unless you're overweight the seats are very comfortable. The best part isn't the engine, or the 300hp. It's not the turbo, the awesome handling or the low centre of gravity. It's the brakes.

I drove an STi for a couple of hours on some back roads. Even though the 2004 isn't quite as fast as my STi the power is very smooth whereas on the 2.0l it hits you like a ton of bricks when the turbo spools. I took it up to 225km/h and very quickly down to 100km/h a few times in a row. The brakes are absolutely amazing!

I've never driven an evo myself (we don't have them in Canada) but I've worked on earlier EVOs and I've sat in the nav seat. No, these weren't street cars but you could still say bad words at the original layout and engineering.

I prefer my cars well put together.

-Michael