Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution is a car that pushes back

Call it what you will – track car, rally car, cop bait – the 10th-generation Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR is a test of willpower: Are you brave enough to drive this car to its fullest?

Well, are ya, punk?

All kidding aside, it helps to be of a certain mind-set if the Evo – as it’s popularly known – is your daily driver.

First, you have to like your cars dressed full Cleveland, with all of the bad boy accessories that typify this breed of boy-racer transport. The Evo has an outrageously sized spoiler, low-profile tires fitted with BBS wheels, aggressive hood scoops with air inlets, rudely bulging fenders, giant Brembo brakes that stop quicker than you can say “yes, officer” and snug Recaro bucket seats that are not for the Twinkie-obsessed.

Second, you have to get used to a car that caters to your worst tendencies. Behind the car’s firewall resides a turbocharged, intercooled, double-overhead-cam two-liter, four-cylinder engine that produces 291 horsepower. It rockets to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds. It’s way too easy to exceed that because the speedometer places 60 mph in the spot where 30 mph resides on most cars . Let your driving record be your conscience.

Steering is lightning quick, with infinitesimal steering wheel movements causing quick response. Cornering behavior is almost supernatural; there’s no body lean, even on the most twisted roads. The car remains flat, like a well-toned tummy. The ride is extremely firm, but there’s no need to get out the kidney belt. It’s forgiving enough on the Virginia Department of Transportation’s abysmal highways.

Finally, you better like your car high-tech. An all-wheel-drive system transfers all that power to terra firma through either a five-speed manual transmission or a new six-speed Twin-Clutch Sportronic Shift Transmission.

A twin-clutch transmission is one that contains two clutches. One shifts the odd-numbered gears, the other the even-numbered gears. When one clutch handles the shift from first to second, the other clutch simultaneously readies the shift from second to third. Tapping a paddle on the steering column changes the gear ; there is no clutch pedal.

The transmission shifts automatically, but it retains the feel of a manual transmission. There are three automatic modes – normal, sport and S-Sport (meant for track use only) – that work smoothly considering their aggressive gearing.

The car also has three terrain modes: tarmac, gravel and snow. Most of the time, you’ll use the first. If you live down a country road – and need to traverse it quickly – you’ll use the second. Skip the third mode. If it snows, take another car.

The whole package will make the safest, sanest driver fall under the Evo’s seductive spell. Rapture overtakes you as you put it through its paces. But what else would you expect from a rally car designed for street use?

Still, some details spoil the mood. The Evo starts life as a humble Lancer, a $15,000 grocery getter. There’s lots of hard plastic interior trim, which is only partially helped by a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shifter. The doors clang with a sound that speaks to cheapness, not cheap thrills. And the optional technology package, with Bluetooth and touch-screen navigation, includes a 65-watt audio system whose sub-woofer reduces trunk space to a Lilliputian 6.9 cubic-feet.

Will boy racers care? Nope.

This rally car is the most refined edition of the Evo yet produced and driving it is easy , whether on the track, on the trail or on the street.