The Woman Behind the Wheel

New Mitsubishi Lancer comes fully loaded with ‘get-up-and-go’

Some cars wake up and go to work just like the people who drive them. They yawn, stretch and move into the day without a lot of fanfare. And then some, like the new Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart Sportback, do it another way altogether.

The Ralliart is ready to go, to take charge of the road, the minute you turn it on. It growls. I swear, it really growls.

This is a driver’s car. Not the I-drive-because-I-can’t-get-there-if-I-don’t driver. No, this car is for the I-drive-because-nothing-feels-better-than-steering-a-machine-around-curves-and-eating-up-the-miles-on-the-freeway, kind of driver.

It isn’t just the way it handles curves, hunkering down to grip the road, leaning into each turn. It isn’t just the way it roars up hills and down the freeway teasing you to go a bit faster. To go a bit further. To try a little harder.

It isn’t just the raw, responsive power of the machine. I mean, I expected all that.

The thing about this car that gets to you is more elemental. There’s something different going on under the hood. Just take a drive in the Railliart and you can almost feel it, well, thinking.

Put your foot on the gas and the car reads your mind. The automatic twin-clutch manual transmission, with paddles if you want the option to take over the controls, is way ahead of you, anticipating your next shift and making it smoothly. It builds power and then launches. Suddenly, you’re turbocharged. It’s like riding, or in this case, driving a rocket. But you’re in control.

Sport seats cup you and keep passengers steady when you do get the nerve to open it up and go.

The Ralliart is a beefcake vehicle. Plain and simple. A scaled-back race car interior yields the limelight to the sporty exterior design. The Ralliart flexes muscle, rushes the road and can’t stand to be last in line. And, I’m telling you, it growls.

All that might be appealing to some women. But for the rest of us, those of us who are not so inclined, there’s a sexier side to the car. It’s got something we don’t always get from a guy.

Unlike so many of the men buckled up next to us as we drive though the day, when we look deeply into the Ralliart’s big bright headlights, we can tell exactly what it’s thinking. No mystery there. You press the pedal, and the car speaks to you. This 234-horsepower companion is an open book.

Trust me. That’s enough to make some of us want to hop in and drive that baby right off the showroom floor.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is freelance writer living in Spokane. Her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and she is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons.” She can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com