2009 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart Officially Starts at $26,490

1st

This looks sooooooo much better than the Subaru.

Mitsucould really use a step-up in the interior dept...

LOL the steering wheel+gauges looks like some kind of stealth hello kitty tribute.

Heh. You're right, it looks like hello kitty with a gas mask.

Hello Kitty?

CHILD MOLESTER ALERT!!

This car rocks, but I think HID's and Recaros should be standard on a car like this.

to bad the cobatl ss out preforms this! if it wasnt for the trans which is sick, i wouldnt like this car.

Let's see.

Cobalt SS:

Pro-
-It's fast (only the newer turbocharged model).

Con-
-It's fucking hideous...akin to a mid-90's Grand Am w/ a ricer body kit (the cars the hicks who buy Cobalt SS's made fun of before they sold their redneck full size pickup)
-Its resale is shite
-Its interior is rental grade
-It's FWD

Mitsubishi Ralliart:

Pro-
-It's quick
-A plethora of aftermarket parts
-It's AWD
-It has a wicked 6-spd dual clutch trans
-It's attractive
-resale will be decent (especially for a Mistu)

Con-
-It's not made by Honda

preforms ! = performs
cobatl ! = cobalt

whatever....

At least the Cobalt is a 2 door. I don't want a utilitarian car. Give me two seats and a six speed.

The appeal to this is that I may be able to talk to wife into it since it is "practical" with four doors and all...

I like the body lines but the nose is one of the fugliest I've seen in recent memory. Not quite as bad as the last Imprezza's with the weird central nostril, but definitely uglier than the new WRX pics put up yesterday.

@Porsche Lover

hey the cobalt is ok but it reminds me of the cavalier or sunfire. and my TL is FWD, with my car you dont notice that unless you depress the gas more than 75% of the way down. but its not really fun to play with its practical but not exactally "fun" ya know...

Funny Noya, people like you were saying the same stuff about the old SRT-4's resale value. A quick search for SRT-4s in my area, I see an '05 for 20k with 28,000 miles on it, an '04 for 19k with 37,000 miles on it, '05 for 18k with 47,000 miles, '05 for 18k with 34,000 miles, '04 for 18k with 47,000 miles, '04 for 17.5k with 49,000 miles on it, '04 for 17k with 63,000 miles on it, '04 for 17k with 54,000 miles on it, and the list goes on and on.

MSRP for '05 was $20,650 with either a $550 or $650 delivery charge, so call it 21.5k for simplicities sake. Above, I listed only stock SRT-4s. So they dropped between 7 and 21 percent in value over 3-4 years and in some cases 60k miles later. That's very good resale if you ask me. Blue Book price for an '05 with 57k on it, $16,090.

Now let's look at, I don't know, a Honda Civc Si of the same years. Honda's have great resale after all... Let's see, I see an '05 for 17k with 21,000 miles, an '05 for 16k with 52,000 miles, '05 for 16k with 50,000 miles, '04 for 15k with 60,000 miles, '04 with 55,000 miles for 12k and the list doesn't get prettier. Only stock vehicles listed like the SRT-4s, also 200 mile range from my location.

MSRP for the Civic Si in '05, $20,910. Destination charge similar to the SRT-4, so call it 21.5k again. So we have a price drop between 21-44 percent. Blue Book price for an '05 with 57k on it, $14,795.

Gasp, a Dodge has better resale then a Honda.

the interior is horrible ... they should check out mazda...!

@noya you say the cobalt is ugly so i guess you think this car is a supermodel? this shit is ugly. yes the interior in a cobalt is bad, but you dont even notice that when you drive. because youre having funfucking with ppl in cars that are 10-20k more expensive than yours and your embarrassing them. Yes the cobalt is FWD but it will run circles around this on a track on a skid bad on the street.

the only real con in a cobalt is the 5 speed tranny. id rather keep the 5k difference in my pocket and still beat the shit out of this car.

Hey, cobaltssman, let's play tug of war. I'll give you a spot, I'll begin in 5th gear. What kind of gas mileage you get with your machine? Can you do 30mpg on the highway?

I see GM posted a $15.5B loss. Figured they were going belly up, just don't know when and how disasterous.

As far as Mitsu here, I like the looks of it. Not as pretty as the cobalt though. Except for the interior.

Cobalts = Crap. Get over it and move on.

This, like the Cobalt is not bad for what it is. Stock for stock, a cobalt will outrun this car. From a roll, forget about it, that Cobalt is gone! I'd much rather get this though. The engine is NOT exactly the same as the EVO GSR though. I mean its not a detuned version. The bottom end, the turbo, and most importantly the head is weaker/different than on the Lancer Evolution so its a good bit lower than that car. However, you cant hate on the cobalt. I mean, what other cheap car you know has a 2-step (launch control system) AND no-lift shift capabilities (ecu phases the cams during shifts). Also it has 4 piston front brakes! That's a damn good deal if you ask me.

the whole ralliart vs. cobalt ss is really apples to oranges

the ralliart is for *gasp* rally racing, and wonderful in bad weather areas

the cobalt is for smoking all the kids driving around in primer colored accords with fart cans and spoilers who think they have a race car, and to give rednecks something to ogle at (don't lie, you know it's true, but then they ogle corvettes, so)

lets face it, we need cars that go fast, sideways on gravel and are safe on snow and we need NEED cars that demonstrate that there is more than one way to go fast, that honda does not equal jesus, that give us some hope in american manufacturing, and let us go fast for cheap

I think the world is big enough for both

I'm sure it will be a reliable car and fun to drive, even though the dash looks like Groucho Marx's eyebrows. The front grill looks like they copied the Dodge Ram pickup grill. At least you will be able to tell when you need to clean out all the bugs on the radiator when looking straight at it. I think this grill style will soon be popular in hip hop culture, probably a nickname of 'sucker fish' soon to go down in automotive style history like the slantbacks of the 1980 cadillac seville. lol..

I personally like the looks of the Cobalt - I'd never actually buy one of course considering its a Chevy. Heck, i'd never invest a single dime into anything domestic made.

Cobalt: Well, at least it's not a Cavalier.

@wvo
actually i get more like 35mpg @65mpg

@Jung
LOL, the Cobalt replaced the Cavalier.

@Ron
You would not invest a dime into anything Domestic made? Well if you want to be Technical, most of the cars sold here are made domestically (unless made in Mexico or Canada), that is GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Subaru even Mercedes Benz (certain models), etc.. So whatever you drive is more than likely made here unless it is an exotic sports car or BMW.

Back OT, I like the exterior looks of the new Lancer, though I like the Subaru hatch look also. Though many have stated they didn't like the nose of this car, I do like it and think it's the best part of the exterior. Now interior wise, i'll agree the mitsu has clearly lacked here. The WRX Impreza's interior is much better.

Legacy Owner: Baby steps for GM.

I will agree to that. The exterior of a cobalt looks way better than the cavalier did, but the interior looks the same, with the exception of the SS. Unfortunately, that was always my biggest gripe about American Car manufacturers, the interiors always looked cheap and very spartan. This coming from someone who has owned quite a few GM and ford products in the past.

@ Avatar

Really? In my neck of the woods all SRT-4's are at $14,995, and all but one are at shitty car lots. What does that tell you? That tells me (despite what "book" value supposedly is) that the original owners couldn't SELL the cars for nearly what they owed and that their only option was to trade them in and get buried even more because they're idiots.

Here's another BASH on people who buy such a POS:
There was ONE private seller at:
50k miles
$14,500
And has a list of mods that could make it an SCCA track car. Then he has the gaul to write in caps: NEVER BEEN RACED.

And that's a cheap shot pulling up numbers on the pre-2006 Si hatch that no one liked. Even so, in my area their prices were similar to the SRT-4's. If you want to see Honda resale look at the 99 and 06 model Civic Si's, or even look at say...a 2003 Accord and compare it to a what? A Chevy Malibu? What did Chevy/Dodge/Ford have that was supposed to compete with Accords? Whatever it was, I'm sure it's less than $10k and drives like a pile 5 years later.

Well it's not America's fault we all thought the pre-06 Civic Si was ugly, slow and a steaming pile. Not to mention I don't like Honda's in general. I mean it's a HONDA we should all LOVE it regardless of how much of a piece it is.

Really, the TSX is heavier and bigger than the equally powered RSX they killed off?

A lot of companies now have cars that are equal or better than the Si.

Honda is about 2 steps from being Toyota (which at least doesn't yet try in the performance sector).

The Lancer is fine, a little heavy on the ricey/modder influence compared to the rally heritage. Comparing it to the Cobalt is like apples to oranges. It's like comparing the Corvette to a Porsche. Most cars are built to excel at one general area. The Cobalt is fast and has good grip on dry ground. The Lancer is not as fast, but has tons of grip on everything...

And as far as mpg goes, what's the point with this thing? It's a 2.0 turbo, it's going to use premium and not get great mileage. And if you actually "drive" it you'll probably be going through tires pretty quick as well.
It's like buying a Viper and going, wow I didn't know it would get single digit mpg if I did burnouts all the time....

LMAO, that's why I posted Blue Book value. No matter where you are in the country, that stands tried and true. The fact is, you, like others, were wrong. You can't say what the resale value of a Cobalt SS turbo will no more then the current Civic Si or Malibu or anything for that matter. Resale value to sell a car is nothing but Koolaid and marketing bs, no one knows what it will be.

Oh, and Noya, the Civic Si had a higher MSRP on it to start as well...

Also, I still don't see anything that the imports have to compete with the new SRT-4 or Cobalt SS turbo in terms of price/performance.

"LMAO, that's why I posted Blue Book value."

LMAO!!!, KBB is the shittiest reference material you can use...it doesn't reflect real prices. NADA is WAY better.

For instance, I looked up an 04 SRT-4 (w/ 45k) in both:
KBB - $16,750
NADA - $13,500
(both clean, at retail)

And as I checked autotrader...what were the price in my area? $14500-14995, with all but one at overpriced corner lots.

Thank you, come again!

Noya - 2
Avatar - 0

Oh really, just what Noya. You lose for a third time. Your precious NADA says the '05 SRT-4 with 57,000 miles is worth $14,800. And the scared '05 Civic Si, $14,075.

Oh, and Blue Book for an '04 SRT-4 with 45,000 miles is $15,750.

"The New Car Blue Book Value reflects a vehicle's actual selling price and is based on tens of thousands of recent real sales transactions from auto dealers across the United States. The New Car Blue Book Value is not calculated or based on a proprietary formula; instead it is derived from actual new vehicle sales and extensive knowledge of the marketplace."

The same goes for used. They take averages of the whole country, not just your ' overpriced corner lots'. Just about all the SRT-4s in my area are at dealers, thus reflected in the price. Oh, and in my industry, we have blue books for pricing on every piece of gear.

What was that score again?

Oh and Noya, if you want as close to real prices as you can get, use Black Book.

Here is some more info Noya. NADA gets its numbers from surveys, you know, the ones you have to fill out and mall back, lmao. KBB gets its numbers from insurance companies who appraise and then buy out the vehicles and what dealers are selling them for.

Black Book uses auction prices, which is updated daily and not available to the public. That is the most accurate method but still isn't 100% right do to things like location, cost of living, weather conditions, the state in which the vehicle is in which can be debated till the end of time unless it is brand new and still wrapped in plastic, etc.

They are just like EPA numbers, just something we have to go off of but not 100% right.

Simply put, a Dodge is still worth more then a Honda which had a higher MSRP, competed for the same market, and all the haters said the SRT-4 would have terrible resale. Well, the '03s do since they don't come with Stage 1 stock. I'll say again, you can't predict resale.

i cant believe this cobalt guy is trying to sell us on his cobalt SS, who cares dude? You must be kidding me less, then 300hp is nothing to be proud of in a day and age where sedans make more hp and are more roomy and classy. the cobalt isn't a phallic extension its a castration device at best. do people feel you are cool cuz you zoom by them real fast? or are they jealouse? proboably not as they will see that your just in a cobalt and who cares anyway... You could lap the nurburgrig faster than a GTR and you still wouldent turn any heads as you drive by so who cares... you need to walk a fine line on here with being proud of your car and realizing the most important thing and that is nobody cares who you are or what you have so just enjoy your shot box in peace and stop selling us on it it you sound like a teenager who just got his liscence. your a virgin....

Cobalt SS has great engine, but that engine needs new body.