D R I V E N

Monet replicas are everywhere.  You see them in offices, elevators and yes, even McDonald's restaurants.  Has it ever occurred to you why such an excellent artist as Monet had to be contented on seeing his works displayed along side Ronald McDonald?  The answer is simple really: it's inoffensive and bland.  Much like a Big Mac or McChicken is bland, a Monet doesn't really stand out.  It may look great to the art critic's eye, but for the rest of civilization, it's nothing more than a piece of decoration: greatly unnoticed, ignored and never appreciated.  What a Monet replica is in the world of furniture, is what the Mitsubishi Lancer GSR is in the world of automobiles.

From the outside, the Lancer has all the right ingredients to be a great looking coupe.  The sweeping angled roofline and chiseled body sides give the GSR a degree of strength and sportiness.  The headlights, on the other hand adds a measure of menace and the standard rear lamp garnish give it more flare.  However, the ingredients were a bit undercooked and didn't turn out right.  It's like having Terminator 2 with Danny DeVitto playing the killer cyborg (oh…the horror!).  Don't take me wrong, the GSR is a fine looking car.  It's great to look at, but it doesn't really cause anyone to stare.  And this is where Mitsubishi is missing the entire point: coupes must be respected and admired from every angle.  Unfortunately, their Lancer GSR is short of being lost in the world of 1.6-liter oblivion.

Now, maybe you're thinking the interior tells a different story…well, you're wrong.  In fact, the interior is simply a disaster.  Don't be fooled by the seemingly curvaceous and excellently shaped dash, the GSR's switch gear and ergonomics have as much taste as a person considering the Whopper as a gourmet sandwich.  If I'm not mistaken, the entire switch gear was borrowed straight out from the previous generation Lancer and even the Lancer before that.  Since they came from parts bin from the yesteryear, the GSR's interior is kind of a hodge-podge of textures, without a dominating or consistent quality to speak of.  The light dimming switch for instance, still using a rotating switch, actually looked like it came from an early 80s Corolla, and not a brand new sports coupe.  At the same time the side mirror and hazard switches came from the Galant GTi (I know those switches anywhere).  That's not all, some of the parts of the GSR seems to be inverted somewhat, as some parts such as the handbrake feel as if it were intended to be for a right-hand drive model.  The interior could have been forgivable if these switches were a smooth operator.  Unfortunately, most of these switches felt like they came straight from an arcade gaming unit.  The handbrake felt empty, the ventilation switches felt too hard and the window switches too flimsy.

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