Akemi's Review #1: Mitsubishi FTO

Mitsubishi FTO’s- boi, those were nice cars. They really were the origination of fresh touring cars.

Japanese-only '97 GP Version R

As for those who don’t know what a FTO is, it’s a sporty coupe released in the UK, New Zealand and Japan for the first few years then Japan-only since 1997. It’s basically a 3/4 size Aston Martin that even has a Tiptronic (Porsche semi-auto) gearbox included with. For fellow Brazilians and US people you got the Eclipse. We got this.

In more seriousness and detail, it’s a front-wheel drive mini-tourer coupe that was designed to compete with the Integra and the Type-R Lantis. It was also a proud owner of the ‘94 Car of the Year award because of the fact that it was the car’s most succesful model year and that it was just plain great. And let’s not forget an owner has a tuned FTO which became Europe’s fastest FF car.

Now, before ranting front-wheel drive, there’s a twist: this car has one of the greatest handling I’ve ever actually got a feeling of. Front-wheel drive means the front wheels only have a limited amount of grip to steer, put power and brake, in a single word understeer, but that’s not the case for thIs car in particular. It wasn’t a heavy car- it only weighed about 2400-2600 lbs, it’s not like the FTO got the FTO gene, which is a gene related to obesity.

I understand the Evo magazine said the Integra was the greatest handling FF vehicle of all time, but I honestly disagree in my opinion. While the Integra would probably be faster in a straight, the FTO just obliterates it when it comes to corners. It’s so sharp it can probably cut a knife. The Integra’s just a butter knife. I’m not even joking right now. It’s more than able to compete with FR cars and even 4WD cars.

As in the interior, it’s very spacious for a coupe. The dashboard has a very modern look- I could almost confuse it for an early 2000’s car dashboard even though it came in the early 90’s. It sure is better than the interior of most cars at the time.

I used to rent for a ‘91 GR-SPK FTO back in 2009, in the color of Monaco Red (because I’d really race this around Monaco) which was probably one of the greatest accomplishments I have ever done. Whenever I drove it I was so pleased to- it’s not like I’d get one of those “self-driving” Tesla’s if they even come out. I’ll also post the meaning of the trims down below:

GS= Great and Sporty
GR= Great and Race-Inspired
GP= Great and Pretty
GPX= Great, Pretty and Xtreme

So that’s it for now. If I’d give it a score out of 100, that would be a ridiculous 94/100. Hope you enjoyed reading this (and probably have a good laugh)