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Having my photograph taken has always been like having extensive root-canal work done on my soul. I hate it with an unbridled passion. A photograph of me serves as a permanent reminder of the simple fact that I am just a stomach and a very large chin with a small piece of wire wool growing out of the top.

Unfortunately these days everyone has a camera phone, so everyone has become an amateur paparazzo. And that means I have my photograph taken about four hundred million times a day.

I understand why, of course. If you could get a snap of Cliff Richard mowing his lawn, then – ker-ching! – I bet it’d be worth a grand. If you could get a Formula One boss having his hair checked for lice by a girl dressed up as a Belsen inmate, you might even be able to afford a new car.

Of course there are drawbacks. First of all you have to have the morals of a woodlouse, and second you might drive your prey to crash into a tunnel. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone.

Just recently I was snapped by a member of the public while driving along the M40. He claimed the snap showed I was using my mobile. My phone records prove that I wasn’t but, no matter, he sold the picture to the Mirror. It ran it on the front page and as a result the young man probably earned enough to buy himself and his girlfriend a slap-up meal at the local Harvester.

On holiday this year someone took a picture of me going snorkelling. And because it showed a chin and a stomach in a face mask the Mirror bought this one too, paying the lensman enough for him to buy himself a jolly nice pin~a colada.

Now it’s open season. Some kid took a picture of me while I was asleep, and when I told him to eff off his dad went immediately, you’ve guessed it, to the Mirror. It’s got to the point where my wife never actually bothers to ring and ask where I am. She just looks in the redtops.

I’m thinking of cashing in myself; maybe I’ll sell them a picture of me checking my prostate.

It’s at its worst, though, when I’m imprisoned by a flash and noticeable car. Recently I drove my Lamborghini from Guildford to Chipping Norton. It’s about 90 miles and I had my picture taken 107 times. I counted. This meant I couldn’t use the phone or pick my nose or break the speed limit or sing along to the radio or even, on the straight bits, catch forty winks. It was so wearisome that when I got home I sold the car.

And I can assure you that I most definitely will not replace it with a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X FQ-360. Because, I swear to God, you couldn’t get more attention even if you were Jade Goody and you stood on a bridge over the M1 motorway and had full sex with a cow.

Now if you’re looking at the picture above, wondering why such a vulgar little thing could possibly cause anyone to look twice, then you know nothing about cars and frankly you’d be better off reading about something else.

If on the other hand you do know about cars, then you will also not be very interested to hear what the Evo is like. Because when it comes to four-wheel-drive turbo cars for the PlayStation generation, all eyes are currently on the Nissan GT-R – the most eagerly anticipated new arrival since God stuck a pin in a map and decided on Bethlehem.

The fact is, though, that the Nissan is going to be upwards of ?50,000, about 15 grand more than the little Itchypussy. And I’m sorry but I cannot see, with the current laws of physics in place, how it can possibly be that much better.

The previous nine Evos were always exquisite to drive, nicer even than their great rivals from Subaru. But they were also woefully flimsy, stylistically challenged and hard to the point of hopelessness. For one lap of the Nurburgring, you’d use an Evo every time. For the journey home, you’d take the Scooby-Doo.

Now, though, everything has changed. The new Subaru is about as much fun as a church service. And it doesn’t look good in photographs because, like me, it doesn’t look good at all. I’ve seen more attractive things in medical books.

The Evo X, on the other hand, looks fab. Peel away the bulges and all that carbon fibre flotsam and jetsam – all of which gives other road users an impression that for you driving may be a hobby, like trainspotting – and the basic shape is very good. And then . . . Oh. My. God. There’s the way it drives.

I fear I may have to get a bit technical here. When you turned into a corner in an old Evo, initially there’d be a dribble of dreary understeer. In a normal car this is a speed-scrubbing health and safety warning that soon there will be ambulances and fire but in the Mitsubishi it was simply a portal through which you had to pass to get at the car’s heart and soul.

The heart and soul in question was its ability to remain composed and absolutely controllable in a lairy, tyre-smoking four-wheel drift. No other car I’d driven was able to do this, even slightly. It was exquisite.

The new car is even better because when you turn into a corner it’s the back that steps out of line. This means that even the portal through which you must pass to get at the meat and veg is full of hair-tingling joy.

Of course there are lots of buttons you can press to make the handling different but those are for geeks and bores. All I can report is that the basics of this car – the core – are monumentally, toweringly, eye-wateringly brilliant.

Then there’s the speed. Yes, a Ferrari 430 is full of brio and passion but get an Evo X on your tail and I guarantee that, unless it’s being driven by a complete spanner, you will not be able to shake it off.

And now comes the really good news. When you have finished at the track, the ride home is not bad either. Certainly it is way softer than the Evos of old, much more comfortable. Also, the X doesn’t require a service every 300 yards. And it’s garnished with higher-quality plastics as well. Oh, and I nearly forgot. It has the single best touchscreen central command sat nav system I’ve found in any car. It’ll even give you the average speed, in a graph, of each of your past 20 journeys.

And of course it’s got four doors, seating for five and a boot, which despite the fitting of a Grateful Dead bass speaker was still large enough last night to accommodate my daughter’s back-to-school requirements.

There are, however, some drawbacks that you might like to consider before signing your name on the dotted line in dribble.

First of all, it has only a five-speed gearbox. This means that on the motorway the all-new super-light 2.0 litre turbo engine becomes awfully drony. It’s like listening to Alistair Darling make a speech. And, worse, because there’s no cruising gear the fuel consumption is dreadful.

That’s bad in any car but when the tank is only the size of a Zippo, you will struggle to do 200 miles between fill-ups.

Almost certainly, then, you’d be better off with the less powerful but more economical FQ-300. I tried this too and missed the savage acceleration. But I liked the twin-clutch six-speed flappy-paddle gearbox, which is not available on the 360. Furthermore it has the same top speed and it’s at least ?6,000 cheaper. Of the two, this is the one I’d buy.

Unfortunately, however, I can’t. I’d become fed up with the flotilla of camera-toting rats more quickly than I became fed up with the never-ending trips to the pumps.

Driving the Mitsubishi Evo X GSR through the city is pretty civilized and although the clutch pedal is a little heavy, you won’t get tired even in the worst traffic jam. You have to be careful at potholes though, because with the low profile tires you might ruin the rims. Other than that, you’ll get a lot of thumbs up from the other motorists and you’ll have to answer a lot of questions at every stop light: How much power does it have? How much did it cost? Did you modify it in any way yet?

On a long drive on the highway, the Mitsubishi Evo X GSR was a lot more comfortable than we expected it to be and apart from a 2008 BMW M3 we never had anyone flashing their lights in our rear view mirror. The acceleration is great, even in fifth gear, and the car never lacks in power, but sometimes though, we did feel the need for a sixth speed.

Driving the Mitsubishi Evo X GSR in the city and on the highway felt good, but when we got on some twisty mountain roads, the car really started to come alive and to show us what it’s really all about. There were a couple of times when we said “this is it!” and we were already seeing ourselves wrapped around a tree. But not to worry! I simply turned the wheel and the car didn’t even look like it was trying. The Mitsubishi Evo X GSR corners like it’s on rails and if you feel that you’ve entered a curve too fast, and the car starts slipping, simply take your foot of the gas. The Evo buries itself into the ground and all your organs shift to the opposite side of your body. The experience of driving the new Evo X on a curvy mountain road is just astonishing and probably most of you will never get crazy enough to make its tires squeal in a fast corner. The car has mountains of grip and simply doesn’t want to lose control. The brakes work perfectly and although they could stop planets, they can be applied gradually so your girlfriend won’t spill her dinner all over the dashboard.

As far as comparison tests go, we encountered on our trip an Audi R8 and a Mercedes C63 AMG. The Audi R8 was considerably faster off the starting line. Maybe the 100 hp+ more was the reason, but as soon as we hit the first curve, the R8 was history. Driving through the mountains we managed to get ourselves chasing a C63 AMG. After taunting it for a few minutes we got ahead. The C63 desperately tried to keep up with us for the next few miles, with its tail wiggling all over the place, but eventually had to accept defeat.

The Mitsubishi Evo X GSR is by far the most fun we’ve ever had in a car. Although it’s an absolute maniac on the road, it offers exceptional handling and safety. It also offers a reasonably high amount of comfort.

Youll notice bigger changes when you open the drivers door. Like the recently re-vised, more pedestrian Lancer, the Evo X has a completely revamped interior. The wing-backed Recaro seats are the only familiar touches; everything else, from the dashboard to the door panels, has gone decidedly upmarket. There are still echoes of the Evos econo-box roots–some of the console trim is made from hard, scratchy plastic, and the painted cockpit trim can feel a little flimsy–but by and large, the interior no longer reeks of Play-skool technology. (Look, Mom! I bought a My First Rally Car! Thats nice, honey. No oversteer in the house.)

Climb into the Evo X, twist the chunky black plastic key, and you are instantly aware–and a little disappointed–that the whole car doesnt buzz and hum and feel alive at idle like its predecessors. Yes, you think, a normal, nonmasochistic person could actually enjoy this. Above all else, youre immediately conscious of the change in size–the Evos wheelbase is up one inch, and its width has grown by two inches. The size increase is most obviously manifested in a more cocoonlike seating position. If you sat on all previous Evos, then you sit in the Evo X, surrounded by a high-sided cave of dark plastic and grippy seat cloth.

Regardless, like every previous Lancer Evolution, the Evo X redeems its various idiosyncrasies with a fantastic engine and drivetrain. The turbocharged and intercooled four-cylinder is the first-ever aluminum-block Evo powerplant and the first to sport four-bolt main-bearing caps. Its also 26 pounds lighter than the iron-block four. A steel chain supplants the old engines rubber timing belt, and theres now variable valve timing for both the intake and exhaust cams (previous Lancers had it on the intake side alone). Mitsubishi also ditched the previous long-stroke layout–bore and stroke now each measure 86 mm (3.4 inches), and a balance shaft is no longer provided.

Power delivery from the new engine is far less manic; theres still sizable turbo lag, but forward thrust is no longer served up in a nothing . . . nothing . . . WHAM! manner. The new engine is more linear, more progressive, and more friendly. It also makes more torque than the old four-cylinder at any given rpm, is quieter and smoother, and pulls more strongly at high engine speeds. Outside the car–and audible from a football field away–a familiar mix of exhaust grumble, jetlike induction whoosh, and wastegate pshht fills the air.

Tradition requires that a turbo Lancer fling itself to the next county when you hammer the throttle, and on that front, the Evo X doesnt disappoint. But for all its giddy straight-line speed, the Mitsubishis primary strength is its chassis. And while the new Evo is cushier, better-insulated, and indeed heavier than the last car (U.S.-spec curb weights havent been announced, but we expect roughly a 150-pound gain), those changes havent diminished the Evos over-the-road capability.

A heavily massaged version of the Evo IXs AWD system lives under the Evo Xs exterior, complete with a tweaked iteration of the IXs electronically managed active center differential. (The helical limited-slip front unit is largely unchanged.) Mitsubishis famed hydraulically activated Active Yaw Control rear differential–first used on the Evo IV but previously unavailable stateside–also makes an appearance.

The entire package is fantastic. The various clutch packs, differentials, and hydraulic pumps work seamlessly to make you look heroic, pulling off feats of power management that make most other all-wheel-drive cars look like stumbly boobs. Turn off the newly available stability control, flick the Evos tail out, and the chassis simply sorts itself under throttle. Remarkably, the Evo even seems conscious of how you treat it: drive cleanly, and youre gifted with a minimally understeering, largely neutral car; throw around the car by the scruff of its neck, though, and torque gets shifted back and forth to actually help you stay sideways.

Like the base Lancer, the Evolution rides better than before. High-speed damping and suspension compliance are greatly improved, and the rack-and-pinion steering, while much less talkative than the Evo IXs, is still respectably communicative. The new, Getrag-developed, six-speed twin-clutch transmission–similar in function and layout to Volks-wagens DSG gearbox, and the only trans- mission available on the MR (the GSR offers only a conventional five-speed manual)–works well enough, being neither obtrusively rough nor drastically uninvolving. (That said, well reserve our final judgment for a later date, as Mitsubishi claims the transmissions control software isnt yet in its final form.)

In the end, some of our fears were correct: Yes, the new Evo is slightly more diluted than its forebears, and yes, its not quite as dramatic and frenzied as we had hoped. But to bemoan the march of progress is to miss the bigger picture. We might mourn the loss of the Evo IXs rough-around-the-edges personality, and we might complain that the latest Evolution MR isnt available with a manual transmission, but in the end, you have to be realistic. For Mitsubishi to survive–and, logically, for it to keep producing Lancer Evolutions at all–the Evo needs to appeal to a broader market. To do that, it had to grow up. If a small increase in refinement and isolation is the price you pay for such a fantastic chassis and all-wheel-drive system, then so be it. Trade-offs and compromises for the sake of survival? Sounds like . . . evolution, dont you think?

Happily, my wife has come to the rescue. She’s going to buy one and, being an organised soul, will keep it topped up with fuel. This means that when it’s dark and all the Mirror readers are in the pub fighting, I can take it out for a little drive. It’ll serve as a constant reminder of what cars can, and should, be like.

Vital statistics

Model Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X FQ-360 GSR
Engine 998cc turbo, four cylinders
Power 1 354bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque 363 lb ft @ 3200rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel 19.9mpg (combined)
CO2 328g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 4.1sec/Top speed:155mph
Price ?37,999
Road tax band G (?400 a year)
On sale Now
Rating 4 stars
Verdict Eye-wateringly brilliant