Having seen Mitsubishi's "Concept E" show car http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame...hp&carnum=1822

(watch the popups), my impression was that they successfully captured the mid-engine look absent from reasonably priced cars. Short front end, all the mass from driver back, generally an appealing look. Then they built the production car which is a retread of earlier incarnations. While it's true that few cars (including XF) make it from show car to production intact, Mitsubishi's decision to drop the one feature that distinguished the Concept E from the pack (the chopped front end) relegated it to the 'seen that before' pile. It may have been impractical to build a front engine/drive production car within the Concept E's ambitious skin but then don't shine the public that the Eclipse is the production version of this car.