Yeah, we know-on the face of it, this comparison looks ridiculous. What business do we have comparing an all-wheel-drive Japanese rally sedan versus a rear-drive German luxury coupe?

Simple: BMW's new 1 Series really is just that-the only one in its class. Its smaller stature and lower-cost bar comparisons with the Infiniti G37 and Audi A5/S5-plus, there's the BMW 3 Series for that. Though the BMW is available as a convertible, the 135i's 2+2 seating combination eliminates sports cars and roadsters like the Nissan 350Z and CLK350 (and the Z4 already has those covered.) What's left? We put together a matrix to compare (see it on page 4).

There we found the perfect 135i competitor: a 300-horsepower, two-door, four-passenger, rear-drive sports car that comes in at $28,000, but can hit the mid-30s fully loaded.

Then we sobered up and realized that nobody cross-shops a BMW against a Mustang. So we rolled up our sleeves and dug past some of the usual disqualifiers to focus on concepts like pure performance and fun factor.

Which is how we arrived at the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR-two extra doors, two fewer cylinders, and one fewer turbocharger, yes, but two more driven wheels, similar engine output, and class-leading performance. Most important, the Evo is the kind of vehicle a true driving enthusiast can honestly consider against the 135i.

Or is it? Does a Mitsubishi deserve to run with a BMW? Or is the question whether a brand-new Bimmer stands a chance against a rally-bred legend? Step beyond the matrix to find out.

"Maybe this was a mistake," come the murmurs from the test track. Part of the rationale behind this odd pairing was the BMW claim that the 135i sprints to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds, just a tick under what we've seen out of the manual Evo GSR. How do we explain our 135i consistently ripping off 4.7-second runs to 60, a full half-second faster than our Evo MR's fancy launch controlled sprint? We can't....