The Eclipse cabin is austere by design, but hardly minimalist. Indeed, with the optional leather on the GT, the interior is warm and upscale. While a few small elements seem misplaced, the overall effect is attractive and functional.

The dash spans across the cabin in a single piece of pleasantly finished plastic. Visually, it moves away from the front passenger as it nears the door, adding a perception of roominess. Yet the lower portion of the right side of the dash subtly incorporates an anti-submarining knee bolster. The front airbag supplemental restraint is masked by a seamless surface.

Stereo and climate control knobs are finger friendly and easy to operate. The 650-watt Rockford Fosgate sound system is ticket fodder in jurisdictions where cops enforce vehicle-related noise ordinances. The 140-watt, six-speaker system that comes standard is no slouch, either, and saves a cubic foot or so that the premium system's 10-inch subwoofer occupies in the cargo area.

Atop the dash, above the center stack, sits Mitsubishi's trademark hooded panel with digital readouts for audio, time and compass. A matching, but larger hood shades the instruments. A simple, easily scanned analog cluster with speedometer, tachometer, fuel level and engine coolant temperature gauges sits directly in front of the driver. The Eclipse employs a unique approach to providing both miles per hour and kilometers per hour data, with mph on the speedometer's face and kph displayed digitally in a window along with the odometer and trip meter. Night-time instrument and dash lighting is tinted blue, which clashes with the dash-top LCD panel's opaque beige.

The center console differs between the manual transmissions and the Sportronic automatics. The manual setup sports a traditional look, with a leather-like boot around the shifter capped with a leather-wrapped knob rising out of a flush, bright-metallic surround.

The Sportronic goes techno, with a shift lever that appears to slide along and pivot on a shaft deep within a less-traditional, raised, tubular-like base. From the Drive position, pushing the lever to the right puts it into the Sportronic gate. From there, semi-manual shifting is intuitive: pushing it forward selects a higher gear, pulling it back, a lower gear. In terms of function, the arrangement works, but in form, it's less than satisfying.

The handbrake is correctly positioned, on the driver's side of the center console next to the shift lever. To its right is a pair of cup holders with a cover that folds down into the console toward the passenger side. Aft of this is a covered, reasonably deep storage bin, with an auxiliary power outlet and slots for toll change.

Front seats are comfortable, sufficiently bolstered for mildly spirited driving and adequately cushioned for a day-long, interstate drive from California's southern-most region up through its lush Central Valley to the state capital without numbing occupants' posteriors. The 2007 Eclipse provides more room, too, than the pre-'06 model for front-seat occupants. It's a combination of slight increases in key dimensions and design tricks that increase the feeling of spaciousness, and it's welcome.

Eclipse's frameless door windows drop fractionally to clear their seals when the door is opened and then re-seat when the door is closed. Their shape, however, necessitates a fixed quarter window toward the front to allow the main windows to retract fully into the door. This design moves the outside mirrors rearward, so the driver must consciously turn his or her head to the side to scan for overtaking traffic.

Rear-seat comfort does not exist here and there are no head restraints. The back seats are to be used almost never and then only for very short drives.

Interior door panels are swoopy, but mostly functional, with a good-sized handle and convenient, child-safe power window buttons. If only the latch lever were more ergonomic. The glove box is adequate, but the door-mounted map pockets are too small to be of much use.

Cargo space is a maximum of 15.7 cubic feet with the rear seats folded, which is not bad of a car of this type. Yet that space is not optimally laid out, and a bit awkward to access. The lift-over height, while not much higher than that of the average trunk, presents a fairly thick rear bulkhead, requiring a back-straining lean to heft items up, over and into the cargo area. We regretted not having the optional cargo net in our car; during several hundred miles of travel and a week's time around town, our suitcases and grocery bags tended to roam freely therein. The rear seats are split 50/50 and fold individually for longer objects.