There's not a piece of external metal on the '06 Eclipse that's the same as on the '05. But there's no mistaking the '06 for anything but an Eclipse, a credit to its stylists.

The keyword for the new styling is softer. And a little bit rounder. Headlight housings are no longer so angular, as if they'd been chopped out of the corner of the car, but more eye-like, with the outer corner tugged gracefully back into the fender. The front end has been relaxed with the opening of a split grille, filled with recessed black honeycomb mesh, above the bumper and the rounding of the corners of the intake below. Foglamps have been moved to the sides, into the bumper's bend beneath the headlights. Wheels are farther apart than in the '05, by more than two inches, not only presenting a more planted look, but also promising better stability when cornering.

The softer look continues in side profile. The A-pillar and C-pillar flow into the hood and trunk, leaving behind the '05's sharp, crease-like seam between the lower body and the glass house. Door panels lose the '05's strakes, tucking inward as they approach the B-pillar, giving the Eclipse what the stylists call a wasp-waist look, but what could just as easily be called corseted. The rocker panels' bulge fills the lower portion of the doors, tying together the robustly blistered fenders. The rear wheelwells beg for larger tires, even on the GT.
From the rear, the word bulbous comes to mind. It looks like the stylists did the best job they could of stretching the Eclipse's haunches over the expansive Galant platform. A minimalist, translucent-cum-three-dimensional plastic spoiler arcs across the liftgate between the clear-lensed taillights. The rear license plate fits in a recess in the fulsome rear fascia. A faux underbody airflow extractor panel fills the bottom quarter of the body-color fascia; on both models, a single exhaust exits through the right-hand segment, the GT's tipped with something Mitsubishi calls a large muffler cutter.

The interior of the all-new 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse achieves the exclusive goals of being both austere and friendly. One or two elements jangle, but there's a flow that ties everything together. The dash is a cabin-spanning, single piece of pleasantly finished plastic that invites optimism about reduced buzzes, squeaks, and rattles as the car puts on miles and years. The dash visually 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 frontal airbag supplemental restraint is masked by a seamless surface.
Stereo and climate control knobs are all refreshingly un-PDA-like and finger friendly. Atop the dash above the center stack is Mitsubishi's trademark hooded panel with digital readouts for audio, time, and compass. A matching, but larger hood shades the instruments, positioned directly in front of the driver and comprising simple, easily scanned, analog speedometer, tachometer, fuel level, and engine coolant temperature gauges. 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 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.

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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, though, 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 to the passenger side of the console. Aft of this is a covered, reasonably deep storage bin, with an auxiliary power outlet and slots for toll change.