Now, there’s something decidedly unglamourous about it, but we have developed a little bit of love for the North American derivative of the Corolla, espcially the 4WD wagon version of it. In fact, we doubt we have or will ever feature a motor with less obvious panache.

But, being connoisseurs of affordable and accessible automotive style we think that the North American denomination of this utilitarian stalwart is a desirable ride. These ones are often seen littering the junk yards of Wisconsin lumberjacks in various nameless and mysterious TV films of the eighties. And on a number of North American blogs we have happened upon recently.

We’re not even sure if the Tercel was ever actually distributed in Europe or the UK. We seem to remember having seen their bulbous everyman loveliness around but we can’t be sure. Any ideas?

Images: Mitsubishi Press

Evolution is the right word. The look of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with latte-sipping men in black rollnecks and everything to do with dirty-handed blokes in overalls.

This purposeful product started as a porridge, three-box Japanese saloon with a wing and got progressively more steroidal as its power multiplied. It has always been as ugly as it is fast, but like a broken nose or a cauliflower ear its deformities have always signalled its intentions and been part of its appeal.

The Evo was actually an evolution from the Colt 2000 Turbo (above), whose badge it wore at the beginning of the journey in 1981. The looks have a clear link to the Evo, but the engine is the real bond; this was the first to use the legendary, endlessly-tunable 4G63 2-litre turbo four which would remain an Evo constant until the introduction of the Evo X in 2007. It made around 168bhp here, but eventually would be stretched to over 800bhp. Mirror-script lettering on the front spoiler — ‘Turbo 2000’ in this case – urgently needs to make a comeback.

Evo I
Built as the basis of the World Rally Car, and the first to carry the Evo name and number. Arrived in Japan in 1992, making around 240bhp. The II and III were pretty similar (to non-Evo geeks, anyway).

Evo anoraks take note: what follows is just a few of our personal highlights, and not an exhaustive history.

Evo V
The Evo IV introduced in 1996 was an all-new car and the basis of the Evo V and VI, but it was these later cars that started to arrive in Europe in numbers, first from grey importers and, eventually, officially through Mitsu’s importers here. Sparked the Evo-Impreza wars that dominated car magazine covers in the late nineties and early noughties.

Evo VII
Another all-new car in 2001; it was heavier but kept getting quicker and cleverer. The short-lived GTA automatic version – which came with an auto gearbox and could be specified with a luxury leather interior, chrome door handles and without a wing, was a personal lowlight. Deservedly rare.

Evo VIII FQ400
Having resisted importing the Evo for too long, the UK distributor then embraced it a bit too enthusiastically with the FQ — or effing quick — series. It was an extraordinary name for a big corporation to give a car, but it was an extraordinary car. It was hard-tuned Evo with a warranty that you could order from a showroom; as the name suggests it had 400bhp and could nut out a three-second 60mph dash. With 200bhp per litre, very regular servicing was essential.

Evo X
All change, again. This time the Evo gets a bespoke body, its looks defined by fancy designers in Europe but with due deference shown to the past. All change under the bonnet too: emissions regs finally killed the 4G63, but the 4B11 is a worthy replacement and proved robust enough for the loons at Mitsu UK to offer another FQ400. The SST sequential-manual gearbox is the other big departure.

Evo XI?
Um, not sure yet. The Evo X will be discontinued from March and there’s no clear plan from Mitsu on what will assume the Evo name, but rumours from the Tokyo motor show suggest it will be a long wait and it won’t be turbocharged saloon. Something green seems the best bet, possibly usng the in-wheel electric motors Mitsu has been experimenting with for a while. So lots of torque and four wheel-drive still…

Every now and then a star becomes associated with a brand of car, usually by accident. Think the various incarnations of 007 and Aston Martin, of course, and perhaps Steve McQueen with the Ford Mustang. You could probably come up with a bunch of examples.

But it’s rare in the world of showbiz to have a situation where a global superstar is associated almost symbiotically with a car. Jackie Chan and Mitsubishi Evo is the only example we can think of.

The relationship between the Martial Arts movie superstar and the Mitsubishi corporation began at the end of the seventies, when an agreement was drawn up between the Chan empire and the car company to use Mitsubishis exclusively in his films.

Of all these, the most blatantly Mitsubishi branded is 1995’s Thunderbolt (below), in which Chan plays a Mitsubishi factory employee who graduates to test driving and then on to, well, saving his sister from the evil embrace of kidnappers, an equally malign bunch of street racers (in Skylines) and generally, the world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But in terms of pure Evo-tastic action, 1998’s ‘Who Am I’ has to take the gong. Check out the central car chase scene in which a handcuffed action hero and two lovelies (one of whom is also handcuffed), evade a series of bad guys and cops in the streets of Amsterdam, seeing off an interesting assemblage of vehicles, ranging from an old Rover and a brace of 3-Series. Check the way the Evo itself lays waste to the bad fellahs, and the way the ‘Everyman hero’ image of the car is perfectly illustrated when a skillful stunt driver flicks the chased Evo snugly into a parking spot and thus goes unnoticed by the authorities as they streak by in pursuit. I wonder if this was written into the contract.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But its not only about product placement, this hookup. As honorary President of Ralliart China (the company’s motorsports arm), Chan hosted a series of celebrity-dotted race junkets that brought in the Asian glitterati to circuits all over the region. In 1995, Ralliart went ahead and sealed the deal into automotive immortality when they produced 50 Special-Editions of the Evo IX, with a requisite acreage of Carbon and Jackie Chan’s signature all over the detailing.

And you can see the symbiosis logically. Or what the advertising and marketing departments of the world used to call ‘synergy’ — Jackie Chan as understated, vibrant, unassuming yet powerful and explosive, the Evo and the star share a set of core values, proper and true.

The Evo might not save the world in itself, or do back flips and cause explosions with nary a sniff of combustable materials, but in the same way as Jackie Chan makes the commonplace cityscape erupt with action, this earthy piece of engineering makes everything seem fun and copes with danger most sublime…

words & pictures: Michael Fordham

Back in the primordial soup of post war Japan – a nation demoralised and devastated by unimagined military defeat, there was a little seed of determination left in the Japanese people despite the suffering endured. The phoenix rose, industry boomed and an economic miracle ensued.

This remarkable turnaround was motored primarily by the Japanese capacity for making stuff that people all over the world people wanted to buy. Especially the cars.

The Japanese automotive aesthetic might repel as many as it attracts, but in terms of sheer numbers and influence, Japan continues to be, along with Germany, the major exporter of automotive machinery on the earth. But more than that, in the darker corners of car and bike culture it the Jap thing reaches deep into the corners, as well as basking in the sunlight of the mass market.

And one of the most cultish, delightfully understandable corners of the world of Japanese car cult is that of the Evo. Having Evolved from the workaday Colt way back at the end of the seventies, the Evo has gone through a multitude of suitably evolutionary jumps.

So when we got to play with its latest manifestation, the final and numerically resonant Evo X, we felt as if we were in a position to look at the last of a great lineage of superbly appealing everyman heroes.

//The Looks//
Simple. Proletarian. Uninspiring. Badass. Boring. Boy racer-ish. These are the most common appellations we heard whilst spending a week with the Lancer EvoLution X SST FQ 330. It’s a keyboardful of signifiers that means the following: this is the tenth manifestation of the Lancer Evo, it’s rather quick, comes with a dual clutch semi-auto box with flappy paddles and packs 330 horsepower.

What it amounts to at skin level is a very old fashioned format, the three box, four door three-pillared formula that arch rivals Subaru ditched last time out for their Heavy-Industry flagship the Prezza, and probably to their regret.

The fact that now the three box Scooby is back is testament to its enduring appeal, and its one you can’t imagine Mitsubishi ever losing sight of. But at either end of the Evo X there are of course telltale pantomimes of its far-from-complacent DNA. Most obvious is that wing, of course. It’s a bevelled, three level piece of steel whose obvious utilitarian aspect is obscured by the car’s otherwise workaday stance. and the fact that it at times obscures rear visibility.

At the front of course, the various gapes, louvres and wide-open grillage whispers of the need for oxygen. From the front it is unmistakably rally-bred. On the standard version there’s no carbon fibre additions, just simple steel trimmed with plastic.

It sits relatively high so that the shocks an do their job, too, and the Yokohamas that come as standard have enough profile on them to help smooth the bumbles and keep it moving quickly in the right direction.

From the rear three quarter the car is at its most unspectacular, and with standard colourways, and nice but commonplace Alloy style, the layman could easily miss the explosive potential of this tight, wheezing, fizzing driving machine.

//The Drive//
There a simple test we’ve adopted to rate a cars practical use/fun value. On the school run, there a really appealing sequence of double-bumps at the top of a long, steep, sweeping hill. The kids want you to get air. Shameful, I know, but how can you deny the little lovelies?

Put it this way. The ‘willy feeling funny’ factor was rated ten out of ten. Read into this all you want, but dropping the left paddle on the SST twin clutch selector into second and a pre-kicker ckick back up into third, pushing the revs up into the red, will shore up real and tangible hang time. Now you’re torquing.

This car isn’t even the madman 360, let alone the full-blown mentalist that is the FQ400. But mark you, this entry level EVO is powerful enough to match most things that even vaguely resemble it and other everyman cars. Though, it has been said, on the more extreme manifestations of the car a more traditional box needs to be stirred to handle the affect, in the 330 and for your correspondent, the flappy paddles work brilliantly.

Call me a neo-fetishist, but I fail to see why they shouldn’t be standard on every car you’ll ever drive. On the Evo X it makes sense most of all, and adds to that preternatural feeling of responsiveness that even the still present turbo lag can’t really eradicate. When you push the selctor forward into Sport mode and pull the stick toward you to select manual shifting, it seems that all you have to do is think a manoeuvre and it happens. In the rough roads of the Eppynt range north of Brecon very quick changes of direction in sideways sleet were handled superbly. In fact, we doubt there is a better handling car in these sorts of roads on the entire planet.

The engine revs right through soaringly to the eight thousand range, and the slingshot response from second to third and fourth is thrilling.

Stopping is incredible too, thanks to those vented discs and Brembo calipers, so that you can stomp the brake thirty or forty yards later than you would think possible and scrub off all that’s required. Balanced, confident and calm in the most challenging of situations, this thing deals with the inconsistencies better than any saloon we have ever driven.

If anything and surprisingly, the first thing to go when you push it is the front. There’s a hint of washout that surprises, especially as it is so difficult to get the back end out. What’s more common is a nicely controllable four wheel drift, stepping out to the side. This is ultimately enjoyable because it’s easy to correct.

We read somewhere that the Evo would be the quickest cross-country car in the world. We think whoever wrote that was spot on.

Being in one of those automotive quandaries is great for daydreaming. Old banger and surf wagon/default dadmobile having recently been crushed in the face of an intransigent MOT, there are so many boxes to be ticked in our search for a new vehicle.

The next wagon needs to be rugged, reliable, economical. If it could also be fun, stylish and cool, the all the better.

Thing is, these triads of practicality and rakishness are rarely fused together, and in fact usually pull against one another like the polarities of a magnet.

Then it dawned on me. Minivan. Fave would be an oil crisis era vintage job from Detroit, obvs, but a current Japanese version would suffice. When we stumbled across these delectably colourful examples, then we were convinced.

Now to find the right importer.

If you thought a rotary engined bike was something out of seventies scifi, then think again.

Suzuki produced the RE-5 for a couple of years in the mid seventies.…We’re not sure how successful the bike ended up being. We can only imagine that the big rotary whirring in the middle of the bike must have tended to instability.

The very cool old video says most of the things that we could say about this thing and more. So. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Mazda RX500 was originally displayed at the Tokyo show in 1970. Styling wise it had shades of the Mercedes C-111 (the Wankel-engined freak from the same period), but also featured that back end bulbousness similar to the styling of the Ferrari 250 GTO ‘Breadvan’.

It had scissor doors that swung upward and forward, and a 491cc rotary engine just behind the seats. Weighing in at a shade below 850KG and packing around 250 BHP the wheezy monster apparently reached 150 mph on Mazda’s test track.

The car was recently restored in partnership with the Hiroshima City Transportation Museum where it has apparently been on display. But as well as its muscular styling sticking out in the memory the car is interesting of course as much for its early shake-down of the rotary engine as a viable production option.

It’s a typically out-there ideas bed from the period that actually resulted in a sting of production Rotaries, albeit with slightly toned down styling. Makes you look at the brand slightly differently, eh?

Looking like a cross between a mobility scooter, a Sinclair C5 and a JD Bug, the Honda Zook (otherwise known as the MS50L) looked like a deathtrap, and must have ridden like one.

Released in 1990, it came with a fold-up steering column and seat post, presumably for parking in tiny Japanese city spaces. It was, we assume, aimed at students and the very naive, with the rather loathsome candy-coloured marketing campaign featuring the Japanese predecessor of that annoying bloke from the Halifax ads.

It had a two litre fuel tank and could apparently top 33 MPH with a prevailing wind. Not a patch on the earlier, ruggedly cool Motra. But interesting nonetheless. Not surprising it was a bit of a dead end, and if you can find one we suggest you burn it. From an aesthetic point of view it makes the eyes hurt.

And we are Honda fans!

Click here to view the embedded video.

For any of you who didn’t follow last Friday’s tweet, we thought this footage is more than worthy of a daily post. Especially as the car is so brutally lovely.

Lexus’s LFA Nürburgring Edition has just run the ‘ring in 7:14 at the hands of driver Akira Iida.

This is quickest time from a mainstream carmaker and beats the previous record, set by a Porsche 911 GT2 RS, by four seconds.

Obviously this is a tweaked version of the LFA, which will cost you £55,000 more than the ‘bog standard’ (!) £345,000 LFA.

Apart from general record breaking kudos, for that extra money you get a bunch of aerodynamic carbon-fibre add-ons, including a jutting front spoiler, fins ahead of the front wheel and a massive rear wing.

This downforce-heavy package is counteracted by a set of tuning tweaks that squeeze 562bhp out of the 4.8-litre V10. That’s 10bhp more than in the standard car.

There’s reworked suspension too that slings the body 10mm lower than the standard LFA.

You could of course score a very nice nearly new 911 with the difference..but hey, we’re in the world of automotive fantasy here, so you might as well just sit back and mind drive a very hairy (but remarkably smooth) seven minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This appealing little runabout from Toyota was the product of ‘The National Car Concept’ that was created in 1955 by the very powerful Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The idea was to nudge Japanese captains of industry into focussing their efforts on creating vehicles that met a number of specific requirements.

Top speed had to exceed 100 km/h; the cars kerb weight had to be below 400 kg – and fuel consumption should not exceed 1 litre/30 km at an average speed of 60 km/h on a level road.

The other significant element was full service intervals should exceed 100,000 kilometres.

You can see by the slightly Stalinist prerequisite that the ministry meant business — but it must at least in part account for the legendary reliability of most Japanese production cars.

And in the Publica’s wagon manifestation (above) the result looked kind of cute — and in the ’62 Sports concept guise (below), was downright dashing.