"The Mitsubishi EVO. Where to start?! Throughout its 23-year history, the EVO name has been legendary for the Mitsubishi brand. And since being phased out back in 2015 – with the last model being produced for eight years – the namesake has become "
The Evolution of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo
homage to the Lancer Evolution - Crown Prince of the everyman hoonigans...
Another car maker admits to getting things wrong with emissions testing. Does that mean brand loyalty evaporates? Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolution was never a strong contender for ‘green car of the year’. But we still love it.
Mitsubishi might not be the global behemoth that is VW, but it is a huge name in car culture. The company recently announced that it has discovered that fuel consumption testing data submitted to the Japanese authorities has been improperly presented in order to improve fuel consumption rates. The testing method was also different, apparently, from that required by Japanese law.
The company has acted quickly to apologise to its customers and stakeholders and will put in place a committee of external experts to thoroughly and objectively investigate the issue. In line with what the company calls its ‘open and transparent’ policy, it has pledged to make these results public as soon as this is complete.
We spent some time a while back with the Evo X. The intuition was true. The car was probably the quickest, most fun, most dramatic way to blast across the country without remortgaging your house. A quick cast through the classifieds will net you a workable weapon for well under £20K. Not a bad way to net 300 Cavali.
We’re unlikely to see the likes of the EVO again. It’s sad at one level, but progress dictates that this Japanese muscle car is destined to riff on a chord of nostalgia.
Evo-7:2001–03
The most distinguishing feature of the 7 was a smooth bonnet with no air-grills on it at all and the revised front bumper. Although offering inferior cooling capabilities, the bonnet was designed to give a cleaner line through the air with less air resistance at motorway speeds. An auto box was also offered as part of the lineup.
Evo-9:2005–07
Designations went mental here. While the new FQ-360 produced less horsepower than its predecessor, it had more torque at 363 lb·ft at 3200 rpm. All four models were designed to run on super unleaded petrol only. The MR FQ-360 was also released in limited numbers (only 200) in the last year of production. The FQ designation was meant to refer to horsepower. But sometimes to Torque units. Confused? We are.
Evo-X:2007
By the time the EVO X was introduced, both fuel prices and road tax in the UK were creeping up. The end might have been in sight, but the Evo remained a relatively rare and welcome sight on the British A-roads. Paddle shift sequential gearbox was a welcome addition, though for some detracted from the stirring purism of the rally-bred marque within a marque.
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