Bet that title brought you up with a start!
There was a time when the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution wasn’t just another performance car—it was the dream machine for an entire generation. Fueled by The Fast and the Furious, video games, and the exploding tuner scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Evo became the poster child for attainable speed, even if owning one remained out of reach for most young enthusiasts. This story is about that era, one teenager’s obsession with Evos, and how it eventually found its way onto my workbench in miniature.
About that teenager, he’s now 36, so a bit of simple subtraction places most of this story in the late ‘90s/early 2000s.
A tunerized Evo VII, this Monster 340
There’s nothing quite like having a teenage son coming up to driving age to make you aware of new automotive trends you may have thus far managed to ignore. Either through being busy in other areas of your own life, living out of town in a place where such cars are not often seen, managing to ignore clues dropped by said teenager, not joining the dots (so to speak) – or underestimating the power of Hollywood once it gets its teeth into a good idea.
Or all of the above.
Lancer Evo V. Pretty standard. Nice colour.
In my case it was Tuners that I’d ignored. Loud, often obnoxious, modified and often painted-up Japanese sedans, coupes and hatches. (Wagons and vans too, for all I know.) I’d probably seen the occasional tuner on the road and thought nothing of it – after all, in my generation we used to modify cars too. It was nothing new. Reworking engines for more power, changing the exhaust for more noise, modifying the suspension for better handling, usually sitting lower, maybe better paint and wheels if you could afford it. Been there, done that (a bit).
Lancer Evo V Cruise. Mostly decals and wheels here.
I was never a great moviegoer myself, but the kids seemed to keep on top of what was worth a trip into town for. I’d taken Ben to see The Fast and the Furious a few years earlier, little thinking about what might ensue. After all, he was into trains rather than cars, right? He wasn’t about to buy a loco, right? And it wasn’t like he could tuner-ize a loco, anyway. Certainly not in a high school which didn’t offer anything along mechanical lines…
Standard Evo V. In go-fast Red.
But there’s this thing called Work Experience. We never had it in my day. Two weeks of full-time work at a workplace of your choice, in consultation with career guidance and arranged by the school, to enable the student to make a more informed decision about their future career path. Brilliant idea! In Ben’s case, it was a diesel repair workshop. Now that took some organizing – as (in typical Wilding fashion) nobody had ever asked for that kind of experience before – and took some of his own footwork to tee it up. Two weeks there and he was sold. Seems they were, too. He asked for and got an apprenticeship, and it was goodbye school!
My one Fast and Furious model. Evo under the skin.
As we know, once Hollywood gets its teeth into a good thing (as judged by box office takings), they don’t let go in a hurry. For better or for worse. Meanwhile Ben had been keeping up with the new F&F movies, and ultimately needed a car to get him to and from work and his theory classes. Dad could drive him to work for a 7:30 start, sure, but not to the Caterpillar Institute in Melbourne for his weekly theory classes.
Evo VI in green, because I can.
A car of his own – hmm. Those Skylines were cool, but they weren’t sold here. Just as well – insurance on an R34 is still out of his reach. As we were a Mitsubishi-driving family, his thoughts turned to things of an Evo-lutionary nature.
A real Tommi Makinen Edition, I don’t think there’s a model.
Especially once we’d been new car shopping and found an Evo 6 Tommi Makinen Edition parked in the showroom next to the Verada (Diamante) we were looking at buying. The Evo was just on display, not for sale, but our kids were all over it. It was much cooler than a new family car. No, they wouldn’t throw this in if we bought the Verada….
Reality check: Lancer Evos were obtainable in Australia, yes, but VERY expensive, and utterly, utterly uninsurable at his age. Or possibly mine. He found that out himself. Okay then, let’s look down the range a bit….
After a few weeks, he found himself the owner of a used Lancer GLi 1.8 automatic, with the optional factory alloys and factory Talon bodykit. Because they were factory accessories on a fairly ordinary Lancer (confirmed by our trusted dealer), insurance was no problem. The only other visible mod was Altezza-style taillights. Mechanically it was a normal Lancer.
The non-TME Evo VI. Ben’s bodykit wasn’t as extreme.
It remained standard for a long time. Gradually as he learned things in his apprenticeship, he added a few accessories. Undercar lighting: he’d enquired about it at the local police station (the beauty of living in a small town, they have time to help and don’t laugh at a teenager’s enquiry about a point of law) – and carried a copy of the relevant legislation in the door pocket, in case he was pulled over for showing neon. He did all the wiring himself, and added some neon around the interior while he was at it. Cool, I guess, but not my thing….
Next-generation bodyshell, Evo VII
The next stage, once he’d finished the apprenticeship, and was earning, was a decent stereo. He’d helped me fit a stereo in the little Suzuki Swift in place of the mono radio-only, but for his own car, he turned to the professionals. He bought an Alpine semi-competition system (‘one step down from the top stuff, Dad’) and had it installed. He was after sound quality, not outright volume. I’ll admit my hearing’s not the best, and it wasn’t music I was familiar with that he played to test it, but it sounded amazing. Cost? About a quarter what he’d paid for the whole car. To him it was worth it.
More might have happened, but meanwhile he’d found the girl of his dreams. And not long after…
Ben and Anne’s going-away car.
Now, about the models…
Plenty of other Lancer models exist. I may even have built some. These were ones I could find that weren’t lost, misfiled or unphotographed.
Another Evo VII, this one the Ralliart car. Basically a decal pack, I think.
I don’t have anything before an Evo V. Hasegawa does the Evo III, but it’s based off a previous generation Lancer, before Ben and I started getting interested in such things. I can’t build everything, though it seems I’ve given it a pretty good try…
An Evo VIII in grey. Cool vortex generators on the roof. Real metal mesh in the grille and hood vent.
The red Evo V model has lived at Ben’s for the past 15 years or so. Oh, he acknowledges that I built it, but it represents ‘his car’, so I let him take it. And quietly built another…
Evo IX. A few body changes.
Most of these are Fujimi kits. They’re fairly simple, easy to assemble, kid-friendly, and most importantly, look right. They seemed to be the company that specialised in Lancer Evos. They also have done a lot of the ‘Initial D’ anime cars; perhaps that’s why they tend toward simpler tools.
I built this Aoshima standard Evo X with an aftermarket photoetched grille and other metal parts.
As modified by the Japanese tuning shop C West.
The Evo X models are by Aoshima. They’re much better detailed, including actual body changes but have some much smaller parts and trickier assembly steps.
I almost forgot: someone just might want to know about actual models of the Fast and Furious cars. Yes, they do exist. AMT in the US did quite a range of F&F cars over the years from the various movies. They had an Evo VIII, but it looked a bit cartoonish compared to the Fujimi Lancer Evo VIII I’d built, or the Lancers I saw on the road, so I didn’t buy it. I’ve built many of the others, but aside from that Eclipse shown earlier I’ve gone my own way with the colour (as usual) and such so it’s doubtful you’d recognize them.
And off we go again. Quickly…
I always remembered Evos and Evo-like tuners of base Lancers being fairly rare, but then This Is Subaru Country and Subaru’s American racing operation is just up the road, and there are certainly plenty of blue WRXs and base Imprezas made to look like WRXs even now – the fact the latest models make you give up the hatchback to step up to WRXs and the Impreza Sport looks factory lowered because they sell so many Crosstreks come into play too.
I think the AMT F&F Evo has been reissued. There was an Airfix one too, and a WRX. I know a local toy store owner just branching into model kits (after carrying supplies and ordering kits in for customers) who’d ordered two of each when the distributor had them on clearance. The Subarus sold within a week and the Mitsus were shelf queens he marked down to $5 and finally gave away to loyal customers before a big move. I scored the last one and had to add “You mean to tell me you didn’t know *Subarus* would sell well in *Vermont*!?!”
There’s been at least one Subie kit on his shelf ever since.
This matches my recollections here in California. Yes, I was aware of the Evo and saw a few running around, but the sheer number of Subaru’s totally overshadowed them. Whether dust-covered trailhead explorers, or shiny suburban grocery getters, or (later) loud WRXes and STI’s and later still BRZ’s, Subaru was everywhere. I actually think the DiamondStar Eclipse coupe in “tuned” AWD and turbo form was more visible, at least in proportion to other Mitsubishis, especially since it pre-dated the performance Subaru’s here in the US.
Interesting! I had no idea Mitsubishi was so weak in the US. Here they were pretty much snapping at the heels of Toyota throughout much of the eighties and nineties. I’ve probably seen more WRXs than real Evos, but way more Lancers than Imprezas in total.
It’s that alternative universe thing again…
In many segments Mitsubishi always seemed like it was in last place among the Japanese imports here in the States, even before the current Mirage bottom-feeder era. I would read British and Australian magazines and be surprised at the popularity of Lancers, Pajeros (Montero here) etc. The rear wheel drive and then FWD Colts, as well as first two generations of pickups sold well here, benefitting from the Dodge/Plymouth branding and dealerships. And that plus their unique features made the DSM coupes popular, though still on a cultish way compared to say a Celica. The L300 pickup never made it here.
It’s funny how car companies’ sales performance can vary so much from one country to another. Like how Honda seems so big in the US – to us that’s amazing. Honda’s never been all that strong here, and look to be on the way out. They fell to 19th in sales here last year. (Toyota was 1st, Mazda 3rd, Mitsubishi 6th, Isuzu (with no cars) 9th, Subaru 11th, Nissan 12th and Suzuki 20th – source VFACTS 2025).
The car that really put Mitsubishi on the map here was the third generation Galant, which made other cars in its class look and feel crude., and quickly became the top seller in its class. IIRC you got the wagon version of this as the Dodge Colt wagon, but not the sedan.
Subaru country, eh? Might be just as well I wrote about them first! 🙂
Mitsubishi always used to be big in this country, ever since they bought out Chrysler’s local operations in ’80. But since they ended local production, it seems like they’ve been in a zombie-like trance with little meaningful product action. Subaru’s regular cars don’t have that level of brand awareness here; indeed, I can’t think then was the last time I saw an Impreza that wasn’t a WRX, and there’s few enough of those. Neighbours over the road have a newish Legacy, which stands out because it’s the only one of that generation I’ve seen. But then I live in the flat grasslands; quite different from Vermont.
Yes, I’d read that the AMT Evo was back. No updates though; still looks as cartoonish as ever.
I remember about 20 years ago when Subaru STi and Mitsubishi EVO were at their height, New York Times had published an article to compare their performance, EVO won. It said EVO was more like a Ferrari in term of performance. Its engine has a special feature to spread water into engine intake to boost performance — I read somewhere Packard used this feature to boost its aircraft engine performance during WW2. However, STi had feature to let driver control the amount of power distribution between front and rear axle, claiming this made STi was a better handling car than BMW E46 M3.
They were both amazing vehicles, capable of phenomenal performance in the hands of a really good driver. In the hands of a driver who merely thinks he’s good, though….. well, let’s just say the laws of physics still apply.
Water injection used to be a thing, and I’ve heard of spraying water over the intercooler for additional charge cooling. It’s amazing how the two companies’ efforts seemed to egg each other on to develop new technologies – and perhaps dust off old ones.
When I first met my wife, she was getting ready to buy a new car. Her sons had lots of influence on her, talking her into a tenth-generation Lancer.
Naturally, they, being young guys at the time, tried to talk her into an Evolution-X, having lusted after such a car much like your son, Peter. In fact, they liked the Lancers so much, that while the younger of the two boys couldn’t afford the Evo IX, he DID purchase the Rally Art version of the car, and like your son, added a killer stereo to the car.
A few years later, when their dad passed away, the younger son sold the Rally Art to his older brother and took over driving his dad’s Pontiac Grand Am.
My (future) wife then needed a car. Off to the Mitsubishi dealer they went, and she fell in love with the car pictured below (mostly because of the color, Octane Blue in this case). A step above the base model, the car came well equipped with a Rockford Fosgate stereo and other goodies, including a wing (that she did not like, but her boys did) that looked a lot like the Evo’s wing at the time. But of course the car came with the rather anemic 2.0L with the CVT, but that suited her just fine as my wife is about as far from ‘Fast and Furious’ as it gets.
She eventually gave this car to her granddaughter, who unfortunately wrecked it a couple of years later, so sadly, it’s gone off to the great smasher in the sky.
Here’s the front 3/4 view. Cool looking car, that eventually grew on me, despite the anemic 2.0L I-4 and its lame CVT.
It’s funny about those Rick. They were quite popular here at first, but fell victim to company inertia (they never seemed to change or update it in thirteen years, unlike previous Lancers) and the rise of the SUV killing off sedan popularity down here. We have a related 2.4/CVT combo in our ASX (Outlander Sport).
Looks very nice in blue.