The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution's Last Hurrah
The calendar says it’s closer to 2017 than 2015, but last year’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Final Edition hasn’t finished bleeding media ink.
The last Evo FE to roll off the assembly line is currently up on eBay, placed there by its parent company. A southern California food bank stands to benefit from the online auction, while a deep-pocketed Evo fanboy will gain untouchable bragging rights.
A total of 1,600 2015 Evolution FE’s made their way onto dealer lots before Mitsubishi axed the high-performance Lancer variant. Sporting 303 horsepower, 305 pounds-feet of torque and a decade-old design, this particular car has 11 miles on the odometer and (we assume) very few food crumbs in the folds of the 5-speed shifter boot.
Just to prove that the eBay Evo isn’t an impostor, a center console plaque installed by the automaker reads “US1600.” Listed with a starting bid of $46,200, the Evo’s auction wraps up one week from today. So far, that bid hasn’t budged.
Now, would-be buyers can engage in a bidding war, confident in the knowledge that they’re helping needy families served by Feeding America Riverside/San Bernadino Counties, or… they could buy one of the hundreds of Evo Final Editions currently populating vehicles sales sites. It’s a personal choice.
A quick Autotrader search turns up boatloads of 2015 Lancer Evo FEs (at least 252), as does a Cars.com database query. It’s rare in a production sense, but certainly not unobtainable.
Mitsubishi pulled the plug on the Evo amid falling sales and plans to do the same for its long-in-the-tooth vanilla brother, preferring instead to focus on crossover and electric vehicle development.
[Image: Mitsubishi Motors]
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In related news, I saw a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal that Mits is selling its Normal, Illinois site.
It's like the Mini Wheats of automobiles with a twist: "The kid in me loves the idea of a turbo AWD car that has a ton of performance" "The adult in me hates the part that is the normal Lancer, which I have to live with all of the time" As a former Lancer Sportback owner, I'd really have to love the frosted side to buy one. And never new. See also, to a lesser extent, Subaru WRX. Though at least Subie is more livable and arugably a more comfortable car, especially now.
The Lancer Evolution X. The only sports sedan that made me pause and think "well, could I live with a four door car?" No, no I can not. So one is not in my garage. But it did make me think about it.
I'm surprised at the disdain for the Evo in general, and the X in particular here. My daily-driven 2008 Evo X MR is by far my favorite car I've ever owned. Distant runner up: 1997 Toyota Chaser Tourer-V (up until I put it through a fence drifting). My first car in Japan was a 1997 Evo IV, which despite the low weight was comparatively gutless due to a clapped-out and abused engine. I plan to buy another early-model Evo X here in Japan within the next 18 months or less, and sell both of my Toyotas (2003 Mark II iR-V and 1993 NA 5-speed JZA80 Supra). You can get them ~$18k now. Aggressively styled, AWD traction (useful in perpetually-rainy Japan), room for your wingman and 2-3 females, and can reliably deliver 400+ whp with affordable mods. Oh, and the 2.0L engine probably has lower road taxes than the 2.5L 1JZ or 3.0L 2JZ engines in my Toyotas. For now, the only other daily driver I'd consider is a Toyota Mark X 350S Gs, which has a slushbox instead of a DCT and definitely nowhere near the same sort of tactile steering as an Evo (I've test driven one in Tokyo). Still, it's pretty much the only option if you want a reliable, light, decently-affordable sedan without a boxer engine.