Some Love For the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III

It’s been a while since I’ve written here, but that doesn’t matter. I’m just dipping back here to express some love for my favorite car as of the moment: The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III, specifically, the CE9A generation Lancer Evo.

It is admittedly a very underappreciated car with very little public coverage to add to fame in which cars like the Toyota Supra, Nissan Skyline GT-R and the younger Evos among many others took full advantage of thanks to significant pop culture exposure, whereas the only known major appearances of the Evo III in pop culture was in Initial D for a short time period and “Thunderbolt”, a Chinese movie starring Jackie Chan driving a tuned yellow one. However, its obscure status makes it an enticing choice for car enthusiasts who are more partial to underdogs than the mainstream choices.

Like the Evos before and after it, it uses the iconic Mitsubishi 2.0L 4G63T turbo four pot cranking out about a discrete 280 HP and a 0-60 time of 5.5 seconds… Pretty damn good for an early 90s car if you ask me, but that’s to be expected out of an inhibited rally car for the road, and sticking to that theme, it enjoys rutting in dirt like a pig in the mud, and although it is more than capable of performing well on tarmac, the way the Evo III’s suspension is set up means that it is more pliant in unpaved situations compared to her younger iterations.

Inside the Evo III is what you’d expect out of a hard-boiled 90s Japanese performance car; dreary black plastic dash board, ordinary shifter knob and boring carpets, but the retro Recaro seats and Momo steering wheel breaks the mold and gives the car some sporty character, although it doesn’t hide the fact that a run-down shack is probably more coddling than an Evo III’s interior is, or any Mitsubishi for that matter, so unless you’re used to uncomfortable interiors, then road trips are going to be a bit of a hassle.

So what can the Evo III be compared to? Other alternatives to consider that are fairly similar to it is, first of all, the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, its one and only true eternal rival, the Toyota Celica GT-FOUR, a like-minded competitor with two less doors, and the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth four door, another rally car based turbo four cylinder saloon with an impressive history behind it.

In conclusion, the CE9A generation of the Lancer Evolution ought to be given a consideration when looking for a car that is jolly good fun yet aggressive and able to be tuned to excellence from the get-go when looking for a car to import or buy domestically depending on where you are from. You get impressive unpaved performance thanks to its AWD system, a peppy turbo engine that launches the car to anywhere in short time, and thanks to its fairly simple engineering as an early generation Evo, you are able to modify and maintain the car with less frustration than you might expect. What’s not to like?

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪

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