- Affordable fast Japanese cars are dying.
Okay. You've got the GT-R, which is like $115,000.
The NSX came out at $157, and while the BRZ came out at $30,
it was just a little bit slower.
The RC F's worth $55,000.
While there are still a few companies out there
that hit the niche market that many of us love,
which practically solely exclusively meant
for the four-door, all-wheel drive,
turbo four-cylinder
(coughing sound)
Subaru.
The only ones that a lot of us remember
from our childhood would be the other half of that battle.
It's like, what we really, really wanted
but now it's kind of died and it makes me sad.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
in the used Facebook Marketplaces of the world.
We just got to trust the 19-year-old Jimmy
with the manual boost controller
and the 160,000-mile engine that just happens
to be inside of it for $13,000.
I'm Alex. @alex.fi on Instagram,
and today, we're going to be talking
about one of the most influential
Japanese tuner sports cars.
Pretty much like the car of Japanese tuner cars,
like the car that made United States say,
"Wow, that's a cool car."
Until it didn't update itself fast enough
then it just died out.
A car that set the stage
for anyone that had right around $13,000 in 2013
and could take out a loan with a co-signer
because that's just what you had to do
if you wanted to pay to play.
A car that was known as the car to buy
if you wanted to build something
that you could actually strap game stock,
like stock two and go to the moon
because these cars were like 1400 horsepower,
if you wanted them to be.
Ladies and gentlemen,
today, we're gonna be talking
about you wanting to own a Mitsubishi Evo 8.
(car engine roaring)
And welcome to Fitment Industries.
We started a long time ago when I had a weirder hair
and we were smushed in a tiny little shop
because it was just Mario and I trying to help people
figure out what wheels fit their car, with wheels, tires,
and suspension-
Hence, the slogan.
We'll start our suspension fitmentindustries.com
You know what I'm saying?
Now we've got a huge gallery of cars.
We can see exactly what fits on your car
if you are looking to pick up a set of wheels and tires.
So if you haven't had to go check out the gallery.
That's fitmentindustries.com/yeller
That'd be pretty cool too.
And if you're looking for wheel tire packages
or suspension stuff,
be sure to check us out over there as well.
We shipped to the lower 48 states.
The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution is a name
that almost everyone should know by now.
But if you haven't,
it was a sports sedan based on the Lancer platform
manufactured by Mitsubishi motors for over 24 years.
It was a pretty long time.
And with 10 official variants to date
and all using the same recipe
of a turbocharged four-cylinder
with a gnarly all-wheel drive system for the most part,
that was also turboed.
Did I say turboed? It was turboed.
The Evo would become one
of the pinnacle performance advanced
to ever come out of Japan.
And it was an insanely fun car.
Alright.
It's like the best thing
that you could ever see come out of Japan.
It's like the TikTok, the toktik is better than drugs,
Jeremy.
It's from Japan.
Is that how they do it?
Gentle, Jon is nodding his head.
I feel bad for anybody that has to listen
to me talk while I go through this.
The first initial groups of the Mitsubishi Evo
up to the fifth version were officially approved models
for the World Rally Championship Group A class
and the SCCA ProRally Championship.
Unfortunately, the remaining versions never met
the homologation standards, okay, or requirements.
But Mitsubishi kept the two producing them
because the demand of the car far exceeded
that of just being a car that they needed to get into rally.
And back in the day, Mitsubishi was huge in the rally game.
They were one of the most successful car companies
in rally sport and SCCA.
It actually bridged a lot of the competition
that you now know and love between Subaru, Audi, Mitsubishi,
and even other companies like Lotus and Porsche.
And because these cars evolve faster than the Progen.
And if you had the secret car recipe,
the world began to take notice
that Mitsubishi was really hitting the rally stage strong
with a new recipe for success.
And the demand for that car came along with it.
But not necessarily for the back roads and the jumps
and all that sort of crazy stuff
for people that just wanted to have a car to drive around.
Great import markets push the Evolution series
to eventually be offered
through a limited type approval
in the UK and in other European markets right around 1998.
And while that continued to kind of seep out past Japan,
finally, after a couple, two, three years,
during the jump from the seventh to the eighth generation,
they made a good old jump into new good old United States.
Mostly because Subaru did it
and it worked really well for them.
This is one of those things
where Mitsubishi wasn't the first one to the game
especially in the United States.
And Mitsubishi saw a huge opportunity to jump in
and try and give it a little bit of competition.
And a lot of people wanted this car.
So in 2003, it showed up on our doorstep.
17-inch and K wheels, Brembo brakes, front suspension,
and the classic five-speed manual gearbox was
right around 270 horsepower.
And right out of the gate, it did really, really well.
Alright, it was 270 horsepower
which back then was a good enough chunk to boot
and out of a four-door sedan.
It was fun.
And it did so well
that by 2005 Mitsubishi began to offer the vehicle
in multiple trim options,
including the RS, SL, and the MR, and a bunch of other ones,
if you really want to get into
the specific special edition versions.
But for the most part,
it was just trims because they started making money
and the car was packed in tech.
It had slick response, Bilstein shocks.
It had an aluminum roof for weight reduction, alright.
Updates to the Super AYC traction control
and more response all-wheel drive brain, alright.
And it made this thing really smart for the time.
I don't know if it was smart enough.
And while it did have a ton of snuff,
the moment it did hit the States,
it hit consumer competition with a good old WRX.
And right after that,
the STI Subaru did not wait any time
to give a good old competition.
And even though the cars looked identical
to the one from Japan,
the US spec Mitsubishi Evo was a little bit de-tuned.
It was a little bit stripped down
and it was just a little bit less free to play.
Alright.
It made competition extremely difficult for the brand
but it still did an excellent job
against the STI in many ways.
And for many people,
it still beat it out of its own segment.
The car itself had a massive image
that was by and large completely validated.
Because guess what?
When your car is in a video game, you automatically win.
Gran Turismo, spurred the car,
and interested the younger enthusiast.
Paul Walker spurred the interest in the young drivers
that could actually take out a loan on one of these
and rallying allow the car to be respected
by the people that not just showed their car
but actually drove the living piss out of their car.
So they had all the people loving the car
that needed to love the car.
And it just worked well
for a recipe of people wanting to buy these things.
But as fast as the car actually popped up to win the hearts
and minds of enthusiasts everywhere,
it pretty much just disappeared
into the abyss of sport cars.
And just left.
So we're done talking about the history of this car
because I don't want to make myself sad.
The car that everyone loves until they realize
that the interior is literally what you'd expect
from a base model Lancer except worse in every way.
It just happens to have a big ass turbo attached to it.
So it makes it a lot of fun when you're actually in turbo.
Okay.
So you want to own a Mitsubishi Evo 8, alright.
We'll set down your $5-oil tray
that you're going to slide underneath that bad boy
when you get it into the garage
and grab your favorite ICF patches
because we're going to talk about
what it's like to actually own
one of these rockets ships.
Because by and large, that is all this car is.
It's a rocket ship and not like a cool Tesla rocket ship.
It's like a NASA V-2 rocket ship.
Like the one
that we're kind of sure you're going to get up there
but there might be some problems along the way.
Only a Mitsubishi Evo 8 is like the upgraded version
of one of those EG hatches
with the laptop in the passenger seat.
Like it's literally going to be a bit of a rough ride
but wholly for those three seconds
before there's something breaks or you actually take flight,
it is an absolute blast.
And the platform
that the Evo provides an automotive enthusiast,
someone like you and someone like me is
unlike anything else really out there in the market
because of the amount
of raw opportunistic potential of power.
And the platform takes it so well.
Evo 8s do have a couple, two, three things
that you're going to want to know before you pick one up.
And that list goes a little bit like this.
Contrary to popular belief
and something that may actually confuse
a lot of people is that Evo 8s are actually quite reliable
with minimal modifications.
Their biggest pain point can be the garage scientist
that never learned how to properly tune a car
and is now trying to sell you a deal
for 120,000-mile Evo for $12,000.
And it's got rust on the fender
and you're not really sure what's going on with the car
because it's a little slanty, probably got hit one time.
Don't. Okay.
Be careful with that.
But buyer's guides around Evo 8 will actually have you
just naturally searching for engine compartments,
not to see if something was broken,
but to see if anything had been taken off and on.
A lot of times on the Evo 8 platform,
people are swapping parts quite often
and especially when you get down to bone stock
on these days,
the chances that they were bone stock
their entire life is pretty small.
Taking a look at the turbo space to see
if you can identify that
someone likely slapped a bigger one on there
earlier in its career.
Or you can actually just use a VIN look-up
to see if any major maintenance items were done
or make some simple phone call to Mitsubishi.
These are some of the two biggest things that you can do
because these cars are platforms
where people like to build on them.
And if you're trying to buy one stock
or you're trying to buy one on a budget,
it's probably going to bite you in the ass.
Without doing your research.
Some other common items is
if you have the AYC that the pumping it clogged
from time to time
and you can either get a new part
or you can hit it with a hammer.
That's what the forums say.
Use a rubber hammer to be safe though.
You know what I'm saying?
Water can get in through the wheel arch splash guard
can cause some interesting issues
because of it's closest to the fuse box
and the passenger wheel.
Well, it can cause your lights to stay on.
And there's a couple of things
around the old electrical system
that you're going to need to be a little bit wary of
that you're going to want to take a look at.
But the biggest thing is
and will probably always be with this platform,
most specifically,
will be poorly modified EVOs.
If you are jumping into this platform,
it is a fantastic platform to learn.
And there's a huge community of people
that love modifying these cars.
And the platform itself can do it very well.
And Mitsubishi did a great job.
I would argue all the way up to its last generation.
And with that being said,
you can find a relatively unmodified one
without fender rusts,
but it's going to be a little bit more expensive.
If you do find one though,
you're going to have one hell of a time.
These cars look insane with practically any type
of build as well.
Go out to our gallery
and you'll find people like wanderfoooo's function
set up on 9.5 wide Volk TE37.
So you see 4g63_mafia's stance set up
on air lift performance suspension
and a little bit of camera,
with a little bit of showy-show, okay?
And you can even see people running staggered static setups
like toncheetos's, 17x12 and 17x12.5 wide body
with Bilstein Coilovers.
And a set up that looks like it would eat a child.
These cars can do anything from narrow body,
to wide body, to function, to drag, to autocross, to HPD,
to everything in between.
The platform does it extremely well.
Now the platform itself can have a little bit of turbo lag
and there are a couple of things
that you're gonna want to play around with
to keep the power on the right point.
But the point is, is that the car can and does do it all.
It can be built like a train, if you want it to be.
It can sound insane, if you want it to.
It can be a hundred thousand dollars show car
if that's what you want.
But it will take time, patience, and care.
4g63, they carry like a community and passion like no other.
And the intricacies of that motor need to be respected
or you'll just blow it up.
And most people in this community,
they're more than likely just going to laugh at you.
It is one of those communities
that you truly need to take your time,
respect where a lot of people have spent time on it
in the past,
and listen, instead of speak,
at least for the first couple of times
that you're jumping into the forums.
Additionally, the Evo 8 isn't as upscaled as you think,
sit inside and you quickly find
why many people immediately start swapping out seats,
steering wheels, plastics, store cards, audio, and more,
because on the Evo 8
and a lot of those earlier generation Evos,
Mitsubishi had one purpose
and it wasn't making a race car.
Alright.
That was the only reason that they went out
and made the Evolution, okay.
And that entire lineage up until the 9 and 10,
they really didn't care too much about the interiors
even though they tried to.
They did pretty damn well with making it look like
it was actually just a garage build.
Evo 8s will always have a special place in our heart.
And it's likely one of those cars that in 20 years,
would be worth like a hundred thousand dollars
because of what it stood for here in the States.
It was the first car for Mitsubishi
to be imported into the United States
as a rally inspired race car
that you could buy from a dealership
that was known for building things
with a wee bit of lag, a drop of insanity,
and just like a touch of technology.
It's what made the Evo so intoxicating to drive.
And for me, the Evo 8 did that perfectly.
No matter what you do, no matter what you put on it,
no matter what wheels and tire suspensions
that you throw on this car there will always be somebody,
while you're driving, that's going to break their neck,
when they see an Evo 8 rolling down the road.
But what do you think?
Let us know in the comment section below.
And if you're looking for
what others have done to their Evo,
take a look over at our gallery
at fitmentindustries.com/gallery.
And if you're looking for wheels and tire packages
and suspension for your newly acquired Evo 8,
be sure to check us out over at fitmentindustries.com
We've got everything from your Volk TE37s,
to your works, to your Rotiforms, to everything in between.
Even our brand new wheel brand artists art form wheels
that we're very excited about.
You can check that out as well.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries and we will see you later.
Peace.
(upbeat music begins)
(music slowly fades)