CarBrandLogos archive · Mitsubishi · 1992

MitsubishiMitsubishi Lancer Evolution

A homologation special that became the standard answer to going fast on bad roads.

Photo: Klaus Nahr · CC BY-SA 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Mitsubishi history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Group A rules required a manufacturer to build road cars in order to go rallying, and Mitsubishi had a problem: the Galant VR-4 had the right drivetrain but had grown too big and heavy. The fix, in 1992, was to move the VR-4's 2.0-litre turbocharged 4G63 and four-wheel-drive system into the much smaller Lancer shell. That was the Evolution, and Mitsubishi kept iterating it for 24 years.

2015 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution sedan · TuRbO_J from Adelaide, Australia · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

Each version was a homologation exercise first and a road car second, which is why they arrived in such quick succession. Ten numbered generations, with stripped RS variants shorn of sound deadening, glass and rear wipers so that privateers could build them into rally cars. The RS models are the ones with the close-ratio gearboxes and the mechanical differentials, and they are what serious owners hunt for.

Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution · NaBUru38 · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

The rallying paid off. Tommi Makinen won four consecutive drivers' titles from 1996 to 1999 in Evolutions, and Mitsubishi took the manufacturers' championship in 1998. The Evo VI Tommi Makinen Edition, with its revised turbo and quicker steering, trades hardest today.

1995 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III · Kabu Sawsaw · CC BY-SA 4.0

Legacy

Technically the interesting part is the differentials. From the Evo IV came Active Yaw Control, which varied torque across the rear axle to help the car rotate into a corner, an early production application of torque vectoring that later broadened into the S-AWC system on the Evo X. It let a fairly heavy and entirely ordinary-looking saloon corner in ways that embarrassed far more expensive machinery.

Chapter 5

The rivalry with Subaru's Impreza WRX STI ran the full length of both cars' lives and sold magazines for two decades. The Evo X arrived in 2008 with the alloy 4B11T engine and an optional twin-clutch gearbox, but Mitsubishi had left the World Rally Championship in 2005 and the homologation logic had gone with it. Sales slid, the model ran on without a real successor, and the Final Edition of 2015 closed it out. Mitsubishi sells crossovers now, some of them borrowing the S-AWC name.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1992–2016

Engine

2.0&nbsp

Body

4-door sedan

Technical specification

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, in detail.

Production: 1992–2016
Class: Sport compact car
Body style: 4-door sedan (car); sedan; 5-door station wagon (2006–2007)
Layout: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive (S-AWC)
Engine: 2.0 L Straight-four engine; I4 Turbocharger; turbo; Mitsubishi Sirius engine#4G63; 4G63T (1992–2007); Mitsubishi 4B1 engine#4B11T; 4B11T (2008–2016)
Transmission: 6-speed Twin Clutch SST; TC-SST (2007–2015); 5-speed automatic (2002, 2006–2007); 5-speed manual transmission; manual (1992–2016); 6-speed manual (2003–2008)
Assembly: Japan:; blist; Okazaki, Aichi (Mitsubishi Motors#Locations; Nagoya Plant: first to ninth generations); Kurashiki, Okayama (Mitsubishi Motors#Locations; Mizushima Plant: tenth generation)
Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Motors