While every car enthusiast will have their own favourite era of BMW M3, Porsche 911, or 12-cylinder Ferrari, there’ll be no debate on the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. The early cars are intriguing JDM classics, and the later models are ferociously fast, but everyone’s favourite Evo is the Tommi Makinen. It just is. Period. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to be different for the sake of it.
The TME could not have been more perfectly timed. Or rather, the achievement marked by the Tommi Makinen Edition could not have been better timed. Four back-to-back World Rally Championships in the late '90s, the years from Colin’s until Marcus Gronholm’s, were famously all claimed by Tommi Makinen. There’d been a manufacturers’ crown for Mitsubishi as well; others were coming close, but that combination of Evo and Makinen was unmatched.
His championships had come in various Evolutions of Lancer, so by the time of the Edition Makinen’s exploits, they were well known. Official UK imports of the VI GSR had begun in 1999, Mitsubishi finally hoping to cash in on the demand. Subaru was making RB5s, P1s, and 22Bs to excite the Impreza fans - a special model would give Evo enthusiasts something to be properly excited about. Four back-to-back championships gave Mitsubishi more than enough excuse, after all.
Because it wasn’t just the stickers and the wheels. Or the red paint, as this one proves. There was a lower ride height for the Tommi Maks, as well as turbo tweaks and the new front bumper for more downforce; some folk refer to them as an Evo 6.5, yet another evolution of another Evolution. Even at the time the standard VI was seen as something special; with the Makinen fairy dust sprinkled on top, plus nothing like the rally success ever again, the TMEs soon achieved icon status.
But time waits for no man, and certainly no Mitsubishi - the Makinen is now a quarter of a century old. Plenty, understandably, will have been driven hard over those years, because it compels the driver to, and service schedules may not have been as strictly adhered to as required. There are definitely good ones left, for sure, though they take more seeking out than ever.
And none are likely to be as good as this PH Auctions lot. Yes, it’s silver rather than red and, yes, it’s originally from Japan, but get this: it’s been driven just 16,000 miles since the year 2000. It was deemed so good by Mitsubishi themselves that it was part of the 50th-anniversary celebration for the brand’s UK operation last year. Purchased by the seller in 2018, it’s been used sparingly by them but maintained obsessively, with services on schedule even if the mileage didn’t warrant it, hen’s teeth-grade OE parts obtained, and fresh underseal applied. The only deviation from standard spec is an HKS exhaust. And that hardly looks out of place. It really looks like the best of both worlds, then, with low mileage and a slew of recent new parts. A new cambelt and MOT and it’ll be set for summer.
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