They Think It's All Over...

World Rally and Fast and Furious fans alike, it might just not yet be time to fly those flags at half mast in mourning of the Evo X, and the Evo line as a whole. Mitsubishi has interestingly released an official statement regarding Gayu Eusegi's recent offhand words to Autocar magazine UK, whereupon he revealed that Mitsubishi's future lay in electric hybrids rather than desirable performance cars. They say:

"Further to some comments published in the press recently, production of the current Lancer Evolution continues as planned. As for its successor, regulations and market feedback will dictate its engineering package & architecture. Stay tuned."

On that basis, there is hope for the car yet, and all my and other petrolheads' doom-mongering about the end of yet another thoroughly decent car was premature.

Perhaps. In fact, it's very easy to meet this admission with even more scepticism that the previous scoop sparked.
Firstly, the speed with which Mitsubishi has jumped to reply to what was ostensibly one journo having a chat with a company rep on the Geneva show stand seems suspicious - why so defensive? If there were no plans to mess with the tried and tested Evo formula, much less extinguish it altogether, then such a hasty reaction would not be warranted.

Secondly, the wording of the statement is a little suspect. Vague yet foreboding references to 'regulations and market feedback' mirror exactly what Eusegi admitted: the Evo will struggle to comply with new emissions law and one that does (ie hybrid, less powerful, less raw and pure) will not meet with great approval from the standard customer pool; yet the result will neither be green enough to appeal to those who buy cars purely for their eco-credentials.

Renderings of a predicted Evo XI...

Also, cynical it may be but isn't it far more likely that Mitsub's own Global Product Director, speaking unrecorded and unscripted to a respected motoring journalist, is going to be much more honest about future policy in that off-the-record manner than the the public relations sect are, as they try to clear up the mess a few days later? As comments straight from the horse's mouth go, it'd be one hell of a red herring for Eusegi to deliberately snitch that the Evo is being killed off when in fact the truth is nothing of the sort .



...but will it ever see the light of day?


Furthermore, what 'dictates' the form of an Evo is its own core foundations, bred from rallying and honed as the car has Evolved. Turbocharged 2 litre, 4WD, clever yaw control and adaptive traction sensing, and then enough comfort and entertainment features to allow it to be tolerable day-to-day and viable at a £35k pricepoint. If it's now the environment and economy that's 'dictating' what form the next Evo will take, it won't be an Evo. It'll be a watered down representation of what Mitsubishi can get away with, using a halo badge to gain some street cred.

Not being familiar with the top brass at Mitsubishi, it's impossible to say just what lies ahead for the Evo, though this statement is far more revealing, and potential damaging, than it was intended to be when it was rapidly dreamed up my Mitisubishi's PR team, trying to avoid the wrath of a public who credit their brand's greatest achievment as being the various Lancer Evolutions. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, seems an appropriate outlook.

As for the tantalisingly ominous "Stay tuned" at the end of the press release...my money is on a run out special of the Evo X, with special paint, badges, plenty of optionsthrown in, and a numbered plaque on the dashboard, just like any car reaching the end of the line. And while that will be the last we hear of the Evo, it won't be the last Mitsubishi hear on the matter. The times, they are a-changing...

Tweet