Evo IX
I've always been a fan of Rallying and when I started watching the World Rally Championships I was mesmerized by the sheer speed, precision, skill and bravery that was shown by all the drivers in the sport. Of course on tight twisty tarmac, gravel and snow roads all these cars would have to be 4wd to be able to get the outmost grip. If you've managed to catch the WRC in the 21st century the 2 main manufacturers that are at the top of their game are Citroen and Ford. But turn the clock back and let's focus on the late 20th century, Japanese manufacturers Mitsubishi and Subaru were fighting for top spot with legendary drivers like Colin Mcrae, Tomi Makinen, Carlos Sainz to name a few have driven these finely tuned machines to their limit. Enough history let's get to the main topic.
If you hadn't already notice, the Lancer and Lancer Evolution models have slight differences on the outside which makes it hard to identify most of the time, but then again I have never seen any Evo X on the road here. I wondered why and looking at the price tag I can understand the reason to the limited number of units on the road. As I was approaching the Evo X I did notice the wider body kit and bigger tires, these caught my eye first. The next few things that I notice was the twin mufflers, diffuser and hood vents. "How about the intercooler?", well I didn't notice that because it actually looks like the radiator. Boot space was really limited, the engineers decided to put the battery and wiper fluid bottle there and to add to the space limiting a sub woofer too. I must say that the sound system was pretty impressive, well I'd expect that coming from a Rockford Fosgate system.
After I got in, I was only impressed by the surprisingly comfy Recaro seats. Everything else in the car was just normal. Radio panel is flushed and takes up most of the dashboard's space, air conditioning dials look somewhat similar to what we have in our local cars, not good. The automatic gear stick had a nice touch. On the steering you have your standard radio controls, behind the wheel there are the shift paddles. After spending 10 minutes looking through the dials and settings there were some buttons you could press to disable or enable some electronics which I won't go through in detail here. But I will mention that the auto gearbox has 3 settings, Normal, Sport & Super Sport. I didn't get the chace to play around with the other electronics like Tarmac, Gravel & Snow.
Off we went for our joyride and I was....dissapointed with the power. There was alot of lag before the turbo kicked in, changed the gearbox setting to sport...once again there was lag but the gearbox is more aggresive and shifts faster. Changed the setting to Super Sport and let me just say that I am not impressed with the car at that point, it took a full 2 seconds before the turbo kicked in and vaulted us down the straight. Top speed would be around 230km/h with a little push. Handling is pretty much depended on the tires, winding roads..no problem, but the turbo lag does make it hard to keep the speed up in the tighter sections. Suspensions are too soft and is okay for a nice cruise but when you push the car it is way to soft to take corners on the limit. Brembo brakes has good feel and does its job well to slow down the car.
So what do I think?.....the Evo 7 is faster than the Evo X hands down, and for the price to get one of these I'd have an option to get a BMW 1-Series. Not to say that I don't like it, but it just is lacking alot for such a buy.
More photos to follow.
After I got in, I was only impressed by the surprisingly comfy Recaro seats. Everything else in the car was just normal. Radio panel is flushed and takes up most of the dashboard's space, air conditioning dials look somewhat similar to what we have in our local cars, not good. The automatic gear stick had a nice touch. On the steering you have your standard radio controls, behind the wheel there are the shift paddles. After spending 10 minutes looking through the dials and settings there were some buttons you could press to disable or enable some electronics which I won't go through in detail here. But I will mention that the auto gearbox has 3 settings, Normal, Sport & Super Sport. I didn't get the chace to play around with the other electronics like Tarmac, Gravel & Snow.
Off we went for our joyride and I was....dissapointed with the power. There was alot of lag before the turbo kicked in, changed the gearbox setting to sport...once again there was lag but the gearbox is more aggresive and shifts faster. Changed the setting to Super Sport and let me just say that I am not impressed with the car at that point, it took a full 2 seconds before the turbo kicked in and vaulted us down the straight. Top speed would be around 230km/h with a little push. Handling is pretty much depended on the tires, winding roads..no problem, but the turbo lag does make it hard to keep the speed up in the tighter sections. Suspensions are too soft and is okay for a nice cruise but when you push the car it is way to soft to take corners on the limit. Brembo brakes has good feel and does its job well to slow down the car.
So what do I think?.....the Evo 7 is faster than the Evo X hands down, and for the price to get one of these I'd have an option to get a BMW 1-Series. Not to say that I don't like it, but it just is lacking alot for such a buy.
More photos to follow.
1 comment:
beautiful car!
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