You think you've seen them all don't you? Maybe you have; but this Japanese spec Evo VII is still quite attention hungry. Just so you get green in envy.

It's been long overdue but somehow the Hypertune circus managed a roadtrip down south to Johor Bahru to see if their karaoke joints rank well with those in KL. Okay, that was a lie. Of course, work was the agenda. Thanks to Visworks, we had the opportunity to photograph about two dozen cars that the garage has worked on. With the boss and his deputy being the ‘tour leader' for our two pixmen and army of girls; I was rather excited about the possibility for another trip there. That is until they said yours truly wasn't invited and followed with evil laughter. So what I thought to myself. I had my bags packed for Bangkok for another assignment at that time.

The Evolution VII you see here might not excite you too much considering that this is probably the 20th Evo we've featured in this magazine and any petrol head must have had some time driving the car. But then again, there must be that reasoning voice inside of you asking that perhaps this ride has an interesting story behind it. We already did that once before remember?- the last cover Evolution (issue 39) claiming to be the fastest in the world. We aim to update that old news, but that's a different story altogether. So, foreplay over and let's get to that ‘interesting story' bit now

If I was a gambling man (which I'm not), I'd bet that you'd never expect this car is actually a full Japanese spec Evolution that is rarely found outside the island nation. In fact, I personally have never encountered one before. I'd also agree that the differences are limited with no change in power delivery or suspension stock standard, but that awesome looking LCD monitor fixed in the center console makes a whole world of difference. It manages to make the rather expected and (over the years) dull looking cabin look different. Admittedly, I have no idea what the screen is displaying since everything is in Japanese, but perhaps the owner actually understands the Nippon language. For what its worth, the monitor also functions as a TV monitor and satellite navigation display, but in this country, that's almost as useful as a peeled banana skin.

Even the rest of the controls on the vertical column are slightly different than the ones we're used to seeing. How about that cassette deck? It's funny how in one forum this specific car is regarded as the ‘luxury street' version. Flanking this unit are two controls that are again marked with Japanese characters, so as far as I'm concerned it could very well be the controls for the grenade launcher or an automated sushi and sake dispenser. Since the taking off the cassette deck might trigger some strange signals for the computer unit, the Kenwood CD player had to be installed much lower than anyone would like. The rest of the interior is pretty much the same, except for the instrumentation with white background from Mitsubishi's Ralliart making it look sportier.

(The rest of the article can be found in Hypertune Vol. 54)

Text: Cimatt
Photo: Kenny Yeoh

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