Some have asked where I've been for the past few weeks. My almost-nonexistent personal time has been extraordinarily busy, including installing a KW Variant 3 suspension on the S2000, doing 2 track events, and a long weekend in California. My quick vacation included driving a 2007 G35 sedan on certain of my favorite canyon roads, going to the Auto Show, and visiting some other tourist attractions including the Queen Mary (always a great tour, although unfortunately the engine room was closed off), touring an ex-Soviet sub (the second one I've been on - who would have thought 20 years ago that we'd ever be able to tour a Soviet anything one day?), taking the backlot tour of Universal Studios, stopping by AutoBacs (great, but not as good as the original in Japan. Was surprised to see a JDM ASM S2000 outside and a full set of ASM parts inside on display. Somehow left with $198 worth of souvenirs), and much more. But the main point of the trip was the 2007 Los Angeles International Auto Show.
The theme of the show was officially "green" this year... although it was hard to tell. The Viper ACR (excessive, as always), the EVO (great), the STI (disappointing), the Nissan GT-R (fabulous), the M3 (greatly anticipated, until I read about how completely lousy it's brakes are on the track), the Honda S2000 CR (a heroes effort that we can thank a couple of Honda of North American product planners and marketeers for), and a number of other performance cars all made their debut there. Lexus was even outside doing dyno runs on their new IS-F (which does not sound as good in person as it does in the infamous YouTube videos from a few months back) and had several more IS-Fs to show inside (including aftermarket-enhanced). There were also a number of other premiers, including the Mustang Bullitt (a pointless poseur, without any technical merit), the Lincoln MKS (minus any semblance of a distinguishing Lincoln "personality"), the fuel-cell powered Honda FCX (the future, no doubt at all in my mind), and many others - but those will be covered in another post.
The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X made it's North American debut at the show. If you're a fan of the Evo and didn't take note of that weeks ago when it was announced, and during the recent flood of images and reporting from dozens (hundreds?) of sites, you've missed an enormous amount of information and discussion. I'll not to repeat any of it here (but be sure to see my site http://www.EvoXenthusiast.com as I add more and more information in the next few weeks, leading up to the first shipments of the car in January) and will only focus on a couple of things that weren't clear to me going in.
Two Evos were shown: a red GSR (base) and a loaded MR (with Nav) in black. Both cars were blocked off so that you couldn't get close to them, much less into them. The red car was stationary, the black was on a revolving stand. Unfortunately, Mitsubishi didn't bring cutaways of the chassis or engine. That was a big disappointment to me. As was the (male) model, who couldn't even read the script, much less make any sense of it (the female model at the GS-R display was far better - in several different ways). The Mitsubishi booth was squirreled away in the far back corner of the show... despite rising sales the show was obviously done on a budget. Hopefully Detroit will be better.
Apparently neither were actual North American production cars - neither had the larger rear bumper (shown here http://www.drivingenthusiast.net/sec-blog/categories/evo/2007/10/21.html#a2245). So the rear bumper question is still an unknown.
First, here's a picture underneath the back left side. Note the provision for toe adjustment. I couldn't get far enough under the car to find any other adjustments or major details. Last time I climbed under a car on a stand, it was not "appreciated" (in 1998, the Lincoln folks found me with only my legs sticking out from under their then-new Lincoln LS). Too bad - my interest is always technical!
One nice surprise was the efficiently-straight path of the exhaust, from the very short downtube on the back of the engine right up to the muffler - no subframe clearance issues anymore. Although the huge muffler is obviously a bit of a restriction point and it is also clearly visible from the back of the car (also note the resonator part way down the tunnel). The aftermarket will very quickly offer some alternatives here. You can also tell that there's room to split the exhaust path in two inside the tunnel... with twin pipes leading under the diff - each to it's own muffler. This might be one way to gain some additional torque without purposely tuning for it. Also interesting that the half-shaft is not parallel to the ground.
The interior is described as "black" in color - but it's actually several shades of gray (fortunately, for those of us who live in a *very* hot climate). The standard Recaros are a very attractive part of this car, especially over the STI. Look at the size of the bolsters on these! I've had Recaros in a few cars, put them in others, and they always made a great difference - yet (very importantly, compared to true race seats) are still streetable. These are, BTW, a new model of Recaro that is already for sale in Japan and elsewhere thru the aftermarket.
One big point on this view: take a look at the obvious strength of the B pillar, as it goes down into the floor/side rails. Think about it's contribution to the excellent structural integrity of this new chassis. This is how things are done these days (as opposed to the timeframe that the last Lancer chassis came out). This is one example (of many) of why the new Lancer chassis is so superb a base for an Evo. Its also one reason why weight went up >100 pounds. But the benefits are far too great to ignore.
The black Evo MR was a hard car to photograph... not because of the lighting but because of the color itself. It shifts from very dark gray to black in different lighting. You can gage how hard it was to get... note that I did manage to get the video screen. But the car was impossible to focus on clearly.
While the red was not hard to shoot. It is, however, very clearly as great an example of "arrest me red" as it was on the last Evo. This is not the color to get for this car...
This is an example of where the car appears to be mostly black...
... and this is example of where it shows as gray. And it's is not just my camera (although I did have some issues with it during this trip), it was very clear to your own eyes as soon as you walked up to the stand and watched it revolve. It's an unusual and special color, it will be a very popular choice.
Then there is the grill.... controversial to some eyes. This is the MR again. For the North American cars, Mitsubishi has decided to include in the MR model the dress-up package (chrome and a slightly different color bumper strip) that is only an option in Japan. Hmmm... too bad.
The GSR doesn't have it. Some people (myself included) think it will look better without the chrome. Looking at this up close, it appears the chromed strip (plastic) was just an insert... it could be swapped out. This may prove to be a popular mod.
That's it for my first look at the Evo in person. I'm looking forward to seeing one of these up on a rack, I'd very much like to get underneath for a close examination of the most important parts of this car. Perhaps Detroit will have a better exhibit, perhaps I'll buy one myself, and hopefully I'll have a student at the track with one in the coming months.
![A picture named IMG_3256[1].jpg](http://www.DrivingEnthusiast.net/sec-blog/images/2007/12/04/IMG_3256[1].jpg)
This was apparently the end of the effort ---- look at the rear rotor and broken rear suspension.
The November sales results are in, and we see yet another drop of S2000 sales. Did the 2008 changes make any difference? Did the addition of, and the first sales of, the CR model help sales? Apparently not.
