JVC EVO IX Demo Car!

Ok this Blog isn’t written about myself getting a Mitsubishi EVO IX as a demo car but about when Ashley Burrell our MD brought one for himself. I understand as a man and as a car enthusiast you can’t really put a price on happiness and this must be obtained by your doings in life but I’m pretty sure driving around in a EVO IX must of put a smile on Ashley’s face on a daily basis, as I know I would be smiling every time I left the driveway if I owned one!

The Mitsubishi EVO’s were designed as a four-door 4WD Turbo-charged rally car, were never intended for sale outside of the Japanese market but fortunately for the rest of the world after years of people importing them they became the flag-ship car for Mitsubishi worldwide.

Due to a gentleman’s agreement in the early 90’s all Japanese car’s produced in the Japanese Domestic Market were governed to 276hp and to my understanding is that a lot of manufacturers exceeded this limit but did not advertise it. The early EVO IX’s being one of the last cars limited to 276hp but also has been said to have up to 340hp in some models.

Wondering what that lump of carbon fiber is? That is a Ralli Art wing mirror and Ashley was saying that it took him quite a while to get used to it due to its size.

Ashley was lucky enough to get his grubby little hands on a EVO IX FQ-340 model with 340hp and 435N-m of torque that boasted a 0-100Kph time of 4.3 seconds! And no matter how you look at that, it is insanely fast!

At this stage ABTEC was one of JVC’s largest account’s so they offered to deck it out with JVC gear so Ashley agreed to this since the gear was free. So soon after buying it all the free audio equipment was installed, even tho I’m not a fan of JVC I must say it was good stuff back then and the install was done very well!

As ABTEC’s demo car it saw quite a lot of the country entering show’s and sound-offs between 2005-2008 and there is a lot of photos of these shows on CarShows. Ashley was just saying earlier that he even drove it to about 90% of the shows and the times it was shipped by truck was only because he had prior business before a show. To be honest, why wouldn’t you drive an EVO IX around the country to shows and can only imagine how much fun it would of been!

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Ashley ended up buying another EVO IX in the near future as he does talk about it a lot and I can totally understand this as if I ever buy one myself I will not ever be selling it!