If there’s anything to take away from this year’s SEMA show, it’s that anything can be improved with mud flaps and a set of spotlights. Yep, Toyota USA’s GR86-based, GR Yaris and Corolla-engined Rally Legacy Concept has got us all wistful about '90s rallying. Not that Toyota’s current Rally1 machine, which is loosely based on a GR Yaris, isn’t very cool - but you wouldn’t say no if it were replaced tomorrow by the Celica-style GR86 concept. Especially if it meant we got a road-going, all-wheel drive version to go along with it.
Obviously, there’s a new GR Yaris to scratch the rally special itch and it isn't completely impossible the Corolla will land in Europe one day. But if it weren’t for them there wouldn't be a single rally special on the road today. The Hyundai i20 N was a front-wheel-drive hot hatch that you can’t buy anymore, while the Ford Puma ST is a sporty crossover with little in the way of rally tech. A far cry from the era the Rally Legacy Concept harks back to, when humble saloons and coupes were being crammed full of motorsport hardware to give manufacturers an edge on the rally stage. The Japanese were among the very best at it, with Mitsubishi dominating the latter half of the '90s with the Lancer Evo.
Four world championships were won by Tommi Makinen in Evos III, IV, V and VI, though Mitsubishi had fallen behind the competition by the time the Evo IX you see here arrived in 2005 and would bow out of the WRC as a manufacturer the same year. That’s in part down to WRC cars becoming less road-relevant (Citroen never did make a 300hp all-wheel drive Xsara, sadly), with Mitsubishi never really getting a good grip on the purpose-built WR ruleset. Fortunately for everyone other than its rally drivers, the road-going Evo was better than ever. While design changes between the VIII and the IX were minor (mainly tweaks to the front and rear end for better airflow), more significant gains were made under the bonnet with an upgraded turbo and variable valve timing raising power to 291hp.
This, however, is no ordinary Evo IX. Countless special editions were released over ten generations, and we got a fair share of them through Mitsubishi importer Ralliart UK, but the MR RS wasn’t one of them. With a production run of just 232 units, the MR RS came with all the top-drawer hardware from Mitsubishi Racing, including 10mm lower Bilstein dampers and Super Active Yaw Control, and melded it with the lightweight, rally-focused RS trim. That meant a close-ratio five-speed gearbox, a limited-slip diff, aluminium roof and a very basic interior.
It’s a proper, featherweight rally special that, frankly, wasn’t fully intended for road use. Mitsubishi (and rival Subaru, too) would build stripped-out, basic versions of the Evo to sell on to independent rally teams who’d take a hacksaw to them the moment they’d enter the workshop. That’s how close the Evo was to rally ready and, naturally, makes the RS model’s purity so much more valuable to collectors.
That’s why the asking price for this MR RS is £54,985. It’s only just come over from Japan, mind, with all 22,000 miles having been covered in its home country (and has therefore yet to see a salty road). That doesn’t take away from the fact that you could drive away in this non-RS MR for £14k less, or this Evo VIII RS for a further £2k discount, but the car we have here is for those wanting the closest thing to a rally car short of a full-bore WRC machine. One of those will set you back many hundreds of thousands, which does make this MR RS that little bit more appealing…
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