Evo : Gen-X

Background

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, famed for its aero engines and aircraft during the 1930s and the 1940s (especially the A6M Zero), was also known for manufacturing land vehicles. From the 1930s till the end of World War 2, Mitsubishi concentrated on the production of  aircraft, machinery, railroad cars and ships but following the end of the war, it returned to manufacturing motor vehicles. One of its range of family cars is the Lancer, first introduced in 1973. As of 2013, it is now in its eighth generation, first unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show in 2005. The Lancer has a high-performance sports variant, known as Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Like the baseline Lancer, the Evo, as it is colloquially known, has gone through evolution (pardon the pun), now in its tenth generation. Each successive generation has greater power than the earlier incarnation. The Lancer Evolution X is powered by a 1,998cc 4B11T GEMA engine. Power and torque depend on the market, but at least with 276hp. The car was offered in either the semi-automatic six-speed SST twin-clutch transmission or five-speed manual transmission. It also has full-time four wheel drive system called S-AWC. 0-60 acceleration is between 4.5 to 4.7 seconds. There are a number of packages available to customers which includes specialised tuning and bodykits.

The Evo was originally intended only for Japanese markets but demand through the so-called grey market made it available around the world. It has also won accolades from the international motoring press.

The Kit

And now, for something different. All through my modeling life, I have never done 'civvies' save for two Tamiya 1/24 cars several years ago : a Honda NSX and a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI at the request of my beloved wife. Now I have a new 'customer' requesting a build : my 5-year old son whom despite his age, has a crush on the eighth generation Lancer. He kept asking when I'm going to build a car model for him and when I went to Hobby HQ during the Aidil Fitri holidays, he got his wish. Right in front of the entrance were a number of Aoshima 1/24 car kits and at the top of the pile was a C-West (a Japanese car accessory/customiser outfit) Lancer Evo X. He went straight for it and there goes my P-38 Lightning! (I still managed to get myself a Hasegawa 1/48 Arado Ar 234B-2 plus some modeling material). The kit comes in a sturdy box and 11 sprue trees - some in white and the rest in black and chrome plated. The body and chassis were respectively cast as a whole. The rear lights are moulded in amber and clear red plastic, removing the need to paint them. There is also painting masks for the front and rear windshields (but none for the windows). Tyres were moulded in vinyl and a wire mesh was provided. A small decal sheet rounded up the kit. The kit is a kerbside model so there is nothing underneath the bonnet.

Construction

As usual, construction starts with the cockpit,  landing gears, I mean the chassis. Before assembling the front and rear axles, I painted the brake calipers Tamiya X-7 Red and when dry apply the manufacturer's decals on them which was followed by the usual Mr Mark Softer treatment. Attaching the suspension to the chassis was easy for the rear one as it came as a single part (with separate brake discs). The front one was a bit fiddly as the left and right suspension was connected by a single shaft and the whole assembly cannot be glued so that the front wheels can be posed. It went OK in the end once the front bottom plate was in place. Next I glued the exhausts into place. On hindsight, I should have bought Gunze Metal Colours Chrome Silver as the chrome plating were sanded off at the sprue attachment point. And like building my aircraft models, the wheels were left off until later.

Next, assembly of the interior. I started off with the dashboard. I did not paint it, save for a full-width panel which was painted a mixture of XF-1 Black and X-11 Silver. Earlier on, I decided to build this model as a SST semi-auto version so the relevant parts were used such as the steering-mounted gear shift 'paddles', the gear stick and the clutch pedal-less, uh, pedal mounts. The silver trim on the steering wheel and the shift stick were painted Gunze 8 Silver. The front seats came in two halves but I'm not sure whether the real seats were seamless or not at the sides. Then decals were applied for the instrument panel, the Mitsubishi logo on the steering wheel and the manufacturer's name on the front seats (they're Recaro by the way). The dashboard seats, the gear stick and the handbrake were then glued to their places on the interior floor. This was followed by cementing the doors, making a cockpit-tub like appearance.

Attention was then turned to the exterior. I cut all the exterior part off their sprues and spray-painted them the body colour (more on this later). The front and rear bumpers has parts in black, which was painted X-18 Semi-Gloss Black. For the front bumper, a pair of canards were fitted to the corners; it should be painted black, but I left them in the body colour. The instructions have you cut the supplied mesh as covers for the openings at the lower bumper edges - but leaving the large grills uncovered. I checked the box-art and the internet for the photos of the real vehicle and found that the grills were covered by mesh. No problems here, I simply use the rest of the supplied mesh. Fit of the bumper to the body however was not good, I have to cut off the placement tabs and align the parts visually. The rest of the parts less the side mirrors were glued in place. However, I choose the street version bonnet included in this kit. The coloured rear mounted lights were very useful as they removed the need to paint clear parts - something I'm really bad at.  The last parts fitted were the wing spoilers (which I painted X-18 Semi-Gloss Black), the radio aerial and the 'glass' for the lights.

Painting and Decaling

The way Aoshima engineered this kit, you really only have to paint the front grill, the bottom of the rear bumper, window edges and the interior of some light fittings - the rest were moulded in their respective colours. However, being a kit of a commercially available car, I decided to (at the request of my son) paint it Metallic Red. Tamiya TS-18 were sprayed all over the exterior with the black-painted parts masked off. Later however, I realised that Aoshima had erred in its instructions - the vents (or whatever it is called) behind the front wheel well should be painted black. I have to mask off the surrounding areas and apply Tamiya X-18 on the vents. Then, the decals were applied. Unlike airplane models with a fairly large number of decals (especially modern planes), there were just a few for a customised motor-car (and even fewer for factory-standard ones). The instructions suggests that modelers should either paint the raised Mirsubishi logo on the boot silver or use the supplied decal. I painted the logo and once again, it would be better using chrome silver rather than the straight silver. The external parts were then sprayed semi-gloss clear (yes, gloss clear would be most appropriate) to seal everything.

Finishing

The cockpit transparencies....Ok, windows and windshields can now be fitted. But first I painted the sealants on the front and rear windshields - Aoshima provided a pre-cut painting masks to help painting the sealants.The transparencies, which was moulded as a whole was then glued to the underside of the roof. Before placing the body to the chassis, I glued the rear view mirror in its place. The body and the chassis were then mated, followed by the side mirrors. The mirror parts were cleverly plated with chrome, so they nicely imitate the reflecting surface. The wipers were next and finally followed by the wheels. my son was very delighted and I have to remind him that this Evo is definitely NOT a toy!

Conclusion

Building a car model is not really an undiscovered territory for me as I have done a couple before. However the approach is slightly different from building aircraft models (or for that matter, military vehicles). For one thing, everything's glossy, reducing the margin for error and you can't use weathering to mask any. Still the low parts count and the fact that the plastic were mostly moulded in their 'right' colours shortened the build and I did enjoy the more relaxed pace. Who knows, there might be more car models by me?