Los Angeles is a pretty amazing place to live as a car person. I regularly see ultra-rare cars driving around or parked on the street, from homologation specials and cool high-end models to shitty old cars that were just plain flops. It helps that LA isn’t plagued with the bad weather that causes other older cars all over the country to simply rust away. But there are still those elusive cars that I never seem to see around anymore, and recently I was discussing with a friend how the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X is one of those cars. (As always seems to happen, I actually spotted an Evo X in my neighborhood the very next day.)
To be fair, all three generations of Evo were a rarity in the U.S. to begin with. According to Hagerty, between 2003 and 2015 a total of 43,249 Evos were imported: 12,846 Evo VIII from 2003-2005, 8,201 Evo IX in 2006 and 22,202 Evo X between 2008 and 2015. Meanwhile, Subaru sold 33,724 WRX and STI models in 2015 alone.
A cursory search of Autotrader reveals only 150 Lancer Evolutions currently for sale in the U.S., 118 of which are the Evo X. Even with more than 100,000 miles and the automatic transmission, Evo Xs are trading in the high teens, and many are priced higher than the original MSRP of around $35,000. Looking at the same 2008-to-2015 time period, AutoTrader has 624 Subaru WRX for sale, 195 of which are STIs.
There haven’t even been that many Evo Xs on sites like Bring a Trailer, either. In 2023 BaT held just seven auctions, only two of which actually sold, and in 2022 there were just under a dozen auctions, half of which found buyers. The same goes for Cars & Bids, which has only held 42 Evo X auctions since the site launched in 2020.
Now, I’m sure that a sizable chunk of Evo X production has been stolen, wrecked or turned into drift, rally or race cars. I’m also sure that a huge portion of Evos were modified, whether that be wheels and exhaust or SEMA-level stuff, which makes spotting a clean, unmodified one even more rare. And there are probably a bunch of owners that are keeping their Evos garaged, using them as occasional weekend cars or holding out for the right time to sell.
But still. Where have all the Evo Xs gone? I think the design is aging well, the chassis and all-wheel-drive tech is still relevant and the performance has really held up – Car and Driver ran a manual 2015 Final Edition from 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds. If you’re hoarding some Evo Xs, please get out and drive them! Or at least park them in my neighborhood so I can admire them on my hot girl walks.