Celebrating 25 years of existence on American soil, Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. opened up its Cypress, Calif. headquarters for the second annual Mitsubishi Owners Day. Located mere minutes away from the mild jungle of modern suburbia, Mitsubishi's crawling corporate headquarters is sandwiched in a quiet industrial park, and gives little notice of what lies inside its perimeter.
Thousands of participants descended upon Mitsubishi in anticipation of the largest triple-diamond meeting around. Mitsubishi Starions, Eclipses of all generations, Galants, Lancers and Lancer Evolutions made the journey out, all displaying some combination of aftermarket carbon fiber, forged aluminum or powdercoated metal. In fact, after viewing the hundreds of EVO VIII's and IX's on display, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised to find out that so many EVOs had been sold and now cruise the streets. Filling every parking lot on the grounds, as well as adjacent side streets, so many Mitsubishi's showed up for the event, we were sure that our little Honda Civic commuter car would be flipped over, ala the L.A. riots, in a scene of Mitsubishi-infused retaliation.
After our fears had died down just a bit, we ventured in to get the scoop and bring you shots of the many rare vehicles on display, including the top secret EVO X, the Concept-X, a EVO VI Tommi Makinen Edition previously owned by racer Boris Said, the 4G63-powered Eclipse Ralliart concept, the rear-drive Tool Racing drift EVO VIII and the "i" small car. Mitsubishi stalwarts Road/Race Engineering were on hand to show the track-ready side of the EVO platform, and just past them lay the vendor area. Booths were setup with products on display from Tanabe, Injen, HKS, GReddy, K&N, Cosworth, APR, Mackin Industries, Works, NASA Pro Racing and A'PEXi. And if you weren't content to just pickup mufflers and feel up coilovers, the raffle giveaways proved especially sweet for a select handful. With the new Lancer Evolution X just on the horizon and interest in Mitsubishi's performance side growing daily, expect this event to get even bigger next year. Be sure to camp out early to get a good spot, and please, don't egg our Honda.