Awesome Mitsubishi collection sells for £480k

Okay so it was actually a pretty special Lancer Evolution VI Tommi Makinen Edition, a signed edition brought out in 2001 to mark the driver’s fourth world rally championship title for Mitsubishi. It had been owned by Mitsubishi Motors in the UK from new, the star of its 15-car heritage fleet. They all went for auction as part of the firm’s winding-up operations in the UK.

All 15 cars were snapped up during the April no-reserve-price sale. Predictably it was the performance machines that attracted most interest. An Evolution IX MR FQ-360 by HKS sold for £68,900 while the last official Evo sold in the UK – an Evolution X FQ-440 MR special edition – went under the hammer for £58,100. An Evolution IX Group N works car – the two-time rally championship-winner – made £61,700.

Mitsubishi’s pre-Evo performance endeavours went down just as well with an ‘80s Starion selling for £21,000 and a ‘90s Mitsubishi 3000GT making £24,500 respectively, both record values for the cars in a UK auction.

Mitsubishi fans even went for the decidedly non-performance offerings. In 1974 the first Colt-badged models to be imported into the UK were the Lancer and Galant and the first examples of each (both immaculate) went to new homes for £15k and £11.6k respectively. And the car that for many people sums up Mitsubishi, the Shogun 4x4, found favour too, a pristine and completely original MkI selling for £16,000.

All up a sad day for Mitsubishi in the UK, though it’s good to know these cracking cars will be looked after. Sales of the 15 cars raised £479,500, with a big range of private registration plates taking the total to over £620,000. A sequence of CCC plates from one to nine made £121,700 .

Mitsubishi UK operations director, Paul Bridgen, tells us: “I have overseen the development of some of these vehicles personally so it is difficult to say goodbye to them but the values they have achieved assures me that they will all go to enthusiastic new owners who will cherish them and preserve them for future generations.”