Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR, called 25 Aug 2026.

A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR, chassis CT9A-0301075, coming to Collecting Cars out of Melbourne, Victoria — Graphite Grey, 160,812 kilometres which the seller believes genuine, an HKS intake, a blow-off valve, an aftermarket exhaust and one gauge, and one key.

And that fact does more work in this valuation than anything else. Mitsubishi Australia did launch an Evolution VIII, on 1 July 2004 at $61,990, through Ralliart under a low-volume scheme, roughly a hundred cars a year. It was the European specification: five speeds, 195kW, 355Nm. The MR is the Japanese car — six-speed close-ratio box, 206kW, 400Nm, an aluminium roof, Bilstein dampers, BBS forged wheels and a roof vortex generator. Every MR in this country is a private import. So there is no import penalty to apply here, because the import IS the market, and there is no Australian-delivered cohort to be measured against. The listing’s own line that it was previously registered abroad is consistent, and so is the compliance-issued vehicle identifier.

And the Australian record is unusually clear about it. All eight Australian MR results were modified and not one was a preserved standard car. The second-highest result on file — $51,000 at 130,658 kilometres in July 2025 — was a resprayed car with a heavily built engine and one key. The best comparable in the record, $50,000 at 86,800 kilometres in March 2026, carried an exhaust, gauges, an air box and a head unit. An HKS intake, a blow-off valve, an exhaust and one gauge is the lightest modification profile in the entire dataset. The generic warning that a modified Evo narrows its buyer pool is not supported by a single Australian result.

There is no service history in the description at all. On a twenty-two-year-old interference engine with a hundred-thousand-kilometre belt interval, at 160,812 kilometres, the belt is either just past or well past its second change and nobody can say which. Behind that sit the two four-figure items on this driveline, the active yaw control pump and the transfer case, both unquantified. That, and not the HKS parts, is the real drag on the number.

Against a base of $44,000 the valuer gives minus twelve for the odometer, plus two for Graphite Grey — which is an MR-only colour and reads as an authenticity marker rather than a premium — and minus two for the exhaust, landing at $38,700. The odometer term is capped again, by about three points, so treat that as a mild ceiling. Take $800 for the second key and about $2,500 for the missing history and the figure is $35,400.

A fit across all eight Australian MR results puts a car at this distance and date at $36,400. The same-colour bridge — a Graphite Grey MR at 144,676 kilometres that made $32,500 in September 2024, adjusted forward — gives $30,600. And the closest live analogue is a standard Evolution VIII at 191,334 kilometres with a full build and one key that made $35,275 in April 2026: more distance and a weaker variant.

The MR is the only 4G63 Evolution whose Australian direction is up while the VI, the VIII GSR and the IX all eased, and this market has repeatedly paid well above the odometer curve for a car buyers simply like. If a service file surfaces before the lot goes live, $40,000 would not be surprising.

An undocumented 160,000-kilometre 4G63 in a cooling market finds the floor of the range, and the whole Australian record for this variant — all eight results — came through one auction house, so it describes a single room rather than a market.

When this was written the eight local results were a median, $43,250, with no kilometres attached to them. They now carry their odometers and can be fitted: they correlate with distance at minus 0.776 and imply 4.1 per cent per 10,000 kilometres. Fitted to this car's 160,812 kilometres that curve returns $34,704. The 2024-26 results alone, fitted separately at a steeper 5.0 per cent, return $33,478. Two independent fits, $1,226 apart, either side of a call of $34,000 made before either existed.

It was $29,000 to $39,000 when the evidence was a median; it is now $31,000 to $37,500, because a fitted curve on eight results with the subject car's distance known is far better evidence than a midpoint, and the band should say so rather than hedging to look careful.

Is this car's modifications and its missing service file, and those are the reason the call sits slightly under both fits rather than on them. Predicted hammer $31,000 to $37,500, midpoint $34,000.

$22,400 from 13 bids with four days left, 34 per cent under the call and below the $31,000 band floor. Thirteen bids at four days is a thin room so far. The call does not move.