"I hoped it would give 850 hp, because that's what the turbo should produce; it actually made 841 which isn't that bad," revealed Simon. "I actually wasn't that bothered about the total power, it's getting it to kick in early; this comes on at 4,300 rpm and considering the size of the turbo that's good. It would have been impossible to get that power with a two liter block so we went for a 2.3L stroker."
Despite that awesome amount of power under his right foot, he admits there is possibly still more to come, with a tweaked engine spec and turbo combination. "Not that you'll ever need it because it's blindingly fast already," he says with a huge grin. That's quick enough to set a new European Evo 1/4-mile record on its first appearance, despite the car only being finished the night before. The times? 10.2, 10.1, 9.7, 9.8 and 10.6. So, not a fluke then. And that was only running 1.9bar (27psi) of boost and on road tires. So what could he get if he really tried? "I think it could do an 8-and I'd love to be the first car in the UK to do that," he replies.
OK, a mental engine, and it's got the bodywork to match-what's the story with that?
"You have to work with what's current," he explains. "I already had an Evo VIII MR RS so it had to be a IX. This came as just a shell from Japan-you couldn't buy a IX in this country at the time, and even if we could it would have been stupid because we'd be throwing most of it away. We did a lot of work in Photoshop before we did anything else, even with the color scheme, and we had about 20 photos covering every aspect of the car before we even started. There's been a lot more thought that went into the car than actual work."
The car is based on the short wheelbase Audi Quattro rally car-one of Simon's all-time fav' cars-and he just wanted to produce something which was totally different. And by making the car shorter and lower it helps lower the center of gravity and makes it significantly lighter, which means that you don't need a million horsepower in the first place, and the braking and handling also feel the benefit.
The actual shell prep was one of the few parts of the project not carried out in-house; that was left to the experts at Simpson Motorsport. So he just gave them his Photoshop designs and left them to it? "Yup, pretty much," says Simon. "They chopped the roof off and then cut the car in half. I was there about 50 times while they were working on it to make sure they were following my instructions and they have done a bloody good job." He's right, if you didn't know better you'd think Mitsubishi actually sold a two-door Evo in the first place.