I feel like I’ve been building nothing but crazy widebodies and resin transkits for the last year or two – it’s been a long time since I’ve just built something simple and mostly out-of-the-box. Nowadays I feel like I don’t even bother looking at kits that don’t have an extensive resin-printed parts aftermarket.
All that being said, I really didn’t plan on this build – it ended up being a quick impulse buy at a local hobby shop I figured would keep me busy for a week or two while I waited for my next transkit to arrive in the mail. Still, I haven’t built an Evo yet of any generation, so now’s as good a time as ever.
I didn’t see too much in the way of aftermarket parts available for the Evo X, aside from a Varis bumper from ZoomOn, but after comparing them side by side, I thought that the C-West bodykit that comes with this kit out of the box is already plenty aggressive and non-stock looking, so I decided to just build it with the out-of-box aero.
It looks like this package comes with an aftermarket wing, the C-West bodykit, and aftermarket wheels. Aoshima is known for releasing these tuner-variant versions of a lot of popular cars – I just happened upon this C-West one at the store, but I’m sure they also make other tuner versions of the Evo.
Aoshima was very generous – they give you three hood options and two wings right out of the box. It looks like the runner on the right with the stock radiator and mirrors are all factory-option parts including the stock hood, while you get to choose which aftermarket wing and hood you want to use on the left runners.
I do enjoy the aggressive lip of this C-West bumper. We’re going with the multi-vented hood that appears on the box art.
This hood comes with hood pins molded in – I generally don’t like little details like these being molded on – if I want hood pins, I’d rather add them as separate parts rather than paint in these surface-molded bits. Some quick sanding took them right off and gave us a smooth hood.
I didn’t have specific wheels prepared for this build, so I just dove into my spare parts bin – and pulled out these Advan TC III’s that were actually originally from the FuelMe China Varis STi full resin kit that I built years ago. I never thought I’d ever use them, but kept them around just in case – and here we are, throwing wheels meant for a Subaru STi on an Evo.
I’m taking some inspiration here from one of my close friend’s actual Evos…well, kind of. It’s actually a Mirage wearing Evo cosplay, but that’s neither here nor there – the overall look is what we’re after.
I don’t even remember why I had a can of Testors Electric Pink in my paint drawer, but heck – it works.
I probably could have very well just used one of the wings included in the kit, but look at me being extra and insisting on any aftermarket parts I can possibly muster for my builds, so I threw on another wider random GT wing from my parts bin. I think this is probably the option GT wing that came from the Hobby Design Mk. IV Supra kit.
Body color is going to be white since I’m basing it off my friend’s Mirage – but we’re spicing it up with some White Lightning (it’s just Testor’s pearl white).
This is a curbside kit, which means there’s no motor and no provisions to add a motor – not that I haven’t added engines to kits that were never meant to have one before, but we ain’t got time for all that – this is just a quickie build, remember.
I say that, but I’m still going to maximum effort this interior to make up for a lack of any engine detail. Once again, we’re building a roll cage from scratch with some styrene tubing.
This is actually me being accurate to my build inspo, since my buddy’s Mirage actually has a full pink roll cage installed along with a stripped rear interior. I’m not going as far as stripping the interior, but I am drilling into the rear seat sections to install the rear bars. I’m basing this off of Studio RSR’s actual roll cage they offer for the Evo X platform, which seems to install like this while keeping the rear seats.
Okay, I lied about maximum effort. I’m being lazy and just reusing these seats that I had already built but had torn out of my Pandem A90 Supra last month – harnesses and all.
Honestly kind of surprised Aoshima even includes an auto transmission option. Who would get an auto Evo?! (sorry not sorry if you’re reading this and own an auto Evo – go think about what you’ve done).
Pink!
Once everything is painted and the cage is secured to the interior plate, the harness straps will have to be wrapped around the rear bar. There’s not a lot of space there between the back of the seats, so this process is usually an hour or two of swearing while prodding at the gap with a glue-soaked toothpick.
Once again being as extra as possible and going with a full aftermarket wheel and hub setup. I think the steering wheel is some generic aftermarket unit from Eternity Hobby Supply, while the steering wheel hubs are from ZoomOn Models.
Lol wow it really pushes the wheel far out, even moreso with the concave face design. Reaching for those turn signal stalks will be ass.
Adding some small details in by brush paint with Tamiya lacquer, including the gauge pods in the dash and differential that’s part of the rear subframe.
Interior wrapped up. The Evo X had a very boring and relatively featureless interior from the get-go, so I’m actually glad the bright pink roll bar and green harnesses stand out here. They should be very visible in the car even with the body on too, given this is a sedan with more windows instead of a coupe.
Looket me actually putting effort into the different grays and blacks on the chassis plate. I actually wanted to go with a larger exhaust, but when I was digging around my parts bin I found that I only had one aftermarket muffler left. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of converting the diffuser to accept a single-exit exhaust, so here I am accepting defeat and using the stock exhaust straight out of the box.
I guess part of the C-West package is a larger radiator/intercooler, with some added pipe detail over the plain stock unit. Canards are also included specifically meant for the C-West bumper.
Carbon wrapping the canards with Scale Motorsports carbon fiber decals. We’re doing them in two halves – bottom and top half of the canards, and folding the edges over to achieve a full-carbon look. I trace the shapes of the canards out on the back of the decal paper first, then cut them out to size for easier application.
I’m really reaching for any aftermarket parts I can to add some flavor to this build. In my desperate rummaging around my spare parts bin, I found this new set of universal GT mirrors from ZoomOn. Not sure what I was saving them for before, but they’ll be a nice addition here.
The way these are mounted are kind of strange – the picture on the ZoomOn package shows the aftermarket mirror base that simply slaps on over a stock mirror base, which in this case are actually connected to the stock Evo mirrors. So, I had to cut the bases off the stock mirrors and paint them black on their own before we can attach the ZoomOn mirrors to them.
For the brakes, we’ll be using the stock caliper/rotor set, but I just happened to have an extra photo-etched set of rotors laying around unused from my last StreetHunter Supra build.
These photo-etched parts aren’t meant for this car, but they work perfectly fine with some minor trimming.
Carbon wrapping the wing – following the same process as the canards, by tracing the shape out on the back of the decal first before cutting the shape out and laying it down.
I hate carbon decal work since it’s tedious and usually tough to get the finish smooth and wrinkle-free, especially wrapping it around complex shapes, but in this case I’m going out of my way to add bits of carbon detail throughout the car to make the build more interesting.
Aoshima does include a small mesh sheet that’s meant for the grille in the front bumper, but we’re going to use some leftovers here to also line the underside of the hood vents.
And a little finishing touch – I wanted the front license plate to be slightly pushed out so it wasn’t just flush with the curve of the bumper, so I cut a small piece of styrene pipe, painted it black, and stuck it on as a makeshift license plate bracket.
Done! I’m actually happy with the overall look, even if it’s mostly out-of-box.
The front wheels are cambered a bit more than the rears, mostly due to me gluing the brake hubs on in a way that preserved the steering rack. It looks kind of weird like this, but I plan to display it with the wheels turned anyway.
I did also go in and add panel lining for the doors and gas cap at the last minute, since those lines really disappeared into the all-white body.
Quite happy to see that the roll bar and seats are still very prominent on the final product, thanks to the large clear rear windows. Normally I would’ve tinted the rear windows as I’ve done before on Subaru sedans and four-doors I’ve built, but I deliberately kept everything crystal clear this time to show off the work that went into the interior.
It does feel silly to be less satisfied with a build just because it ends up looking similar to the box art, but I guess I can’t help my obsession with wanting to build entirely unique and one-off pieces.
