This amazing Mitsubishi Evo 6 Tommi Makinen Edition (TME) first arrived to us at the Bodycentre in August 2018. The vehicle was given to us a rolling shell which we then stripped apart removing all four doors, front & rear bumpers, bonnet and tailgate.

We first cleaned the above parts together with the complete shell. This allowed us to identify the condition of paint so that we could correctly asses what worked was required. We then prepped all of the above ensuring that any dents were repaired in the process.

The next step was to apply a high build primer to the complete vehicle to make sure any minor imperfections were removed in addition to giving a smooth finish ready for the paint to be applied. Only 2500 of these vehicles were produced and even less in the R71 Passion Red so making sure the colour matched was critical. However our ATA qualified painters managed to find the exact colour required using the Speis Hecker 480 Line. Following this the paint was mixed and then applied.

Once the car had been baked for the correct amount of time, ensuring the paint was solid, £1600 worth of decals were applied. This really added the finishing touch to vehicle in returning it to its former glory (original condition).

The attention to detail on this job really is incredible. So please watch the video, leave your comments below and let us know what you think.



The is a bit history to this car so if you are interest please find below deatils of where this car started out;

The customer purchased the car back in 2008 and was the first U.K. owner of a Mitsubishi Evo Tommi Makinen Edition. Due to its rarity the vehicle had already been stored in a garage which meant it was already in fairly good condition. However the customer wanted to make this car immaculate and this is where we stepped in.

Prior to the vehicle arriving at The Bodycentre Limited the restoration had began on 29th of December 2016 and in total has taken 32 months to complete.
Every single nut, bolt, washer, bush and bearing on the under body and engine bay had been replaced with new Mitsubishi genuine parts.
A lot of the parts that were originally on the car were no longer available to buy, so sourcing parts proved an issue. The parts that were most difficult to source were the fuel tank, bonnet grills, OEM sticker kit, arch liners and wiper motors.
Thankfully the customer had purchased a lot of these parts for the car years ago and stored then in preparation for the restoration, which he has always planned to do.
Most of the parts had to be sourced from Japan so waiting times on some of these ran into the months.
All the parts that were taken off were either dry ice blasted, powder coated or zinc plated by specialists before being refitted to ensure the car restoration was as original as possible.
The Tommi Makinen edition or TME was produced to celebrate Tommi Makinen’s fourth consecutive world rally title win from 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. As mentioned above, in the same year (1999) they produced only 2500 of these vehicles available in only silver, black, white, blue and the iconic R71 passion red that Tommi drove himself.

The TME came from factory with a titanium turbo for faster spooling and the ability to run anti lag without damage, a different suspension setup for gravel and dirt rally stages, short steering rack and a intercooler water spray system to aid cooling temps during Deseret stages.

This car is effectively a rally car made for the road

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