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Every so often a rally-bred Mitsubishi shows up online with a bid that makes you do a double take. This 1997 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV GSR on Cars & Bids is a black, right-hand-drive Japanese-market sedan with a 5-speed manual, and as of this writing the high bid is just $4,444 with seven bids placed. The auction ends Friday, October 9 at 2:15 PM EDT, and the listing is still showing its reserve in play, so that number is not where this car is going to end up.
The Evo IV is the car that took the Lancer from homologation special to something genuinely sophisticated. Launched in 1996, it was the first Evo to get Active Yaw Control, the rear differential system that actively shifts torque side to side to help the car rotate through a corner. It came in a stripped-down RS and the better-equipped GSR, and this one is the GSR, with a 2.0-liter turbocharged 4G63 rated at about 276 horsepower and 260 lb-ft of torque sent to all four wheels.
What this one brings
The car is titled in Florida under a clean title and shows 120,700 miles. It rides on 17-inch WORK Emotion ZR10 wheels with TEIN coilovers and a Cusco strut tower brace, and it breathes out through an aftermarket exhaust. Inside you will find Recaro front bucket seats, a MOMO steering wheel, a Ralliart shift knob, an HKS boost gauge, automatic climate control, and an Eclipse touchscreen head unit that does not exactly scream 1997. The factory intercooler sprayer and AYC are both listed, and the metric instrument cluster is a reminder that this is a proper JDM import.
There are caveats, and the seller is upfront about most of them. The car has been repainted, and the listing notes chips, scratches, and orange peel on the exterior, scuffs on the lower front bumper, seat wear, and some corrosion on underbody components. The tires carry 2020 date codes. The seller, a private-party importer and dealer who says he bought the car in August 2026, also fielded a question in the comments about a dash warning light and answered that it is the handbrake light with the car parked, and that there is no boost or stability issue. Cold start and walkaround videos are included in the listing.
What the Hagerty numbers say about the Evo market
To understand why a $4,444 bid is eye-catching, it helps to look at what these cars have actually sold for. Hagerty’s Valuation Tools past-sales data shows a 1997 Evo IV GSR with 106,000 kilometers selling for $16,800 on Bring a Trailer in December 2025, and a 1996 Evo IV with about 134,700 kilometers bringing $18,930 on Collecting Cars in June 2025. Those are two recent datapoints rather than a formal price guide, but they put a realistic range around the neighborhood where a sorted, running Evo IV tends to land.
The newer Evos give a sense of where the broader family sits. Hagerty’s price guide for the 2004 Lancer Evolution VIII GSR puts a #3 Good-condition car between roughly $28,700 and $37,800 as of October 2026. Values are down about 4.9 percent over the last quarter and about 2 percent over the past year, but they are still up roughly 30 percent over three years. Across 10 Evo VIII sales in the last 12 months, the average price was around $35,200. So the story across the Evo line is a market that has cooled slightly after a big run, not one that has collapsed.
Why the early bidding means little
A reserve auction with a day or two of quiet bidding is a familiar pattern. Most of the real money in a Cars & Bids auction arrives in the final hours, and a clean-title, running Evo IV with a documented history can easily climb into the mid-teens. This car has more asterisks than the cleanest examples, between the repaint, the modifications, the underbody corrosion, and the importer-held title, so it may not chase the top of that range. It is also worth remembering that Cars & Bids reminds bidders to confirm they can register an imported vehicle in their own state, and some states will not be friendly about emissions.
If you want more context on the Evo story before you bid, we have covered the lineage before. Start with this 1994 Evo II GSR that lets you live your WRC dreams, then look at the color-shifting Evo I that sold for under $20K. For the pop-culture side, there is the Paul Walker 2 Fast 2 Furious Evo story, and if you are shopping across the import scene, our list of the 8 coolest JDM cars and the piece on undervalued collector car segments worth watching are good next reads.
Bidding on this Evo IV runs through Friday afternoon. Photos, videos, and the full seller comments are on the Cars & Bids listing.
