Mitsubishi Galant VR-4
Why 7.3: The 4G63T turbo four and AWD driveline the Lancer Evolution would inherit wholesale, wrapped in an unassuming four-door sedan Mitsubishi actually sold new in the US for about $22,000. It won rallies in Group A before Mitsubishi retired it in favor of the smaller, lighter Lancer Evolution — the car everyone actually remembers.
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Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €20k (1991) → €18k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
The long version
Every enthusiast knows the Lancer Evolution's turbocharged 4G63 and AWD driveline; far fewer remember that both existed first in the Galant VR-4, campaigned in the WRC's Group A class through the late 1980s and early 1990s before Mitsubishi built the smaller, more focused Evolution specifically to keep winning against the Impreza and Escort Cosworth. That makes the VR-4 the direct ancestor of one of the most collected homologation lineages in JDM history, and yet it trades for a fraction of even an early Evolution's price — Mitsubishi actually sold it new in America, unlike almost everything else in this batch, which keeps it off any Forbidden Fruit list but has done nothing for its collector cachet. A clean US-spec sedan with the manual gearbox and all-wheel drive still changes hands for well under $20,000, genuinely cheap for a car with a rally-winning drivetrain and a direct line to the Evo's DNA. That price has produced exactly the ownership pattern cheap performance cars always produce: real enthusiasts who know what's underneath, driving it because there's no investment value left to protect.