Wait, wait, wait – let me explain

First things first, I DON’T look at SpeedCunters. That would be a waste of time. Why? Because it’s owned by an entity which hopes to “increase its legitimacy” by paying people to blog/take pictures for them. They say it’s for the love of motorsports and all-things-cars when really it’s about ultimately increasing the money in their pockets.

But in any case, the picture above was first shown to me by Kent, and then by BH, and then by a whole list of other people. It’s a picture of the Endless Super Taikyu EVO and yes, that is a ginormous SEIBON sticker on it.

Yes, the same SEIBON that’s based out of Walnut, California.

Yes, the very same SEIBON that is incapable of producing anything original or of quality.

But I had no explanation for the presence of the sticker and, like you, I was upset. Luckily, someone from Endless Japan literally just got into town for this weekends ALMS race and I took the opportunity to ask him about it. So, if you’ll be so kind, I shall explain…

In Super Taikyu (the Japanese endurance race series for the noobs out there), the CT9A is still outperforming the CZ4A. This is, of course, not good for Mitsubishi nor Endless Japan since they campaign the CZ4A. One demerit to the CZ4A is that it weighs about 100kilos more than the CT9A. So when Rays, who is selling Seibon to the Japanese market, offered carbon doors to E. Japan for a stuuuuuuuuuuuuupid cheap price (hence the stupid huge sticker), E. Japan took it. Without so much as a peep from me, our guy from E. Japan then said the doors are poor quality and that they’d rather have dry carbon ones, but they’re just doors and they really had no other makers to choose from. Those doors are the only thing SEIBON on the car. The rest of the aero that actually matters is Ings.

So, there you have it. Pressure from Mitsubishi to get the EVO 10 performance above that of the EVO 8/9 and a stupid crazy cheap deal.

In the end, I blame the whole thing on Rays because it’s their fault for doing the whole “SEIBON TE37″ collabo and selling SEIBON in Japan. Just kidding. Well, maybe not..