Rivalry can be a healthy thing. It's what makes professional motor racing so compelling, and it fuels the intensive research and development that goes on within just about any competitive form of racing. Of course, sometimes rivalry's can go too far, whether it's McLaren stealing technical information from Ferrari (resulting in Formula 1 fining McLaren an astounding $100 million dollars as punishment) or a driver intentionally stuffing his nearest competitor into the wall.
For Luis Bicol and Archie Santos, their rivalry is of the friendly variety. Having "met" on www.hondaclub.com.ph/ (Philippines Honda Club, the country they both originate from), the two lost touch as they each built their careers and developed automotive interests outside the Honda brand. But then in 2008, shortly after buying this Rally Red Evolution X, Archie got a message from Luis on an Evolutionm.net that he'd just bought this Aspen White Impreza STI. After exchanging a few PM's, the two realized they now lived about five miles apart in Van Nuys, California, and decided to meet in person for the first time, renewing their friendship and igniting a classic EVO vs. STI rivalry all their own.
For Archie, his love of cars started during college in the Philippines when he bought a '00 Honda Civic sedan. The first mods he did to it were admittedly skewed toward the ricer end of the spectrum, but once he got hooked on the Japanese anime TV series "Initial D" he fell in love with clean JDM styling and the show's hard-core performance orientation. Then in 2003, Archie returned to the United States and bought himself an EVO VIII. "When I was living in the Philippines, EVOs were very popular-EVO IV, V, VI and even TMEs were all over the streets in Manila. That's when I decided that one day I would have to buy one for myself."
In fact, Archie was so anxious to get his hands on an EVO VIII upon his return to America that he preordered one online. "As soon as I landed in the U.S. on a Friday evening, the next day I immediately went to the dealership to get my car and signed all the paperwork." Keeping his VIII for four years, Archie installed nothing but top-notch JDM parts on it-from Bride to Voltex to Advan and Ralliart. His EVO was so nicely built that it ended up as a feature on Jtuned.com.
But then in early 2008, Mitsubishi released the EVO X. "At first, I was not really impressed with the X. But when I saw one in person, I was amazed by how it looked. It made my EVO VIII seem outdated with the new body styling and huge improvements to the interior and engine." Unable to resist the X's allure, Archie parted out his VIII, using the money from the parts sold to put a big down payment on his X.
As soon as he got it home, Archie began planning how he was going to modify it, but at the time there were only a few aftermarket parts available. For starters, he picked up a bronze set of 18x9.5-inch Volk TE37s and wrapped them in 275/35R18 Toyo tires. In anticipation of the first coilover kits hitting the market, Archie used Adobe Photoshop to see how his car would looked lowered. "It looked wicked and mean, and I posted the picture on the EVO forum. This one newbie on the forum thought Adobe was a company making coilovers for the car. He asked me where he could get the Adobe coilovers from and how much they cost. That got me laughing out loud!" Eventually, Archie did get a set of real coilovers from BC Racing to set his X's ride height just the way he wanted it, and he continued to modify his X with "simplicity in mind but eye-catching at the same time-just the right amount of mods to tell it apart from a stock EVO X." With an impressive array of modifications inside and out, including a JUN front lip, Voltex rear wing, Bride seats, Defi gauges and a fresh set of Formula Silver Volk CE28s, Luis was going to have a tough time outdoing Archie with his STI.