Evo Market Rant

Its been a long journey at TTP-Engineering, LLC and central Florida as a whole Evo community. We have seen it all. There are 3-5 dealers within a 25 mile radius which makes for a mecca of sorts for the Lancer Evolution. We are right at home in the middle of it all and we are happy to be here to serve all of our customers and Mitsubishi dealer network.

The local Evo scene has had quite the epic story over the years from triumph to the most downright nasty politics fit for no government. When we first started doing what we do, TTP was not a business entity. It was a hobby for me. I spent the last decade previously working with the 4g63, owning ten or so of them. It has always been a hobby first for me and a passion that I have to just build something, tune something, see the results unfold and learn many things in the process. It brought me joy to see it come to life and present the results. Sort of like bringing a child into the world, a machine is born. Anyhow in my testing and datalogging, racing at the track the buzz grew, I met more enthusiasts and many wanted assistance with their own Evo's. I conceded to the first request to build a car and did so for a buy I met at the track. The business end of TTP was born at that moment.

When we were small time and operating on low overhead, everyone was excited, our pricing was more than fair, the economy was great, we had support from nearly everyone. There were business relationships and friend relationships and all was great. At some point in Central Florida, however the competition became more and more fierce. More and more "tuners" were popping up all over, shops opening up left and right. People having price wars, internet attacks, stealing our tunes from Evo ECU's, reselling my maps, personal attacks, defamation mud slinging began. Shops began all competing for the same customer base and it demonstrated the worst colors from human beings you could imagine.

I saw competition undercutting pricing, secret agreements of posting defamatory comments online in return for free or discounted parts and labor, flat out lies and deception in the marketplace. Even claims that parts we made were made by our competitor. It really started to get out of hand. This caused a big divide in the community. It was literally gang-like in many ways. You would wear your tuner flags like you were the bloods and the crips. People would get their decals removed, cars's keyed, I even had an account of an Evo owner sticking an axe in every door of another flag wearer's Evo. It was bad.

The trend I have seen over the years are that the fastest ones into the Evo, modding it, shit-talking etc are the fastest d-bags out of the Evo scene. There are a few true enthusiast though and those are the customers we love to support at TTP. The ones that feel how we feel and appreciate the car not for it being a commodity to buy-sell-trade for some other POS when one gets bored of it but for the opportunity we have to have such a great car with supreme abilities if you take care of it.

Anyhow, its now 2010... The market is iffy and much of the troublemaking competitors using illegal defamation tactics and doing work for free just to try and steal are clients are out of business or in the midst of bankruptcy. From getting their lifts and dynamometer reposessed to flat out run out of town by irate customers wanting their money back for work not performed or not getting what they paid for.

TTP-Engineering, LLC is still here and will be for the forseeable future. We have the passion for what we do. It is a hobby and something we enjoy doing before its a business and moneymaking venture for us at least. The market is amidst a crash however we set a record month for April 2010, one of the best months since our commercial facility opening in 2007.

We understand that it is easy to get into the Evo, not know any better, be persuaded to hate shop A B C, tuner X Y Z without even knowing them, doing business with them, ever meeting them, get wrapped up into the drama that brings the community apart and flat out be misled by others with alterior motives to get you to think a certain way. That mentality has been the downside to the Evo community for some time now and frankly I am tired of seeing it.

Investigate for yourself before forming any conclusions, your own firsthand experience with our company. We have an open door policy here that you are not required to purchase anything, however we will give you a tour of our facility, introduce you to the staff of friendly people and see what we have to offer before you decide you would like us to go to work for you. Know who you are dealing with up front and don't find yourself getting manipulated by people with greased palms who receive perks for recruiting you to get your Evo worked on or tuned at shop XYZ.