It beats the hell outta me.

Honestly, I thought the MR Gray was darker myself, but according to Mitsu, it's the same. Maybe it's the dark rims that does it.

I don't have a ton of Thunder Gray experience (saw a couple 2004 cars on the lot once, and thought my car was TG when I saw it...) so I can't say for sure how different it is... I did read a thread where someone put a factory painted GG Evo wing on their TG car and said it was a match, so who knows?

 

No. They are different colors.

'04 color is Thunder Gray Metallic and its code is A02. It was available on non-Evo or non-Sportback Lancers only.

'05 color is Graphite Gray Pearl and you can get it on any Lancer, including the Evo and the Outlander. Its code is A39.

 

as far as airbags go I don't think they would be making them standard on just about every car made within the next few years if they hurt more than they helped. Scientific advancements in the last few years have mad every airbag system operate almost perfectly when used properly as stated above. No one under a certain weight should be in front of an airbag and you should always wear your seatbelt no matter how many people you know were saved by being thrown from their just about to explode vehicle. We have front airbags, crumple zones, seatbelt pre-tensioners, and lots of other things because years of research has gone into the forces during crashes that kill people and these are the things that are most likely to save your life in a bad acciedent. They have done the same things in recent years in racing to limit the forces of impact in a crash, i.e. before Dale Earhardt died no one believed that wearing the device that restrains the drivers head from extreme forward movement would prevent a neck fracture like the one that killed him. You can bet on the fact that every single driver who was skeptical before now wears there device religiously, and not just because Nascar mandates it either.