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2008 WRX STi: "Thou shalt always overtake"


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Man, what a tough audience you all are... :rolleyes:

 

I drove econo-box hatchbacks when I was young and poor, so I guess I'm used to hatchbacks. I don't know why America is so anti-hatchback anyway. Is everyone still mad at Chevy for giving us the Chevette? :lol:

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On the contrary, the Sti is the only interesting and competitive option Subaru has going!

 

Hmmm...I really like our FXTs although they do better with larger rear sway bars and better tires than what Subaru gives us stock. FXTs seem to me to be the most practicle, fun-to-drive, reasonably fast vehicles out there for a reasonable price.

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Have you checked out its replacement? :hide:

 

 

I have been watching and....until a real test-drive...

 

Obviously the departure from a more wagon-based vehicle to a SUV-style doesn't bode well for performance...but we need a test-drive to know for sure.

 

From the pictures of the 09 I can see the Forester in it....I am hoping in person it is even more "Forester" than we see in the pictures.

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Man, what a tough audience you all are... :rolleyes:

 

I drove econo-box hatchbacks when I was young and poor, so I guess I'm used to hatchbacks. I don't know why America is so anti-hatchback anyway. Is everyone still mad at Chevy for giving us the Chevette? :lol:

And the Ford Probe.

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I had a 93 Ford Probe GT. It was a nice car, just unfortunately FWD, and with a dubious name. To it's credit it was mostly a Mazda, and only called a Ford. Until it comes to finding replacement parts, which was harder than the much more common actual Ford parts. I spent a christmas holiday several years ago tracking down an ignition coil that was inside the electronic distributor. it took several painful part orders to get the right one...

 

If it were boxer powered and AWD with Legacy GT levels of power, I would probably still be driving one. They are both cars that are fun and comfortable to drive, the Legacy being a much higher level. The probe GT almost looked like my current legacy, too. Electric currant red, with a completely black cloth interior, and a stick. Legacy is dark red with black interior and a stick, too. The Legacy's glass sunroof(moonroof, whatever...) is nicer than the Probe's steel one that went back above the roof.

 

One advantage was that it could hold bigger items than I can fit into my Legacy, although maybe not a wagon. The Legacy's trunk opening and rear doors are fairly small in comparison, even if the enclosed volume is comparable.

 

I am not a big fan of boxy hatchbacks, in three or five door configurations. Golfs, 5-door Mazda3, etc... The Volvo C30 and Mini look like the only cars that are good looking boxy hatchbacks.

 

The WRX 5-door looks like a humpback whale. I saw several in person tonight at the subaru dealer. Not good looking, and I would call it boxy if it wasn't so round and bloated looking. The 4-door is complete weak-sauce, appearance wise. I don't want to be harsh, but I just cannot bring myself to get past that appearance. I look back at the Legacy as I walk away, I would run away from a WRX.

 

Fastback hatchbacks, though, I REALLY like. 93-97 Probe GT, late Celica GT-S, FD RX7 (hottest one perhaps ever), etc... and also the Mazda6 5-door sedan, especially the new for 08 model that has been displayed in europe and japan. All look like 'normal' sporty cars, with the practicality of nice big trunk openings all the way to the roof, to swallow big items with the rear seats folded down. They don't look like an appliance box with rounded corners and road wheels.

 

I so badly want a Legacy based coupe with a fastback hatch, and fold down rear seats... window-in-a-window, and STI driveline.

The Legacy is such the right size for it, too. Not too big, not too small, and appropriate weight. Not too heavy. With longer side doors, a touch more front seat room and a touch less rear seat room.

 

Leave the legacy's wheelbase, and perhaps widen it to the tribeca's track width for a bit of widebody design. The tribeca's rear suspension would help the cargo area, and the 5x114 wheel hubs, with generous wheel wells, and a closer to standard +35mm wheel offset (rather than the Legacy's +50mm) might be able to fit some serious rubber in the fenders, like most other sporty cars. Why won't subaru just build me one of those already...

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WRX

December 9, 2007

Subaru Impreza 2.5 WRX

For an axe murderer, it’s a big softie

 

Jeremy Clarkson

 

Most people know the barebones history of rock’n’roll – some black men sang the blues but no one in white America would buy their music because it was the 1950s and, well, that sort of thing didn’t happen.

 

Eventually, though, the music made it to England, where the misery of it struck a chord with working-class lads. Bands such as the Animals and the Rolling Stones copied it, and they did succeed in America, because, bluntly, Mick Jagger is white.

 

The thing is, though, I’ve never been able to see the link. I’ve listened to those crackly blues records from Memphis and I’ve listened to Jumpin’ Jack Flash and they appear to have nothing in common. Genetically, they seem as distant from each other as the sausage dog and the Magimix.

 

But the other night, while listening to a Radio 2 show, I heard a song from 1956 called Smokestack Lightning, and the DJs explained how you could hear the genesis of the Stones in there. They were right – you could. For me, this was a revelation.

 

And then they started talking about famous fathers and sons who have appeared in bands together. Which is exactly the sort of trivial nonsense I adore. And then they played Sylvia by Focus and I began to think that I’d discovered a radio show designed exclusively for me. It was brilliant – so brilliant that I deliberately got lost so that I could hear more.

 

It’s hosted by two chaps called Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe, and because they have exactly the same Lancashire accent and exactly the same views on everything, you’ll think – as I did at first – that it’s actually hosted by one man talking to himself. No matter. Their knowledge of music is astonishing. I thought I was the only person alive who could name the guitarist with Focus but they actually know where he was born, where he went to school and, I shouldn’t be surprised, what position his mother was in when he was conceived.

 

But these guys aren’t anoraks – they are way beyond that. They are the people to whom people who make anoraks go to buy their anoraks. And they serve as a hugely useful introduction to this morning’s sermon: the ongoing battle between the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Evo.

 

To normal people, who see cars as wheels, seats and expense, they are exactly the same, built in Japan as road-going versions of rally cars. To the untrained eye, they are indistinguishable one from the other. They are Ant and Dec, or, if you prefer, Maconie and Radcliffe.

 

They both have 2 litre turbocharged engines. They both have four-wheel drive and they are the same sort of size. Each is a family car with the heart and mind of an axe murderer. But to the trained eye they are not the same at all. To an anorak they really are chalk and cheese. They are Bad Company and Gareth Gates.

 

Last week, while plugging my new DVD on a morning TV show, I was approached by a young girl with earphones and a clipboard. Externally, she was much the same as any other behind-the-scenes girl in modern television. But she began, immediately, by telling me she had an Impreza . . . and I knew it wasn’t going to stop there.

 

“It’s the WRX STi RB5 two-door, PLS, SST . . .” she said for about half an hour. After which she still wasn’t finished: “994, PSP, Wii, LTD,” she continued. And on, and on . . . And that was before she even got to her boyfriend’s Subaru, which led to another two hours of initials and numbers.

 

This is the thing with Subaru ownership: every last detail matters. Every tiny piece of the water-injection jigsaw is more important than your child’s next breath. You don’t own a car like this, you are assimilated by it. You become one.

 

With men I find this tiresome. But with girls I find it very sexy. So as this girl rabbited on with ever more initials and numbers, I was overwhelmed by a need to introduce her to a friend of mine who has a Mitsubishi Evo 9. This is the only girl in the world who put a topless photograph of herself on her Facebook page. I would love to see them argue about which is the better car. With a bit of luck, it might even end up in a fight.

 

I’m not going to say one is better than the other, because if I do, fans of the losing side will come to my house with crosses, petrol and much rage. But as an impartial observer I will say this: the Mitsubishi has always been the better to drive; the Subaru has always been the better to live with on a daily basis.

 

And that brings us on to the new Subaru Impreza WRX. In petrol-land this is one of the most important cars ever. Imagine a band comprising Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and bits of Radiohead. That’s what this car is like to petrolheads. A pivotal, must-have moment of a car. Like its predecessor it has a turbocharged engine, 227bhp on tap and four-wheel drive. But unlike its predecessor, it has a 2.5 litre engine and a hatchback body, and it’s no longer bland to behold. Instead it’s wilfully ugly.

 

I honestly began to imagine that it had been designed in a game of consequences: “You do the back, then fold the paper over. I’ll do the middle and we’ll get that drunk bloke to do the front.” It’s a hopeless mishmash that gets even worse when you step inside. This is a £20,000 car, and for that price you get a heater and . . . that’s about it. Honestly, I was amazed when I found it had dipping headlamps. An Aga has more buttons than this. And as a result, anyone who just wants a “nice hot hatch” will instead opt for a Golf GTI.

 

The Subaru enthusiast, however, will see the lack of equipment as a good thing. Equipment is weight. Weight blunts acceleration. Weight is bad.

 

Hmmm. This is undoubtedly true, but from the moment you set off you realise this is not set up to be a Lotus Elise with a hatchback. It is super-soft. Much softer than its predecessor. Much softer than a duck-down duvet. It glides like a Citro�n.

 

Then there’s the noise. Or rather there isn’t. The flat-four engine just hums away quietly to itself and, if anything, sounds rather exasperated if you weld your foot to the floor and head for the rev-counter red zone.

 

And if you do head for the red zone, you will find that the natural tendency is for understeer. It was ever thus in an Impreza: it was one of the things that made it a more rewarding day-to-day companion than the furious and twitchy Evo. But in the new car the understeer arrives too early, and then you fall out of the seat. No, really. There are kitchen chairs with noticeably more side support.

 

This car is called Subaru Impreza, which makes you think it will be a bare-knuckle attack dog. But in fact you get a soft and rather elderly labrador.

 

Oh it’s still pretty quick: 0-62mph is dealt with in 6.5sec and the top speed is lots. But because of the understeer, the soft ride and the kitchen chairs, you never feel inclined to go for it. There’s no sense at all that you’re in a road-going rally car. It doesn’t even have a six-speed box.

 

Of course, being a Subaru, it will be beautifully made, and it really is extremely comfortable, and quiet. But anyone drawn to these qualities will immediately be put off by the looks and the starter-handle-and-trafficator equipment levels. It is, in short, a car that appeals to no one.

 

My friend with the clipboard and headphones was talking about it as though God himself had gone over to the dark side. “What am I to do?” she wailed, as I imagined her naked with my friend Camilla in a big box of mud.

 

It’s a good point. If you are a Subaru fan, what are you to do? Sure, there is a 300bhp STi version of the WRX in the pipeline, and this will be harder and more focused. But it’s no looker either, and the fact of the matter is this: the next Evo, the 10, is. The battle, then, between the Impreza and the Evo – it just got one-sided.

 

Rating: TWO stars out of five.

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And the Ford Probe.

 

You mean the Festiva... and going way back, the Fiesta. They defined "econobox", along with my old Justy.

 

Remember those? (And is anyone else on this forum grown up enough to admit to owning a Justy?) :lol:

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Gotta love Jeremy Clarkson.

 

I read it and I thought the words in Clarkson's deliberate accented delivery.

 

I so wish that subaru takes criticism seriously, and improves, rather than just quits.

 

 

 

Good call. I love Clarkson very much, but I'm a sucker for biting British sarcasm.

 

It really is a love/hate affair with that car... but I will admit I thought I'd poke my eyes out in disgust when I saw the first bug eye in 02.

 

However it was in fact a sedan and not this mazda 3 wimpy hatch that everyone at Subaru seems to think is the next Big Thing.

 

Maybe in '11 I will look back at the '08 hatch and think "Damn, that was a classic design that they came out with..."

 

 

 

Maybe not.

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This is the thing with Subaru ownership: every last detail matters. Every tiny piece of the water-injection jigsaw is more important than your child’s next breath. You don’t own a car like this, you are assimilated by it. You become one.

 

 

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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