Still Going Its Own Way
by Ross Finlay (27 Oct 00)

The great thing about Subaru is that, even though in the years to come its approach may be toned down a little because of the shareholding GM has taken in its parent company Fuji Heavy Industries, here is a company whose designers seem to shrug off many of the fashionable trends and tendencies in the world-wide motor industry, as being of minor interest but no immediate relevance they can think of.

Okay, as the new Impreza shows, they're paying a lot more attention to the appearance, quality and front-seat comfort of the passenger cabin. Nowadays there are even - and I can hardly believe I'm writing this - some attractive exterior colours like the gold paintwork on the Legacy and a deep metallic . . . burgundy, almost, on the Impreza.

But the Impreza styling is even more from Asteroid Subaru than before: chunky and aggressive to an extreme, especially on the models with those massive auxiliary lights and the wall-to-wall bonnet air intake, and no less eccentric than previously at the rear end of the sports wagon, otherwise estate.

All models with permanent four-wheel drive, boxer-style engines producing noises you don't get in any other saloon/estate range, and once again those frameless windows few other manufacturers would dare to offer.

Are these people off their trolleys? No. Actually, it's hooray for Subaru, especially when you look at the prices of the latest Impreza range: from £13,950 for the new and modestly powered 1.6 sports wagon to £21,495 for the turbocharged WRX saloon with its sub-six seconds 0-60mph time, and another £500 for the WRX sports wagon.

New Platform, Revised Suspension

The new models stand on a stiffer platform whose bend-resist figure is so much higher than the old one that the word blancmange comes to mind - although it never did, when I was driving one of the previous range.

As always happens, that extra built-in rigidity has allowed the Subaru chassis engineers to modify the suspension so that it concentrates on doing its own work, rather than having to compensate for any structural weakness in the monocoque.

When you bear in mind that there's drive at all four wheels, and that the horizontally-opposed engine layout lowers the centre of gravity below that of a car with a more conventional in-line, V6 or V8 engine, it's no surprise that the Impreza is still a great car on corners.

That applies just as much - and, to some extent, perhaps even more - to the entry-level 1.6 as to the more powerful models. Some people will undoubtedly criticize this car for its lack of urge. There's no arguing with the fact that an Impreza with a 94bhp engine hauling around the weight of an all-wheel drive transmission is going to lumber off the line like a Foden. A 0-60mph figure of 12.5 seconds, as well as the desirability of slipping down a gear whenever a long climb materialises, makes it sound pretty deathly.

Ah, but . . . remember the all-wheel drive, the handling balance, the stability and the traction. Once you get the 1.6 off its knees, it will go very smartly indeed along winding country roads and down twisting hills. I'm always rather fond of cars which have handling capabilities away beyond their power outputs. You can drive them as hard as you like, they won't step out of line, and you can put up some very brisk averages on cross-country routes without breaking sweat. Younger chaps have my permission to go bananas about cars you have to fight all the time. They're welcome.

And One Stage Up

The level above the 1.6 in the Impreza range is occupied by the normally aspirated 2.0 GX, with 124bhp and a this-is-more-like-it 0-60mph time of under ten seconds when fitted with manual transmission. It costs from £15,750 as a saloon and from £16,250 as a sports wagon.

I tried a GX with the £1000 option of automatic transmission, which offers neat enough manual changes if you want to try to outsmart the gremlins, although I just don't see this as a sensible four-figure addition, considering that the automatic strangles the acceleration. The 0-60mph time is 9.8 seconds for the manual GX, and yawns to 12.3 for the auto.

The snag about this model, although a lot of people will undoubtedly go for it, is that the jump in performance (in manual form, anyway) from the 1.6 to the GX is nothing like the improvement from the GX to the World Rally Championship inspired 2.0 WRX turbo.

The 215bhp WRX is a real cracker. If you don't let it die on the line, it will hurtle to 60mph in 5.9 seconds, and Subaru says that in the considerably lighter saloon form it has a test track maximum of 143mph.

There's a more detailed appraisal of its road and track performance elsewhere, but I thought that, on some sinuous A-class roads and various minor link routes joining them up, the WRX put the power down really firmly, and steered very accurately. As with most Subarus, if you get into a bend just a little too enthusiastically (I'm talking road driving here, not circuit) you can feel each of the four driven wheels doing its stuff to keep the car on the rails. Once again, you can have a lot of fun driving this car without getting into any opposite-lock antics of the kind so often featured in magazine road test illustrations.

Apart from the performance statistics, the two most impressive things about the WRX are the fact that in normal fast driving it's an untemperamental and entirely biddable car, and the fact that you can get almost supercar performance, in acceleration and handling anyway, at a start price under £21,500.

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