Singular Style
by Alan Douglas (26 Apr 06)

The long and winding A9 road between Perth and Inverness can be a dark, barren and lonely place on a winter's night. But believe me, it takes on an even more sinister appearance if you find yourself heading north as snow starts to fall, you seem to be the only car on the road and the fuel warning light on your Subaru Impreza glows a menacing warning at you.

Yes, it was a silly situation to find myself in but, in my defence, it was partly the fault of the car. I'd picked it up a little while before with a quarter-full tank and as I wanted to get a few miles behind me before dusk I headed off at a rate of knots, thinking I'd fill up on the way.

I knew of a BP station about 20 miles ahead so felt confident. As I passed it, the gauge had barely moved so I pressed on and even as I saw Blair Atholl off to my right, it had dipped only slightly so I kept the foot down. Heading into the gloom, I thought I should check the range on the computer and that was when my confidence began to falter.

This non-turbo Impreza - like the rest of the range - doesn't come with a trip computer, which has become standard on almost every car in this price range and certainly for those in the performance bracket. So I had no idea how far I could go on what was in the tank or even check the average consumption. But I reckoned on the basis of the slow movement of the fuel needle so far, I should be able to get within shouting distance of Inverness about 70 miles ahead.

How wrong I was. Less than ten minutes later, the fuel warning light came on to thumb its illuminated nose at my arrogance. To add insult, the needle decided at this point to perk up - or rather down - from its previously almost static position. I tried to visualise the remaining miles from previous journeys but could only recall an abandoned filling station which in the past would have provided the much-needed gallons.

Heading into the darkness and the first flurry of snowflakes I adopted a "thrifty-fifty" style of driving which did nothing more than prolong the agony.

The four-wheel drive transmission of the Impreza is undoubtedly first class and proved to be a real boon the following week when I woke to find foot-deep snow between me and the office. But it does soak up the juice and without the on-board computer I can't challenge the claimed consumption figure of around 31mpg, though it certainly didn't feel anything like it.

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